Recent content by Tea Drinker

Will be watching this thread. I've got one that I may rehome but my concern would be the quality of the riders taking on these horses. Do they know what they are doing? Invariably the horses going for free are going to be quirky and that requires knowledge on how to deal with it. That's what's...

Well then you'd better ban all farming because that sure as hell stuffs up nature and animals! Irresponsible farming is the biggest threat (worldwide) to nature that there is. You can include deforestation in South East Asia and South America in that too. ~When humans interefere in the ecology...

Check his feet. Feed requirements. How is he alone? Some have lived nose to tail in a string and panic on their own. Girthing up. Ask to speak to previous trainer and find out about his history before you spend a penny on him. Ex racers can be a cheap way to have a nice horse or a cheap way to...

It means you are scouring for information on a highly contentious issue which may or may not involve police investigations and thus not the sort of general chit chat you find on an internet forum. Nor do you say who you are, what kind of piece you are doing, who is paying you and where it will...

In my experience: I have a few TBs. they live out and as a result, they can go weeks and for a couple of them months, and they are exactly the same in behaviour when I next get on them as when in full work. They need more feed to keep weight on once in full work. Can be slow to eat. Large...

Skull cap (with changeable velvet cover) or patey (other brands are available). Whatever you prefer. I can't abide those fixed peak hats with chinstraps. Illegal for eventing ( I think) for bloody good reason! Fixed peak and chinstrap = disaster if you fall off!

Take him autumn hunting and stand a long, long way back and make it the most boring morning out he has ever had in his life. Repeat 6 more times. If he's still mental, I'd give it up as a lost cause!

You can be very arrogant at times, Alec. Yes, clearly our pig unit set up must be different to those in your area. Amazing. Imagine that?! If you would be "most surprised" to find out a fox could nab a piglet, then I would be "most surprised" if you had any hands on experience of pig breeding...

Alec, We sublet land for a an outdoor pig breading unit. When foxes go plundering, it is lost revenue to the pig farm. We are "lowland" farmers and surrounded by both commerical and family shoots. I do not classify pheasant harrassing by foxes as lost revenue since that is "just" another...

I am massively profoxhunting but I too could not condone fox rearing for hunting purposes. It goes entirely against the grain of what foxhunting stands for. I've not come across this before (be they Good Samaritans who have rescued abandoned pups or doing something far less savory....) so I...

If horses needed rugs in the summer to survive, then they would have been born with them! Sure I rug mine in winter because they are clipped out (except legs) but from April to September, they are out 24/7 without a rug in sight. I have a mixture of native ponies, IDx and full TBs. All of them...

"I don't know what is best for the fox, but I do know that while man makes a sport of its control, many will find that unacceptable - such as myself." This pretty much sums up the fox hunting debate! Parliament didn't need to spend 700 hours+ debating the issue. It's all said and done in that...

Trying hard not to be patronising but.... (and it's been said anything said before the word "but" should be disregarded!!) .... It would seem to me that you (Smurf's Gran) are letting *your* issues cloud your judgement on what is best for the *fox*. To be humane, you need to minimse the amount...

I believe hunting with hounds is the most humane form of culling. From studies quoted in that "vet.." website someone posted above, "shooting is intrinsically unsafe and inevitably produces a percentage of animals that are wounded. Shooting can only be as certain and quick as death by hounds...

I'm afraid as landowners, we do not allow the hunt to come over our land if purely trail hunting. Other landowners feel the same, I know. Horses in those numbers cause damage to the farmland so that just isn't going to happen. Where is the benefit to us farmers?! As it stands, we use guns to...