do you check your horse twice a day

Surely depends on the livery set up I am on an old fashioned yard where they are used to taking control of all the horses welfare on site. Some people only come up at the weekends or once in a blue moon but no horse would be left out if there is a problem. YO would get a horse in and deal with any problems and inform owner even though it is grass livery. I do go up twice a day at the moment to rug in the evening but otherwise will only go once a day. The more modern diy yards don't have the same responsibility about the horses on site and when on those yards I will go up twice day as I take total responsibility as that is the agreement.
 
I guess if folk could get to the yard twice or even three times a day they would, this is not excusing those that dont come at all esp when horses are stabled, disgusting, but seriously from an economical point of view that extra visit could be 30miles, agree do have a back up plan in place e.g. another livery to throw their eyes over them. Fly masks etc come off all the time unfortunately. Sadly you could check your horse at 6pm and all was well and within 30mins of leaving the yard the horse could come down with something, it happens.
 
My dad checks mine at six thirty every day summer and winter and I do afternoons when I finish work. In summer we are usually both there in eves as its best time for riding out. The girl I was sharing with used to go up may be twice a week and just relied on me to sort her horse out. This was not an agreement we had she just took the p*** and when I had to buy hay for her horse through the winter too and she took ages to pay me for it , I decided to get moved. Have just moved my boys onto lovely little farm where I am only livery and farmer has kindly offered to check them for me if me or dad can't get up and send me a text if he spots any problems. I wouldn't worry too much about checking only once a day if fields are secure and have auto drinkers and horse isnt turned out in head collars or anything else could get tangled in ( i dont use fly rugs or masks etc on my two) as long as i knew there were others about who would let me know if a problem arose. Years ago I was at a place where there was no water to the field I rented and I found myself having to go up three time a day to keep water buckets topped up and clean as youngster liked to poop in them and there was no one else onsite to check them for me, very tiring!
 
touchstone said:
I always check twice a day, including checking for digital pulses or footiness at this time of year. In my experience it is easy to miss things like the start of laminitis if you just glance at them in a field making sure they have four legs.
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Exactly this. Mine is generally out 24/7 in summer but is brought in in the morning, rugs off, brushed, fly sprayed, checked over, pulse taken etc then fed and put out again before being brought in around 4pm to be checked, rode, fed again.

I know of people on my yard who can leave it weeks before checking up on their horse in summer as they see summer as the 'easy part' and seem to believe they can fend for themselves. Said people are also reliant on others noticing lameness or illness in their horses when seeing to their own. These are also the people who leave them in lw rugs that they've been in for weeks despite the weather. There are also people who drive past and see if they're on 4 legs or not then drive off. What about lameness, cuts, lami?! It drives me bonkers and I refuse to 'teach the owners a lesson' through cruelty to the horse so it end up wasting MY time.

IMO you should check them twice a day at least, especially if you are not on a large yard.
 
postputasocinit said:
I guess if folk could get to the yard twice or even three times a day they would, this is not excusing those that dont come at all esp when horses are stabled, disgusting, but seriously from an economical point of view that extra visit could be 30miles, agree do have a back up plan in place e.g. another livery to throw their eyes over them. Fly masks etc come off all the time unfortunately. Sadly you could check your horse at 6pm and all was well and within 30mins of leaving the yard the horse could come down with something, it happens.
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Yes, but if someone doesn't then go for another 24 hrs then that horse is left for a longer period without than if they went again in another 12 hours.

I don't think fly masks coming off are the real worry here. I am talking about illness/injury/water leakages which are the issue.

I know it's happened to me before where there has been a sudden leak in the trough seals and it has emptied completely by my next visit that evening. If I hadn't have gone up for another 24 hours, and they were stood in baking heat with no water - not great.
 
I only go up once a day, when they are in over night in the winter I put them away and they are turned out in the morning for me.

When they are out 24/7 as they are now then they are checked in the morning and if the weather is good have their rugs off. They are also looked at several times a day as they're kept at the owners house.
 
I was referring to those that have someone else do the 2nd check if they cant get up there. I wasnt referring to myself. If you dont have someone to rely on then you must endeavour to do a 2nd check, its what being a responsible horse owner is all about.
 
I usually go twice a day but my second visit is unnecessary - I do the checking, water etc in the morning and my field share does the evenings. I usually go evenings as well to do the "fun" stuff like riding and grooming.
I'm not going tonight though as I have a bigger responsibility to one of my other animals today. My field sharer has just texted me to let me know that they are fine, fed and rugged up.
So I don't really need to go more than once a day but nearly always do.
 
I'm going to get shot down now but we only go once a day and spend on average 3 hours with them. They don't have rugs or fly masks on and never run out of water.
 
julie111 said:
I'm going to get shot down now but we only go once a day and spend on average 3 hours with them. They don't have rugs or fly masks on and never run out of water.
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So if your horses injured themselves very quickly after you left, they would be stood for 24 hours or so suffering? I don't think that's responsible in the slightest.
 
Moomin1 said:
So if your horses injured themselves very quickly after you left, they would be stood for 24 hours or so suffering? I don't think that's responsible in the slightest.
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And if you visit yours at 4pm and again at 8 or 9 am you leave them for 16 hours if they injured themselves at 5 minutes past 4 yours would be left for 16 hours against the 21 hours mentioned in the quote. I would guess that 5 hours would make little difference to a serious injury that had already been left for 16.
Unless you check every 15 minutes for 24/hours a day then you cannot eliminate the slight risk of injury being an issue most injuries are best treated within a golden hour
 
Mine are out 24/7 but at home so get checked all the time. Two (at least) proper checks when they get a bit of fuss and I get to properly look them over.
 
I go once a day when he is out 24/7. Field is opposite YO's house, and people on our yard look out for each others's horses as a matter of course. YO is very vigilant as well. Not that its anyone else's business how I look after my horse!
 
Moomin1 said:
So if your horses injured themselves very quickly after you left, they would be stood for 24 hours or so suffering? I don't think that's responsible in the slightest.
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Why not stand in the field 24/7 then! They could could injure themselves a few minutes after you have left they would then be left standing for 16 hours or so!
 
I check mine several times a day as they are at home now. When I was on a livery yard I used to go morning and evening every day and the yo lived on site too so kept an eye on them. My old mare managed to break her leg when she was left alone in the field for an hour. I was cleaning out the water troughs in the field and she was fine, went back to the yard to muck out, do hay, feeds etc (you couldn't see the field from the yard), an hour later I went to bring in and she was broken :( It doesn't bear thinking about if she had been left for 24 hours like that :(
 
Moomin1 said:
So if your horses injured themselves very quickly after you left, they would be stood for 24 hours or so suffering? I don't think that's responsible in the slightest.
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windand rain said:
And if you visit yours at 4pm and again at 8 or 9 am you leave them for 16 hours if they injured themselves at 5 minutes past 4 yours would be left for 16 hours against the 21 hours mentioned in the quote. I would guess that 5 hours would make little difference to a serious injury that had already been left for 16.
Unless you check every 15 minutes for 24/hours a day then you cannot eliminate the slight risk of injury being an issue most injuries are best treated within a golden hour
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which is what happened to one of mine, i saw them in the evening, by the time i went the next day at 10am the TB had broken her hind leg, snapped in two, bone showing. horrendous and fatal. for months i beat myself up that i hadn't got there earlier, that i hadn't gone up later the evening before, that i hadn't put her in the shelter, that i had not moved from the livery yard etc etc. once the emotional pain of losing her had reduced and rational thought retuned i realised that unless i lived in the field with them i could physically not prevent something like that happening in my absence, be that absence 5 minutes or 5 hours or 15 hours.
 
Amen to this.
So shoot me already.
Once a day.. with someone looking over to see if they are ok.. A horse will survive 12 hours with no water.. (not saying its right), but.. do you not think that in nature.. they would think.. 'I need a drink, where is my trough'.. No they get on with it and survive. (I have worked in a stud and with movement on the yard 18 out of 24 hours, we still lost a horse to colic after colic surgery that was found in the very early stages.. nothing is infallible).

My horse is happy and content.. and I would be even more concerned that he would drink a whole trough of water in 24 hours than it being empty? *that doesn't have a leak* (or is that just me..?)

As has been said before, you can spend X hours with them. and do a last check at night (been there done that ) and still, stuff will happen.. Horses are horses.. you cannot wrap them in cotton wool and be worried about them all the 12 hours that you are at work or in bed asleep (unless you are VERY fortunate to have grooms 24/7). All you can do is the best by them and make sure that you have all of their needs met.
I'm am expecting a backlash, but I won't respond, as I have said my piece and thats all I wanted to do.
There are lots of us out here that check our horses once a day..and they are all absolutely fine.
Oh and No.. I'm not a Troll.
 
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I check all of my horses about 20 or 30 times every day lol. Nothing goes on with them that I don't know about as all of my fields totally surround the farmhouse so the horses are all on view 24/7.
 
julie111 said:
Why not stand in the field 24/7 then! They could could injure themselves a few minutes after you have left they would then be left standing for 16 hours or so!
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Are people really so thick as to not get the point here?!

It's not about the fact they can injure themselves at any time. It's about the amount of time they are then left to suffer without anyone noticing and intervening.

Saying they may still injure themselves and be left 16 hours does not make it acceptable or right to say that you may as well just then leave them 24 hours instead as it won't matter.
 
Mine are right next to my house so I see them several times a day, but I would always do them twice at least anyway - I've got my other horses at my mums house and when she's away I still make sure I go there twice a day (20 min drive each way) and otherwise my mum also sees them several times a day even if its just glancing at them on the way out to the car or garden.
 
When on diy i checked and fed twice a day happy that there was always an eye cast over them in between but now they are home they are checked at least 3 times but usually about 5or 6 times.
 
Mine is on Full Livery, so all care is provided. They are checked at least three times a day whether in or out, and YO lives on site (working farm). I go up a few times each week and if there is an emergency in the meantime they will ring the vet and then me. It's very relaxing :)
 
Doormouse said:
Thats all well and good that someone would have noticed and called you but what if it was an emergency and the horse needed to be got in and the vet called straight away. Why should someone else do that for your horses?
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Any accident etc can happen the minute you leave the yard even if you check your horses 3 or 4 times a day. When I was on a yard my horses were checked twice a day but I would have been very happy if someone saw something, even if it was 5 minutes after I had left the yard and dealt with it and then called me.
 
Moomin1 said:
Are people really so thick as to not get the point here?!

It's not about the fact they can injure themselves at any time. It's about the amount of time they are then left to suffer without anyone noticing and intervening.

Saying they may still injure themselves and be left 16 hours does not make it acceptable or right to say that you may as well just then leave them 24 hours instead as it won't matter.
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I'm coming at this from a debating / intellectual curiosity POV - not disagreeing with what you say!

But two checks a day, with a 16 hour gap, is still an arbitrary number that we've decided is acceptable. Once a day is just as arbitrary. Twice a day or even three times a day is still arbitrary and still going to leave the horse at risk of being in pain or injured for hours - and in fact the gap is never likely to be less than eight hours. Of course the more checks the better, but twice a day is still balancing the constraints of the owner against the needs of the horse, so although the balance is better it's still a balance - I don't think we can be too harsh on people who choose to balance it slightly differently!

FWIW this is why I would always keep a horse on part livery where someone is keeping an eye out - twice a day every day is a MASSIVE commitment; I'm surprised how few people are saying once a day!
 
Theocat said:
I'm coming at this from a debating / intellectual curiosity POV - not disagreeing with what you say!

But two checks a day, with a 16 hour gap, is still an arbitrary number that we've decided is acceptable. Once a day is just as arbitrary. Twice a day or even three times a day is still arbitrary and still going to leave the horse at risk of being in pain or injured for hours - and in fact the gap is never likely to be less than eight hours. Of course the more checks the better, but twice a day is still balancing the constraints of the owner against the needs of the horse, so although the balance is better it's still a balance - I don't think we can be too harsh on people who choose to balance it slightly differently!

FWIW this is why I would always keep a horse on part livery where someone is keeping an eye out - twice a day every day is a MASSIVE commitment; I'm surprised how few people are saying once a day!
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How is twice a day a massive commitment?!! Do these people not attend their horses twice a day, and do far more whilst the horses are stabled?

FWIW, my mare will generally get checked on average every 12-14 hours when she is out 24/7. Plus the YO lives on site and rings if there is a problem. Added to that, I pass by now and again throughout the day and always have a quick check.

Call me harsh, maybe, but I stand by my opinion that one check in 24 hours is not enough.
 
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I do now that I'm the only person on my yard but back in the day when I was on a busier yard, there were always people around, and we would all contact each other as and when needed! my last yard one of us would do mornings the other evenings, so again always someone around! couldn't imagine now checking them twice a day now though
 
Theocat said:
I'm surprised how few people are saying once a day!
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I'm not! I bet they are terrified to say so on this thread now :biggrin3:

In the defence of Moomin, I do get exactly what she's saying. I honestly don't know how people can only check their horses twice a day let alone once. It would give me palpitations if mine went for hours without being checked.
 
When my horse is living out 24/7 I have always only checked once a day. I try and stagger visits with whoever shares the field but it isn't essential.
 
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