Recent content by GGRider

Oh God - Could I have 9-10 years of this!

Big and scary often works with this mare - when the situation is right. She stopped trying to threaten to kill me whenever I entered with a hay net after I threw the net at her several times and she decided I was worthy of respect. She now smiles more sweetly and allows me in her box! In the...

Curious to hear from others as I truly believe I have a little psycho on my hands and just wondering if anyone can share any such stories or has had any joy with such stroppy madams who like to throw their weight around and try to intimidate. Firstly, to set the scene, I consider myself to...

Wow - lots of useful information to chew on! Have been tempted by Connies and New Forests so pleased to hear lots of success out there. We have put one mare this year to a Dutch Bred New Forest. Kantjes Uni-Colour who is a palamino dressage pony and have high hopes! The other mare went to a...

You are right, your reaction is rather harsh esp as my post says they can stay with us - but - you are not wrong about some breeding practices. However, we spend a lot of time and money on our mares and youngstock, it is part of our equestrian business that is not profitable at all - but it...

I am toying with putting our Sporthorse 16hh+broodmares to the slightly less conventionally bred stallion. There are certain conventional crosses and occasionally I see something more accidental which has turfed out a super sort! But then you see the odd welsh x tb or shire x tb which has not...

Another oddity is the speed at which she passed placenta. Foaling was fairly standard but she stood up and placenta dropped within a couple of minutes. I wondered if cord had become detached early during foaling which would explain why baby was born a bit clueless. We saw the whole thing on CCTV...

Tried that - made her more stressed and aggressive to him.

Hi Striker - you don't know the full story. We had no choice but to keep them in for the foal needed our and veterinarian help to suckle. As soon as he was able to feed unassisted and the bond was good, we turned out. Only then did it go wrong possibly due to the mare coming into season very early.

Update: We tried again to get them out together in field and things are a little more positive. We grazed the mare in hand whilst foalie had a good bounce around and then eventually let her go too. There was a bit of scowling but they both got best part of an hour out without a real nasty...

Hi Striker Of course, turnout is ideal. I did not go into all the detail but we could not turn them out for the first few days due to him being a mild 'dummy' foal with suckling problems and he had to have plasma feeds via stomach tube and then an IV drip. Soon as he had learned to suckle...

Run just a retirement and youngstock livery - less hassle from owners demanding things everyday! Livery is hard work so I would avoid it at all costs! We are lucky and we are very picky about who we have. goodluck

Kissing spines?

Has anyone had experience of a savage mare coming good and reaccepting her foal? Read on for details..... After 3 days of seemingly normal maternal bonding and behaviour, our maiden mare turned on her foal the first day we put them out together in the field. He came in covered in bite marks...

Wow, big question! I think to train any horse you need the biggest bag of tricks known to man as all horses are different shapes, seizes and brains - and no one size fits all! We get in 3 very different BHSI's to my yard and they would never agree on the same method, but I take a little from...