Do we all worry, fuss and faff too much??

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Rosehip

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Just a general question really, as I have decided to make some changes to the way I keep my girls.
When I bought my old lady, she had been neglected for years. She lived alone in a large, grassy field, was significantly overweight and hadnt had her feet seen to for at least 18 months/2 years. However, she was in smashing health, had very strong feet and a good coat.
Since buying her I have stripped a lot of weight off her (although she is still technically overweight) and she has a good balanced diet with restricted grazing and supplements to balance her vits/mins etc.
She has had, in the last 4 of the 5 years I have owned her, gassy colic caused by an overly restricted diet (vet recommended ) bilateral Bone Spavin and concussion Laminitis.
I do just wonder if, with all the information on feeds,supplements, ailments and treatments (never mind all the training methods and associated gubbins!) we are all treating our horses more like breakable china, and less like horses, to their detriment?

What do you guys think? And also, what changes have you made to take your horses "back to nature" so to speak?

Saturday night rambling Im afraid!! :)
 
In a word.... yes you are correct. I know i live in warmer Devon, but so many people ask which rugs to wear on certain days and I think OMG they are horses. people say but it's a TB or whatever....you don't see TB broodies rugged around here or babies??

But then I suppose also you get loads of new stuff we do that works, so who knows lol... omg you made me ramble too!
 
I totally agree, my horse has run up approximately £10K worth of vets bills in the last year with no sign of recovery. He has been turned away for the last month and suddenly showing improvement, hindsight is a wonderful thing but I do wonder if he had just had 6 months off would he have sorted himself out on his own!
 
Yes we do, but having seen a horrible accident today involving 2 ponies, one of which needed to be taken to hospital in the horse ambulance it has made me realise even more how precious my boy is so if I spoil him atleast I can hope that he is happy and feel that I have done the best I possibly can for him.
 
A lot of the stuff I do is the same as people did years ago, eg out on varied grazing as much as possible, natives come into spring lean, lots of exercise, hard feed for hard work only (exceptions for older horses, ill ones etc), rugs when horse needs them, not because I am cold. On the other hand the advances made shouldn't be knocked either. When my oldie starts getting stiff I will be incredibly grateful there's more choice & research about these days. I think provided you use the information available now only when its applicable, rather than because others do it doesn't have to be an either/or choice.
 
Yes, in general most owners DO fuss and faff a lot!
I'd like to think I don't, but I do know I WORRY a lot!! Neither of mine wear a rug from March to November (generally), I won't rug the pony.. whatever... she won't be clipped and therefore won't need a rug. The hedges and trees make good shelter :eek: I don't boot my horse up, own any dead sheep nor do I order a back/teeth/saddler expert unless there is an obvious problem.

It isn't a bad thing to be fussy and faffy, better that than the other way.. but I do like to keep a horse as a horse - if you get me. It also suits the sort of horses I have - luckily for me!!
 
I have put Hippo back onto grass livery. I had moved yards to get this, then was offered a stable and thought it was a better idea - warm and cosy, etc. But honestly she's 100% happier out, so back to grass we go!

I also decided to try having her barefoot/unshod. Talked it over with farrier, changed her supplements/hard feed accordingly and tried it. Her hooves are far better unshod and she is not at all footsore, etc.

She's on a very basic diet now - half a scoop of Cool Mix and NAF General Purpose Supplement once per day. I bulk it out with two scoops of Dengie Hi-Fi Lite to avoid her bolting it. Ad-lib haylage if kept in, of course.

I buy far too many rugs and grooming products...haven't even used half of them yet! I like to buy things for her:o
 
Yes definitely! But it is not surprising.
Rug/feed/supplement/gadget companies play on the insecurities of (particularly but not solely) inexperienced horse-owners. Some of the equine press re-inforce the poor advice given in their advertising - I am sick of reading about the rugs which will keep your horse 'toasty'! If the equine press started a campaign to 'get back to basics', maybe that would give novices (and the others) the courage to do what their horses actually need, rather than what big business can make money out of.
 
Thanks for all your replies :) Dont get me wrong, I am eternally grateful for Danilon and the general advance in vet medicine! Melly wouldnt cope in the wet/cold/mud without a spot of painkiller to take the edge off her aches and pains ;) I also spoil my girls in that they have decent rugs when needed, pretty headcollors becaue I like Horseware (lets be honest, they dont give a rats trump if their headcolors and leadropes match!) and I like to buy them things I dont "need" just because...but the way we care for our horses has changed so much!
My Dad and I were talking tonight about things, about how when I was a kid and had ponies I had a saddle, bridle, headcollor and leadrope, a brush and a hoofpick. The pony grazed out with the sheep, had a scoop of sheep nuts when we had been out all day riding and nothing bad happened! Now we weigh our feed exactly, give suppements for this/that/the other - sometimes all 3!! - we have 10's of feed companies telling us that this is good, this is bad, this feed will turn your 13.2 cob into totilas et etc etc...
Today Ive taken a step back and looked at my two and thought, how much do they really really need??

Do some of you feel that, through media, forums such as this, vets, your peers, other liveries, you feel you are "letting your horse down" or 'neglecting' yhim/her if you dont feed X brand give Y supplement or follow Z's advice? I know I do!
 
Do i worry sometimes, if i think ive something to worry about healthwise for my horse.
The rest i wing it, doing what i feel is neccessary and im happy with how i care for my gang tbh
 
Hmmm yeah we do, but personally for me my horse is my hobby. Selfishly I suppose I own him for me. I don't like to think anything I do for him is bad for him in the slightest, but he is spoilt lol.
He is shod (lots of roadwork), wears boots for exercising, gets his teeth, back and saddle checked every 6 months without fail or before if there is problems, he has top insurance, in the winter he gets feed ie balancer and chaff + ad lib hayledge.
However through summer he lives out, isnt rugged except a lw for extreme wind and rain and is in a mixed herd.
For me its all about balance, he's a horse and a pet. For his well being he is of course a horse first and fore most. With me hovering in the background :P
 
Personally, I think we do worry a bit too much, but it's natural to worry about something you care for. Having said that our horses and ponies are either retired or in very very light work and so I might "fuss" about them a bit more if they were doing more.

They live out 24/7 with shelter, have a mineral lick by the water trough and live primarily off the grass, supplemented with hay as necessary. I do provide a small feed in the evenings all year round as I like to keep a routine, but at this time of year it's nothing of substance. Little and often when it comes to food, they are grazers after all. I've recently stopped giving the few supplements I was using and it doesn't appear to have been to their detriment at all. Older pony who is particularly susceptible to laminitis goes into a separate paddock at night and joins the others in the day.

I've yet to own a horse or pony that didn't prefer to be turned out all the time (not saying this is true of all horses, just the types we've had) and this obviously makes life a hell of a lot easier. I'm also going more and more off rugs as time goes by, though they are rugged when genuinely seeming cold.

For me, as long as a horse has a decent amount of turnout, a decent amount of forage and plenty of company then they seem to be pretty happy. :)
 
Buds_mum said:
Hmmm yeah we do, but personally for me my horse is my hobby. Selfishly I suppose I own him for me. I don't like to think anything I do for him is bad for him in the slightest, but he is spoilt lol.
He is shod (lots of roadwork), wears boots for exercising, gets his teeth, back and saddle checked every 6 months without fail or before if there is problems, he has top insurance, in the winter he gets feed ie balancer and chaff + ad lib hayledge.
However through summer he lives out, isnt rugged except a lw for extreme wind and rain and is in a mixed herd.
For me its all about balance, he's a horse and a pet. For his well being he is of course a horse first and fore most. With me hovering in the background :P
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definatley agree with this...i have a tb and when people say to me, "shouldnt she have a rug on" (if its raining) and i feel bad if she hasnt got one on, but then i have to think to myself, as much as i care about her, she is a horse? i mean the winters get so cold lately -5c and all sorts. and this will be my first winter with her as she is new to me, but she will definatley be spoilt, but not with the most expensive rugs that are brand new out this year, i mean no offence, i went wit the whole, new expensive rugs, my older rugs are warmer...i have now learnt that due to trying to cut down in my uneccesarily horse expenses, use what you got, look after it well, aslong as your horse is heaalthy and happy i say, keep calm and carry on lol
 
Yep - let horses be horses I always say! When I got my boy as a 3 year old, he had never had a rug on his back or spent a night in a stable. I have had different routines with him depending on various yards we have been on, but he is happiest being out 24/7, with very little feed and without a rug unless it's really cold&miserable, and even then it's only usually ever a lightweight. No supplements, no fancy tack - he is easy to keep and it suits us both.
 
It's the middle of summer, my horse has a lovely field shelter but tonight he is tucked up in his stable with oodles of haylage, a nice snugly bed and has had a tea of fast fibre and chaff, mollycoddled... Absoflippinlutely! I have however up until 2 months ago never let my horses see the inside of a stable in the summer months, but having just spent the best part of the last 2 months stabling him and my mare who I pts a week ago, I think I can justify a little mollycoddling ;) besides he loves his stable, he's one of these horses that if he's been in the field, really appreciates being bought in, and when he's been in he really appreciates being turned out :D and he's leaving me in a little over a fortnight... I will be horseless for about 6 weeks so I'm being a bunny hugger until then :)
 
I do fuss and faff with my girls, and they have good rugs in the winter, and a whole wardrobe for all weathers - fly rugs, summer sheets, lightweights, thin fills etc etc etc. I dont personally see anything wrong in pampering neds with things like rugs, sprays etc, but my main query is, do we faff and fart about with feed and supplements too much? The same with grazing, do we muck about with how much grass they have/strip grazing/etc etc?xx
 
I would rather people worry too much than too little. Having fretted through right feed and supplements I definitely think getting it right makes a huge difference. It is just very easy to get it wrong by overfeeding or not knowing what is lacking and supplementing anyway.
 
My girl has EMS and if I didn't faff over her feeding, I wouldn't have her now. She had laminitis 4 years ago, was massively overweight (my fault entirely), and has had 4 seizures - vets couldn't find any reason :(
We moved house 3 years ago, she gets just 4 hrs muzzled turnout a day, is in at night, gets 3 soaked haynets (2 day and 1 night) and minerals balanced to her hay - and hasn't been better for years.
I hack out 4 or 5 times a week for 2 to three hours and value all the time we have together - but do admit to fussing over her :)
 
Yep - but it isn't just horses, it dogs, cats, goats (probably). I am waiting for the day someone (and no offence, odds on it will be someone in America) dresses their horse in a hoody jumper :D

I took the aged one back to basics, grass during the summer, hay/straw in the winter and for the build up to show season she got 1/2 rations of blue chip. However, in the winter she was put onto fast fibre. Also had her shoes taken off.
She stopped being repeatedly lame and stiff, got fat to the point over winter I had to put her on rations (cut out FF, and replaced her hay rations with more straw) and the farrier said she had the best feet he'd seen in years.

Nugz is on grass only and gets a handful of grassnut mush with magox in for his feet. He actually loses weight over summer as he is moving around more and because he gorges in the first month and eats all the grass in his paddock so nothing left :D I don't strip grass as pointless since he'd just escape and gorge. Muzzle is a no-no as well.
 
I do not wish to tempt fate at all, so as I am writing this, I am also touching wood, hehe!

My mare is 27, I've had her 11 yrs, until 3 yrs ago, I only had the vet out once a year for jabs. She was on a large working farm, turned out with 3 other horses and for a few months of the year cows too! the fields they were out in were at least 20 arces, never poo picked but harrowed and rolled ever 6 months! and it was only when the farmer died and it was taken on by someone else who split the fields down so we had a lot less grazing, about a 3rd of the 20ish acres and then split that 3rd into 2 smaller paddocks! still pretty large in the grand scheme of things but not for what she was used to! anyway............

she got colic, then ever year since she's coliced about 2 times during the summer! I have moved yards now and have about 10-12 acres for 2 horses and 2 sheltands, sooo plenty of grass!

but i have always put her in the smaller fields during the summer and kept her grazing restricted because i don't want her to colic then last august when the vet was out to her last colic attack he said it could be the clover causing gas and she's just being a drama queen and over reacting!

then in Oct when she had her teeth done we noticed that the enamal on her front teeth has worn off a lot, leaving her with a couple of peg looking teeth, so it was then suggested that she could be colicing because she stuggles on the shorter grass and is taking up mud as well as grass which is upsetting her tummy!

so anyway, i was only thinking today, she's not had it yet this year, and the difference is now, I never used to have 2 winter fields, I have sectioned off another one in the past few months, so we have more grass than ever before, so is turned out on A lot of grass at the moment, so obviously won't be stuggling with either the clover or taking too much soil with the grass, so it will be interesting to see by the end of this summer if I have managed to keep her colic free!

i must say she's massive but she always was before! so we shall see! fingers x'd


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Perhaps Im not explaining myself too well??

Im not having a poke at those who treat and spoil their horses - I do it too! I love to see my girls snuggled up in nice rugs, tucking into haynets, and would definately stable at night if my old lady would stay in a stable without sedalin (!).
What I am talking about is all these horses that are 'suddenly' (it seems) being diagnosed with EMS, IR, Cushings, Metabolic problems, etc that all need these special restricted diets. Is it that we know more abou things now-a-day, or are we - as an equine loving/owning population -causing these problems by overfeeding due to the dearth of feeds out there, over tending our land making it rich and lush and over pampering our animals by thinking that 'hard' work is an hours schooling 4 times a week and a 2 hour hack at the weekend?
Yes, animals in "the old days" didnt live as long, and yes, veterinary medicine has come a long way, but horses are still designed to be working animals, capable of hours of daily work, they are grazers designed to walk up to 20miles a day grazing on grasses, bushes and herbs, so if we then restrict them from the rich grass pastures that we have created with muzzles, strip grazing and stabling, are we essentially messing with nature?

I appear to be rambling again, and making very little sense!
 
I personally think it is the molasses, hidden sugars and fake molasses that is the cause of it. That and horses I think are more sedentary now in general.

Horses self medicate and self select green stuff according to what they feel they need, so by micro managing horses and putting them on fields that are only grass and then subsequently restricting the intake because a just grass diet can cause other issues means you're in a never ending cycle sometimes.

Some horses manage just fine on a very managed basis, just like horses stabled 24/7/365 a day manage/d just fine.
 
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