Follow-up Post; You Want to Be a Yard Owner

Oh yes - for anyone coming with £'s Ontario is cheap - it's only when you start earning the dreaded $'s that your earnings go down LOL!!

I just checked on the local Holiday Inn which is right in the heart of Downtown in a small city near me and the cost varies between £50 - £100 per night for all occupants of the room. Cheaper motels are .....errr......cheaper.
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I thought you meant the new liveries when you were talking about grounding for two weeks, not existing ones.

Heck, if I had a new horse here I wouldn't not ride mine for two weeks. No way.

I acted differently with horses that had a known history opposed to horses that came through a dealer/sales. Had a friend's horse in livery that I knew very well. Our horses used to hack together all the time before she moved here. Seemed pointless quarantining a horse that I had been hacking with two days previous. They were just separated over a fence for a couple of days for the horses to get used to each other in the fields before being placed together.

With Oliver, I knew where he was from and how he'd been cared for. I didn't worry about putting him in with Dinker.

Livery's horse came straight from a dealers yard. No idea how long she'd had him or where he'd come from or whether he'd been wormed etc. He certainly hadn't been vaccinated until the day before he arrived on our yard. He was therefore quarantined a field's space away from mine with his own water source. I didn't want to risk it. I did, however let him go in with Dinker after a week. Dinker's my sacrficial lamb really.
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Hi Tia
I think you were asking me about paddocks?
Yes, I'd have 2 paddocks/fields with the two groups in each. As for how big - that would depend on the size/type/age/breed of horses and of course, the type of grazing - whether lush grass or rough grazing.
I assume before you got these horses, you knew you had the acreage to sustain them so it is just a case of ensuring they don't mix with the others for a period long enough to ensure whatever diseases you are concerned about aren't present.
Electric fencing is easy - you can run it off a 12v car battery for minimal outlay - much easier than other kinds anyway and flexible in use.
But in these situations, you have to consider all factors...if you then said the horses were 2 stallions, 2 mares in season, 3 foals, a thin TB and a laminitic....then things may be different
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S
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PS I've been involved in running big yards...200 + stables and never want to be a yard owner/manager again so you have my sympathy, but no envy!
 
Ah well so you are all cheating; everyone who's answered is/has been a yard owner.

I have mains electric, solar electric and battery electric fencing - can't use it on foals who have roamed 30,000 acres and aren't familiar with fencing, let alone electricity. That was what I mean't about it not being an option.
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Thankfully yes, I am able to steal hay fields at the drop of a hat, so my situations are never a big deal regardless of what is thrown up.

Anyway you yard owners suggested exactly what I've done/planned to do. Clever girls.
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The 6 little ones are in a small paddock of a couple of acres and are in with one of my sacrificial nannies.

The 2 new ones who came yesterday are in an 8 acre field well away from anyone. They will be integrated with a herd before the other new one comes a week on Monday. The 2 new ones who were supposed to come today - I've put off till the end of the month and they will then go into the field that the ones who arrived yesterday are in now and then they will become part of another herd a week or so later.

Quarantining any new horses is somewhat shallow thinking, if you are going to allow all of the existing horse owners free range for riding, as they will no doubt ride alongside the fields where the new horses are. It just always makes me smile when I listen to people who think YO's should do things in such and such a way - if we did it this way, then there would be compromises for them too - something I'm not sure they have considered or would be happy with.

Plus as Patches brought up - some horses are already known to me and any who have been in yards that I know are generally not separated for very long before I integrate them. Often just the worming time and then they will go into a herd.

I'm pretty lucky in that all it costs is money to make new fields and put in new water lines and electricity to new fields - not many YO's have that luxury; even if they did have the money, land is often an issue.

No liveries played my little thought-provoking game though
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. Perhaps it was only me who thought it was interesting LOL!!
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I'd keep them all seperate and make sure they cant touch noses over fences for at least a week. The last thing you want is someone bringing in somthing like strangles onto the yard. Riding is fine as they wont touch when ridden. Then they're used to the horses and introduce one at a time. Shoving a whole load of new horses into an established herd is recipie for disaster.
 
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