Life Outdoors (warning ⚠ high horse content!)

OK, on to more positive, fun and happy stuff!  

We are currently packing and moving into our new place and Woody is busy taking measurements, talking to architects and ripping out gas fires ready for the log burner to go in (well we have a plentiful supply of logs!).

The competition season is just getting underway, sadly Howick was cancelled due to a downpour Friday night, frustrating when the weather is so beautiful the next day.  Hey ho, it's given me a kick up the bum to go and enter the BE90 at Bicton, fingers crossed we get in.

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It's exactly a year since we left the comparative luxury of our liveried existence.  A two story brick and tin barn, deep straw beds, ad lib hay with early morning feeds, mucking out, filling buckets and sweeping up.  

I will not lie, I miss the contended muggy warmth offered from a barn or stable, the sound of horses munching is timeless and grounding, I even miss sweeping and long for a bit of concrete of our own!  Depending on where you are in the UK keeping a horse in livery costs about;

• £10-£30 a week for grass livery depending on the facilities.
• £30 a week for a DIY stable with turnout, possibly use of school etc.
• £40-£50 a week with forage included.
• £95 a week for full livery including feed, hay, bedding, bringing in/turn out.  Exercising, farrier, vet, worming at extra cost.
• £200-£300 a week gets you an all inclusive competition type livery where everything is done, you ride as little or as much as you want, with lessons included but you still have to pay for the farrier, entry fees and vets bills on top.

I have kept horses stabled and out at grass and there are pro's and cons for both.  I was in a position a couple of years ago to be able to put Easter into full livery, the facilities, training on hand and social aspect is good but you loose touch with your horse as you are rarely there at feed times and everything is "done", all you do is ride.

Pro's and Con's - Living out Vs Stabled

Living out

• Pro - horse gets to move around more, better muscle tone, freer joints, legs don't fill.
• Pro - better, cleaner airways being outside with their heads down grazing.
• Pro - Can be better for horses mentality, less likely to "spook", get stressed, develop stable vices such as weaving.
• Pro - Relaxed routine and able to fit in around your work/life.
• Con - Horse can be tired with no set pattern of sleep/rest.
• Con - Sometimes it's harder to regulate what they are eating and when; get fat or loose condition.
• Con - Constant wet makes hooves soft and prone to abscesses, losing shoes and bruises.
• Con - You have to have a lot of rugs and go through them at an alarming rate!
• Con - They are not always where you left them....or in the clean state you left them in...or come in scraped to buggery as they fancied a midnight ramble through next doors woods...

Living in with limited turnout

• Pro - Horses are easier to keep warm/cool and free from biting insects.
• Pro - You don't have to hunt them down playing "oooh what have I got in the bucket?" when you want to ride.
• Pro - The horse is within easy reach of your tack, water, shelter so you can get on with jobs whatever the weather.
• Pro - Easier to monitor your horse's water/food intake.
• Con - Time; you need to be uber organised, up early with a good routine as they will need at least two visits a day to hay, feed, bring in/out unless you have help.
• Con - Cost; bedding can be expensive and depending on your method horses can be muckier often using their warm poo's as a pillow!
• Con - Horses require daily exercise if not turned out to keep legs/joints/muscles healthy.
• Con - They can pick up just as many injuries from being in a stable as turned out, not always the safe haven you think.

I loved this little place we borrowed from my old neighbours.  Their old polo barn
with 3 stables and a tack room and flat above.

All ours are out, its been a rough winter and we have poor grazing so we have to monitor their intake and ensure they get enough calories, at the moment they are having 2-3 slabs of haylage and the 2 bigger ones get a feed a day.  In an ideal world I would have liked to have had them in for at least some of this winter to rest the ground and give them a break from the relentless wind and rain.  

Many years ago I was head girl for an Olympic event rider and we kept the horses in an old dairy barn with two horses per pen on a deep bed of straw.  It was a happy medium where the horses could "be horses" play, chase and groom each other with space to move and keep their legs tight, yet it was safe, dry and warm.  This is what I am aiming for in my horse utopia, an undercover communal barn where they are free to move and eat when they want.  If it can work for a gold medalist I am sure it can work for us?  There is just the small matter of planning permission, oh....and money!

For the moment until the grass and ground recovers I will just have to juggle rugs, hay, feeds, rest and work to ensure the horses are getting everything they need to to what I ask of them.....the ponies well they just freeload off us but I am thinking they should start earning their keep or we may look to rehome one of them to a family.

Frosty & Tan
our two welsh hill ponies