Following on from the livery thread...some thoughts

Ambers Echo said:
I've got one of them too MP/CI. Deedee cant cope with more than 3 hours out. Even with company, even with hay. I've had to rewrite my rules for her. I used to judge people who kept their horses like I keep her but I've realised that unless I know the full story behind a person's management plan I should not make assumptions or value judgements.
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I think I also get judged at times for turning my 2 out even if the weather is vile. One will box walk obsessively if he is in all day and the other will throw shapes when she finally does go out and ties-up.

ETA - the mare can also get very attached to other mares in the field to the extent that their owners can't get near them. And she will follow through with her threats to kick. So I keep my 2 together and muddle through the best I can.
 
I was thinking of moving to a full livery on a riding school near me.It is well run,has really good facilities and is close to me.They do NO winter turnout at all though and that was a line I wasn't prepared to cross.Funnily enough though they put up a picture of some of their school horses kept in a loose indoor barn.Bit like a field but indoors.The horses all looked very relaxed and happy and I think my horse would be happy with that.
 
milliepops said:
I am almost certain that mine was normal until her previous owner made some bad management decisions and screwed her up ;) so the judgement is fair but it would be a bit mean to direct it at me, I'm just picking up the pieces.
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This is the problem - someone, somewhere along the line has buggered up these horses. There may be the odd one which naturally just can't cope with a normal lifestyle, but they're not going to constitute a significant percentage of horses kept in those sorts of lifestyles. I find the clue is in multiple horse owners - if one owner has multiple unrelated horses with the same issue, it's probably the owner's issue not the horses'. If the owner has a few horses who live a normal life, and one who needs the rules changed, it's probably an oddball, or the product of a non-horse-centric system.
 
I think it goes back to flexibility of yards.

It's one thing I don't think I'm going to get used to here, everything is about the horses so if something doesn't work the YO will try her absolute best to adjust things so it does work, so different to my other yard which was completely ridged!

Topaz and Skylla have to go out for a decent period everyday or they would be raving loonies (well they are anyway but on restricted its worse :P). Doodle would much prefer to stay in with company, the compromise that luckily Doodle will tolerate is she will go out with the other two but remained rugged to her eyeballs, and come in first with another next to her at ALL times. She values company over the desire to stay dry, so we've worked out a little routine that keeps her happy, sure people may judge me a little for how rugged up she is but you've got to do what the horse is happiest with.

Doodle would adore an indoor barn turnout situation, that would be her holy grail of yards!
 
IHW is currently thanking her lucky stars for 2 very straight forwards and compliant horses who do not create drama and appear to adapt to whatever is available to them at the time.

Big one primarily in at the moment and looking & feeling a million dollars. Behaving well and seemingly settled. He also just did an 8 week stint out 24/7 in a herd and was generally settled (after the first couple of weeks where he demanded he needed to be bought in whenever he saw me as I’d obviously forgotten and abandoned him). I’d like him to spend more time out but ultimately for me the priority is having him in the right training set up and at this stage I see that as more important for his long term welfare.

Little one will stay in or go out and stay where he is put. He loves his open gated barn pen where he happily chats to his neighbours and shares his hay manger. Equally will go in an enclosed stable when required.
 
I'm in the early stages of planning my move to Ireland, and I'm dreading the hunt for a livery yard. I'm pretty flexible on where I live (requirements: in easy commuting distance of an airport with direct flights to my office; I can afford to live there) but I need a yard that offers good turnout and, crucially, good livery services. I've got no idea where to even start looking!
 
I think a lot of horse management is based on tradition, from when horses worked, probabely many hours a day, pulling a plough or carriage, even in the 70's the rag and bone was out on the road. They were worked/excercised in the day and stabled, either in loose boxes or stalls, looked after by people who where usually paid to look after or made their living from them. So to get the maxuim work out of the horse it made sense for them to be stabled and eat the main part of their diet over night.
Nearly all the things people seem to aspire to are based on images from 17 and 1800's, even modern riding wear apart from the materials is based very much on old fashioned ideals, even if you do not wear a top hat.

Our lives and how we use horses has changed so much, but to the uneducated owner a horse is a nice clean box, with a nice rug on is the best place for it. Ponies stood in fields, with long manes with thick coats, and thick tails are seen as signs of neglect, and not seen as that is how nature intended them to live.
There is more money to be made by keeping them in a box, in a rug, you can sell people stuff. From more bedding, forage, services, the rug, the rug wash,clipping, rent of the stable, extras such as boredom breakers, calmers, the animal healers, which are there to sort out problems that are usually caused by the enviroment they are kept it.
It has has been a very mild winter so far this year, its forecast in the south to be 14C later this week, but how many hairy type natives will be covered with a rug, and stabled overnight just because that is seen as a good thing.
We are going to have less available land to turn animals out because of development, climate change or just the cost. There needs to be a radical rethink of how equine care is taught to reflect how they live and are used today, with what is best for their welfare, not what makes it convenient or makes the most money for equine professionals.
 
I do think more and more houses are being built and land is at a premium which limits turnout especially in Winter. I live in a semi rural part of an otherwise built up area, theres a number of yards in reasonable walking distance/drive and tons of horses! Over the years Ive been on most and theres not really one Id like to be on. I moved my horse for her benefit, she needed individual turnout as part of her rehabilitation, so I left my friends behind and moved to a very basic block of stables with a field with one other livery. Its been an uphill struggle, Im fed up, tired and life is nothing but going back and forths between working and it cant carry on for much longer. I miss an arena, I miss people to share horsey life with. Is my horse happy? Well I think she was at first but now I feel mean as shes still on her own (next to another horse) as I cant risk her with the fencing and also the size of the main field with her almost healed injury. I realise its time to look elsewhere but there is no where Id go locally for one reason or another.
 
For me (and my horse) the most important thing is turnout. Not bothered about 24/7 but, it does have to be 6-8 hours per day.

A few years ago my friend and I were at a nice but basic DIY yard. Good turnout, nice yard but no facilities such as a school or wash down area. We decided to look for a yard with better facilitates together.

The yard she liked had facilities to die for - indoor and outdoor arenas, indoor stabling, wash box, competitions on site, horse walker, canter track. There was acres of turnout BUT, it was on clay, which immediately made me suspicious. I questioned the YO about turnout and he was quite evasive - just said he 'tried' to allow turnout as much as possible over the wetter months.

Not convinced I refused to go there and found a different yard which had a school (outdoor only, no indoor), wash area, excellent hacking and most importantly, it was on sandy soil and had turnout everyday.

Friend went to the all singing, all dancing yard - turnout from September to April was virtually non-existent but she stuck it out for two winters before moving back to the original basic DIY yard. She's now on the waiting list for my yard...
 
Sadly i agree with out Op-er

Here on island there are yards with arenas and all the singing and dancing add ons but there turn out is pour and they cram large numbers of horses on to a minimal amount of grazing which in turn results in post stamp paddocks


but the other end of the scale is lots of big nice fields out 24/7 with no where to ride and often not even any lights which doesn't work when i go at 6am and finish work at 6pm so winter is darkness

sadly unless the lotto comes in i think i am stuck, for now chance is happy he goes out in a small ish paddock with one other horse and they get on well, stable is big and he seems very settled, plus he is aloud ad-lib hay so it makes me feel a lot better about the situation - if that is right.. well i dont know but i dont feel he is stressed, or unhappy
 
ihatework said:
IHW is currently thanking her lucky stars for 2 very straight forwards and compliant horses who do not create drama and appear to adapt to whatever is available to them at the time...
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To be fair to Skylla she is like this, super super easy to manage, can be in on her own, out on her own, out with company etc etc. She would need to be worked hard if kept in (not for medical issues) to keep her energy levels down as she is a very active horse.

It's interesting that Skylla is my most easy going horse as she is also the one who has been socialized the best. She was bred and then went out with youngstock her own age until she was 2, then I bought her and put her out in a mixed herd over 22 acres. She then came to live with my others again in a settled herd turnout, she's never been in forced isolation for long periods, or kept in with no turnout at all.

The other two, Topaz is easier than Doodle, she was bred at stud and I assume lived out with youngstock but then moved to a yard where I think they were in and worked with no turnout or out and not worked. She has literally taken years to understand if she comes in at night she will be able to go back out in the morning. Doodle, well she was a show pony so isolation and not being turned out were apparently the norm for her (after she left her lovely breeders I might add!), she has some of the worst separation anxiety I've seen bless her :( will never get over it and will revert to a messy, anxious, sweaty, hysterical puddle at the merest whiff of being alone, she is a tricky one to manage but we got there in the end!
 
wiglet said:
There was acres of turnout BUT, it was on clay, which immediately made me suspicious. I questioned the YO about turnout and he was quite evasive - just said he 'tried' to allow turnout as much as possible over the wetter months.
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I learnt my lesson the hard way when that happened to me. I asked the same question about a yard that was situated in amazing hacking country, had a large rubber surfaced menage to die for and a yard owner who lived on site. I was told that there was year round turnout so I assumed that that equated to turnout on grass 365 days a year. But in reality it actually meant that from October to May the horses shared a sandpit pen with another horse on the other side of an electric fence for 2 hours a day.

The first winter it suited my horse who was recovering from injury and I didn't need her running around in deep mud. However, the second winter things became more taxing. In the end I had to pay the Y.O to muck out my horse Monday to Friday as it wasn't fair to her, to be stuck in a stable full of poo for 22 hours a day, when I could only get there after work in the evenings to muck out.

So if I should ever find myself in a similar position again I will actually ask "but is that grass turnout?"

That said I know horses that don't see the light of day from the start of winter to mid spring, stuck in their stables as their owners don't do mud, grooming or leg washing lol. I always feel its unfair to them but they don't seem to suffer from lack of turnout and some of them seem to enjoy it. But then I have also witnessed 'shut down' horses too and that is always sad.
 
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HufflyPuffly said:
To be fair to Skylla she is like this, super super easy to manage, can be in on her own, out on her own, out with company etc etc. She would need to be worked hard if kept in (not for medical issues) to keep her energy levels down as she is a very active horse.

It's interesting that Skylla is my most easy going horse as she is also the one who has been socialized the best. She was bred and then went out with youngstock her own age until she was 2, then I bought her and put her out in a mixed herd over 22 acres. She then came to live with my others again in a settled herd turnout, she's never been in forced isolation for long periods, or kept in with no turnout at all.

The other two, Topaz is easier than Doodle, she was bred at stud and I assume lived out with youngstock but then moved to a yard where I think they were in and worked with no turnout or out and not worked. She has literally taken years to understand if she comes in at night she will be able to go back out in the morning. Doodle, well she was a show pony so isolation and not being turned out were apparently the norm for her (after she left her lovely breeders I might add!), she has some of the worst separation anxiety I've seen bless her :( will never get over it and will revert to a messy, anxious, sweaty, hysterical puddle at the merest whiff of being alone, she is a tricky one to manage but we got there in the end!
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interesting to compare, isn't it.
I also think the one-horse owner can find themselves backed into a corner with things like this that end up causing psychological issues despite their best efforts and intentions.

Millie used to be the super easy to manage one, I could put her out first, she would stay out on her own in the evenings, always happy to do whatever UNTIL she had a period of box rest for a fracture and at the time she was the only horse I had. it was summer, no one else on the yard wanted to have their horses indoors even just for half a day and so she had to stay in on her own in the barn and slowly went crazy :(

i'm SO SO fortunate now to have a selection of companions that I can use for company now if I have a box rester. When Kira had to do box rest but Darcy still needed turnout, I could wheel in another from the field and make sure K had company always. And then she did 10 more weeks of pen rest surrounded by 3 horses that never went anywhere, so was totally settled. Turns out 5 is the magic number!

I hope I never have to keep one horse like that ever again.
 
Pippity said:
I'm in the early stages of planning my move to Ireland, and I'm dreading the hunt for a livery yard. I'm pretty flexible on where I live (requirements: in easy commuting distance of an airport with direct flights to my office; I can afford to live there) but I need a yard that offers good turnout and, crucially, good livery services. I've got no idea where to even start looking!
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I hate to say it but turnout is like gold dust in large parts of Ireland :( Especially in the Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow areas. Livery yards here can be quite expensive but with limited availability to turnout - especially within commuting distance of the airport (we do have 2 airports but Shannon wont be of huge use to you I doubt!). Commuting to the airport has its own problems aswell - our traffic situation around that area is nothing short of catastrophic at peak times. You can live 20 mins away but your commute could be 2 hours!

Every yard I've been on so far turnout was an issue - apart from one but it was 40 mins drive from me & became just impossible. I was on a lovely small private yard that had great turnout too but closed due to insurance issues & thats becoming more commonplace for smaller yards - they just cant survive over here with insane insurance costs.
 
milliepops said:
interesting to compare, isn't it.
I also think the one-horse owner can find themselves backed into a corner with things like this that end up causing psychological issues despite their best efforts and intentions.

Millie used to be the super easy to manage one, I could put her out first, she would stay out on her own in the evenings, always happy to do whatever UNTIL she had a period of box rest for a fracture and at the time she was the only horse I had. it was summer, no one else on the yard wanted to have their horses indoors even just for half a day and so she had to stay in on her own in the barn and slowly went crazy :(

i'm SO SO fortunate now to have a selection of companions that I can use for company now if I have a box rester. When Kira had to do box rest but Darcy still needed turnout, I could wheel in another from the field and make sure K had company always. And then she did 10 more weeks of pen rest surrounded by 3 horses that never went anywhere, so was totally settled. Turns out 5 is the magic number!

I hope I never have to keep one horse like that ever again.
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It is fascinating and a bit sad really to think even small things can give them lasting issues.

Skylla I've worked really hard to keep her lovely and easy, so any box rest she had others come and see her/ stabled next to her, not that she is always appreciative of company, but so she knows she will never stay alone (as you say this is much easier when you have more than one!).

When Doodle had her field injury and required a long stint of box rest it was hands down the most stressful period we've had, all I can think is thank god we had both Topaz and Skylla or I'm not sure we would have managed it, as they did little rotas of being in with her so she wasn't alone (she still managed to injury herself further by being hysterical when one left her momentarily). She then did pen rest in the field, but couldn't be in the pen on her own even so again the others were drafted in.

67122628_10157888559594925_3023334407160201216_n.jpg
 
It can be REALLY hard to find a yard with:



Sensible turnout groups

Well managed field ground and fencing

Small group 4 acre plus field turnout

Well draining field land that is usable all year

All year turnout

Good hacking

Good lit school

Within a sensible radius of home and work.



It can be a challenge and can require compromise.





I have no idea why most people (horses with unusual needs aside) don’t REFUSE to EVEN CONSIDER the yards with amazing facilities, but on wet low lying clay, and with no winter turnout, or turnout in deep mud for a few hours. No idea why there are so many liveries willing to accept this as an option.



I can understand if have clay, and turnout pens / hard standing turnout / surfaced track turnout etc. It is a compromise.
 
honetpot said:
I think a lot of horse management is based on tradition, from when horses worked, probabely many hours a day, pulling a plough or carriage, even in the 70's the rag and bone was out on the road. They were worked/excercised in the day and stabled, either in loose boxes or stalls, looked after by people who where usually paid to look after or made their living from them. So to get the maxuim work out of the horse it made sense for them to be stabled and eat the main part of their diet over night.
Nearly all the things people seem to aspire to are based on images from 17 and 1800's, even modern riding wear apart from the materials is based very much on old fashioned ideals, even if you do not wear a top hat.

Our lives and how we use horses has changed so much, but to the uneducated owner a horse is a nice clean box, with a nice rug on is the best place for it. Ponies stood in fields, with long manes with thick coats, and thick tails are seen as signs of neglect, and not seen as that is how nature intended them to live.
There is more money to be made by keeping them in a box, in a rug, you can sell people stuff. From more bedding, forage, services, the rug, the rug wash,clipping, rent of the stable, extras such as boredom breakers, calmers, the animal healers, which are there to sort out problems that are usually caused by the enviroment they are kept it.
It has has been a very mild winter so far this year, its forecast in the south to be 14C later this week, but how many hairy type natives will be covered with a rug, and stabled overnight just because that is seen as a good thing.
We are going to have less available land to turn animals out because of development, climate change or just the cost. There needs to be a radical rethink of how equine care is taught to reflect how they live and are used today, with what is best for their welfare, not what makes it convenient or makes the most money for equine professionals.
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I agree with every single word of this. I've never done any pony club or BHS training, but from what I've picked up, a lot of this "mainstream" horse keeping is just the way it's been done, and continues to be done, unquestioning, based on tradition and working/hunting horses. Then there are the "Horse as fashion accessory" or "Horse as a means to an end because I want to do dressage/jumping/eventing. I think what's bothering me, and I'm struggling to put into words, is a lack of knowledge or care or even awareness on the part of a some owners for the actual horse, this lack of questioning whether there might be a better, kinder way. The horse being put away into a box when its finished with, and got out again to play next time...without a thought that this isn't how it should be.
 
I have often said it’s the owners that need individual turnout, not the horses. So many issues on yards arise from people falling out over things like poo picking, horses playing/fighting and injuring each other or ripping rugs, or horses being left alone, some wanting hay out some not, so I can completely understand why a lot of yards divide up into paddocks and let people manage it themselves- can’t fall out with yourself (well! :D).

I do think it’s sad, but I also think some horses just can’t cope in bigger herds for a variety of different reasons. My boy has poor social skills but can manage in a bigger herd if needs be. He currently lives with a lady friend who he likes but is not massively attached to, with company around when she is stabled. This is a good balance of what he needs and makes life straightforward for me too.

Land is expensive, costs are rising hugely and it’s a difficult thing to make money of, so YOs have to maximise the money they can make out of the land they have. Balancing every horses and every owners requirements must be virtually impossible.
 
LegOn said:
I hate to say it but turnout is like gold dust in large parts of Ireland :( Especially in the Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow areas. Livery yards here can be quite expensive but with limited availability to turnout - especially within commuting distance of the airport (we do have 2 airports but Shannon wont be of huge use to you I doubt!). Commuting to the airport has its own problems aswell - our traffic situation around that area is nothing short of catastrophic at peak times. You can live 20 mins away but your commute could be 2 hours!
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That's what I'm discovering... I like the look of Redhills, at least for the first year or so while I get settled and find somewhere a bit less all-singing-all-dancing, but finding somewhere to live nearby isn't going well!

Thankfully I'm only at the airport once or twice a fortnight, rather than working there, but I'd still prefer to be under an hour away.
 
I generally find that if a horse has decent enough grass and a friend (or at least can see a friend), they are happy being out. I know a lot of people locally on yards that have mud baths for winter grazing, where horses are literally stood knee deep in clay with nothing to pick at. These horses know they have bundles of hay in their stable for when they return, so they either stand around at the gate after an hour of mooching through mud or they misbehave, to which the owner exclaims that their horse hates being out in winter and prefers to be stood in. The real truth is that they hate standing out with absolutely nothing decent to eat and yes, would choose standing in with hay over that. But I am guarantee in most cases, if those horses moved somewhere with at least semi-decent grazing, the owners would find their horse is happy being out after all.
I know this because I came from a yard with appalling winter grazing. Fortunately we had turnout paddocks so they always got a few hours out a day, but it wasn’t ideal. My horses hated the winter field, to the point that turning them out was pointless as they would be at the gate causing trouble within an hour. I moved to a yard with much better turnout and decent grass all year. My horses were suddenly very happy to be out for 8 hours a day over winter, no problems!
 
milliepops said:
until you've had an oddball it's hard to imagine just how weird some horses can be. and also sometimes people think that you can just force them to go back to being normal.
I am almost certain that mine was normal until her previous owner made some bad management decisions and screwed her up ;) so the judgement is fair but it would be a bit mean to direct it at me, I'm just picking up the pieces.

"wrong geography" as CI puts it is the perfect terminology :p
she would live out quite happily but only on the steppes, and with company always within eyeline but safely stowed away on the other side of a fence. Not sure where this mythical fenced plain is but Kira dreams of it o_O
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Gypsum would move there.

I wish I knew exactly what the 'wrong' geography was. Maybe it's more like 'wrong juju.' But space to see what's happening around her paddock and proximity to other horses seems to be a factor.

If I had a pound for every yard owner who thought they could "fix" my horse and somehow force her to be normal and enjoy life in a herd, I would be buying my own yard by now. She hasn't been 'normal' since I bought as a seven-year old, and I did try her in a herd. I'm sure her issues are man-made, but not by me. I don't know how her breeder kept her horses, but I do know that the woman who had her from age two to seven had her own small property, with just one other horse, and the two were kept in separate paddocks (as is the norm for a lot of the US). I came along and chucked her in a herd of circa twelve horses, where she caused mayhem for a year, constantly herding horses around and getting into fights. Her social skills didn't improve over the course of the year. When I went to uni, the barn there offered individual turnout, and I found she was much more relaxed, easier to keep weight on, and not causing mayhem.
 
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Pippity said:
That's what I'm discovering... I like the look of Redhills, at least for the first year or so while I get settled and find somewhere a bit less all-singing-all-dancing, but finding somewhere to live nearby isn't going well!

Thankfully I'm only at the airport once or twice a fortnight, rather than working there, but I'd still prefer to be under an hour away.
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Redhills is the gold standard for turnout, they will have you spoilt- but you will struggle to find anything else to even remotely come close to it! And unfortunately yes we do have a major issue with accommodation in general but that area would be particularity tough & expensive :(
 
I moved mine a few months ago due to the turn out situation no longer suiting my horses - they're out 24/7 now and so so happy having a good well deserved break! (As am I!)
 
scats said:
I generally find that if a horse has decent enough grass and a friend (or at least can see a friend), they are happy being out. I know a lot of people locally on yards that have mud baths for winter grazing, where horses are literally stood knee deep in clay with nothing to pick at. These horses know they have bundles of hay in their stable for when they return, so they either stand around at the gate after an hour of mooching through mud or they misbehave, to which the owner exclaims that their horse hates being out in winter and prefers to be stood in. The real truth is that they hate standing out with absolutely nothing decent to eat and yes, would choose standing in with hay over that. But I am guarantee in most cases, if those horses moved somewhere with at least semi-decent grazing, the owners would find their horse is happy being out after all.
I know this because I came from a yard with appalling winter grazing. Fortunately we had turnout paddocks so they always got a few hours out a day, but it wasn’t ideal. My horses hated the winter field, to the point that turning them out was pointless as they would be at the gate causing trouble within an hour. I moved to a yard with much better turnout and decent grass all year. My horses were suddenly very happy to be out for 8 hours a day over winter, no problems!
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I’m not sure. Last winter my horse was out on a 20 acre field in a small herd with loads of grazing. By 1200 each day she was stood at the gate and waited there for the next 4 hours until she was brought in. I made her stay out telling her it was good for her but she genuinely wanted to come in despite only the gateway being muddy and there being enough to eat in the massive field with loads of natural shelter
 
Just a Festive Troll in the Dungeon said:
This is the problem - someone, somewhere along the line has buggered up these horses. There may be the odd one which naturally just can't cope with a normal lifestyle, but they're not going to constitute a significant percentage of horses kept in those sorts of lifestyles. I find the clue is in multiple horse owners - if one owner has multiple unrelated horses with the same issue, it's probably the owner's issue not the horses'. If the owner has a few horses who live a normal life, and one who needs the rules changed, it's probably an oddball, or the product of a non-horse-centric system.
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Yes. I suspect Deedee has been managed like a 'competition horse' - and has become institutionalised. But trying to change that made her literally ill so I am expanding her horizons slowly! She does seem very content in her 'prison'. But I am sure she has been made that way. Having said that, I had a pony who had always had turn out from birth but he was very nesh. Just HATED rain.
 
scats said:
I generally find that if a horse has decent enough grass and a friend (or at least can see a friend), they are happy being out.
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Deedee isn't. In fact we moved her from a field that was getting poached to the neighbouring field with decent grass -- still sharing a fence line with the same friend she had before. And she was pacing immediately and sweating up. She could not cope with the change of field. She is happy for 2-3 hours then she wants to come in and gets more and more agitated the longer she is left. My YO went out one day and left her for about 5 hours in sunshine and she was in a right state when she came back! YO won't leave her out anymore unless she is onsite and can bring her in immediately when she wants to come in.
 
My 2 special boys have to have careful management. My dislike of most people and their 'special' needs makes it easier to have my own place/space.

AE - I have an unrugged native and the neighbouring houses comment on how cold he must get at night. it hasn't dropped below 6-8 degrees here and he's a tad chubby.
 
Having said all that - if you let her stay in most of the day then she is fine! She is relaxed and happy in the stable and under saddle. We have been hacking out in windy conditions without any issues.
 
My stipulations are all year turnout, preferably mixed herd but 2/3/4 of the same sex is fine also. Even if it’s only during the day in winter as long as it’s not individual, decent sizes stables either indoor or outdoor facing not fussed as long as big enough for the horse to live around in, Hay/Straw on site. Arena/shower etc I’m flexible with I don’t need it but it’s nice to have.

maybe I’ve just always been spoiled but I’ve never had a horse on postage stamp fields or on individual turnout, Kia I kept on a farm as the only horse for a while but he had hers did sheep and cows and frequently would be spark out with them sleeping in the sun lol :)
 
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