Recent content by fattylumpkin

OP, I had a very similar experience to your friend with my mare, who came from a harness racing yard. She was given to me for an extremely low token sum, as she was useless for racing and at the time deemed unrideable, though for some reason she clicked with me. We signed the change of...

I love this, it rings a bell for me and my mare. Thankyou for putting it into words. So many times people have questioned and pressured me over 'doing more' with my horse. Why don't we do dressage, or compete? Why don't we go to shows? Why don't I bring out her full potential? It made me feel...

It might help to keep well out of the horse's way and give him LOTS of space on a long line. When horses plant with their fronts on the ramp it's tempting to get closer and haul on the leadrope but it leaves them feeling like there's no way forward because there's a human in the way - it's...

Also, in this day and age shouldn't it be routine to vaccinate against botulism, especially when feeding haylage or storing hay where haylage is kept?

Lovely! A dream of mine is to someday have a stable block just like yours Red-1!

While I don't think it's a great idea to be feeding horses grass clippings, if the hay is baled and pretty dry there's no reason not to feed it?? If it could cause laminitis it is obviously cut from a grass not suitable for horses whatsoever and shouldn't be fed anyway.

The hay will be very new and fresh, but that doesn't mean it's high in sugars. It depends on how often that same field has been cut this year (some are on their second cut now) and about a billion other factors such as whether the hay is mostly timothy, rye or even alfalfa, what the weather has...

All different kinds of horseshoes have existed for thousands of years across the globe, as long as there have been roads really. Most took the form of slip on booty or hoof sandal, metal or straw or some other material. But, and this is a really big but, the workload of horses in the days before...

Yes, she has two other horses in the same field and five in the neighbouring field :) she just loved the shetland so much, I'm sure she was convinced the shetland was her baby. I made my decision to not let her visit, but we'll go out for a nice hack anyway. Thankyou everyone. If I had the...

I can't decide if this is a good idea or a really bad idea so pointers would be extremely handy! Basically my horse has been extremely attached to a little shetland we've had on the yard for awhile. They were the best of buddies but not at all clingy so I could still ride without one...

I'd kill to see someone else ride my horse atm! I'm in desperate need of a sharer as my life has taken a massive turn toward the chaotic, but people try once or twice and then drift away. My YO describes her as the yard robot horse because she'll just go wherever you point her and is the world's...

I dread when my YO goes on holiday. I cover as horse mother while she's away and take care of the yard, and YO has a rising 3yo who is just plain unpleasant. Very rude, LOVES to test boundaries, has no sense of personal space, and treats humans like playthings in the field. She turns any effort...

This is terrible! Not only could your horse have injured herself even more, it could have ended with the dog getting kicked or stood on. I'd definitely be switching vets in the very near future. Keeping my fingers crossed that your girl recovers quickly and the idiot vet hasn't made it any worse :(

This is always assuming that the horse has a decent enough canter that you can sit it! My ex trotter has a very... special canter.

Being purely practical, it's usually tough to switch a horse used to oats to unmollassed chaff, most will spurn it, and even the cheapest chaff is far from being free. After trying a lot of things, my horse has limited turnout on grass, a handful of plain mineral pellets, a mineral tub in the...