Recent content by Caol Ila

I keep my mare on a low dose of Oestress year round. I raise it in spring and summer, but with the days of 10/11 degrees we often get in winter, some of her fieldmates are obviously cycling, so I find a bit of Oestress keeps her brain on track.

Well, that's my overdose of cute for today.

Drove me nuts when I was looking for youngsters. You have its bloody passport. Just state its actual age, FFS. "Turns 4 in June." You don't need a degree in astrophysics to work this out. I was trying to not buy a two year old (failed...nevermind), so got really pissed off when I'd see a...

How tall is Storm? Can never tell from the driving videos.

Managed a circa 8k hack yesterday, just about beating the daylight. Planned on a 10k route today that only goes on Sundays at the moment because of bloody forestry operations (again!! we coudn't use the forestry between January and June last year because of the damn logging). But oh wait, it was...

That's probably the first time anyone on the internet has phrased it that way. Does sound like a good set-up. I guess telling people your horse likes to chase smaller ones will put many off.

If you read the sentence you quoted as referring to people rather than horses, it makes your day better.

Lots of swearing is involved. My EMS horse gets about 6kg of soaked hay overnight, distributed between a small holed hay net and an Eazigrazer. At this very second, she goes into a field with a muzzle on between 7am and 2pm. I give her about 1.5kg of hay when she comes in, and then give her...

I am not an experienced foal owner, but I've definitely put on some 'bad idea jeans' and took the mare away from the foal before he was weaned. Just around a corner to an arena, and the foal was accompanied by his owner and a nanny horse. Did this a few times. Mare was cool, but foal's owner was...

Yes, the theory seems to be working. So we keep at it. It just takes more creativity and frustration when we can't disappear on 3 hour hacks. I was quite happy with that state of affairs.

Friday was still an ice-fest, but we found the horse crampons (which had gone MIA), so we managed a short hack into the park, then schooling later. I was fed up with being grounded by the bloody ice. It melted today, but the thick fog around us as we drove to the yard has us thinking I'd have to...

If it ain't broke, don't fix. My mantra with horses. And stay out of the rabbit holes. My gelding goes in a bit; my brief foray into experimenting with bitless with him involved some interesting moments of having no brakes or steering. My mare goes in a bosal because I couldn't find a bit she...

So you'll have two foals to raise and produce and back and all that? LOL. That sounds like a lot of work. I'd wondered if he was sales project or something.

I love the mouse dun Highland foal. What are your plans for him?

It’s not really that simple, though, is it? Could all 7 billion people on this planet sustain themselves on veg alone? When I’ve been to sun-Saharan Africa, you see a hell of a lot of goats and cows. You can’t farm very much in the desert. And in the western world, most people can’t “just...