Gaps in the Equine product and service market

[EquineEEF]

Hello everyone..This is my first time posting so...Hi

I am preparing a research paper on the perceived gaps in both the product and service market within the equine industry and I am looking to understand what, as horse owners, peoples biggest challenges are day to day? If possible I would like to understand what things you regularly think " I wish someone made X to solve that problem and make life easier" or "I wish there was someone that did X so I didn't have too"

All weird and wonderful suggestions welcome. If it is a problem/challenge that you encounter daily I would love to hear about it...from feed bucket solutions to unusual horsey holidays (literally plucking these out of the air) then please post below.

Thanks in advance!

 

[dogatemysalad]

It's be great if there was a New Owners Mentor service. Someone who was able to advise inexperienced owners through the first year with queries regarding care, feed and behavioural problems. Horse ownership should be a pleasure for both owner and horse and not everyone has a great YO or experienced friend to get them off to a good start.

 

[MrsMozart]

A way of getting water to stable or field, that doesn't involve either carrying buckets or dragging them!

 

[DabDab]

A dust that you can sprinkle on hay to make it double in volume

 

[EquineEEF]

It's be great if there was a New Owners Mentor service. Someone who was able to advise inexperienced owners through the first year with queries regarding care, feed and behavioural problems. Horse ownership should be a pleasure for both owner and horse and not everyone has a great YO or experienced friend to get them off to a good start.

Thank you for your reply. Thats a really interesting suggestion and one I have thought about myself. We have a few girls on the yard which are new horse owners and you forget all the things as an experienced horse owner, you do as second nature. That will be a really interesting one to discuss in my report. Thank you.

 

[EquineEEF]

A way of getting water to stable or field, that doesn't involve either carrying buckets or dragging them!

The water struggle...I can definitely relate to this! Thank you.

 

[nikicb]

A way of getting water to stable or field, that doesn't involve either carrying buckets or dragging them!

A hose!!

 

[HappyHollyDays]

A way of getting water to stable or field, that doesn't involve either carrying buckets or dragging them!

I think what you are looking for is a hosepipe 😜😂

Seriously though I know people who use a water bowser in a field with no water supply.

 

[MrsMozart]

Some yards actually don't allow hoses! Or they freeze. Or someone has bogged off with it because theirs is damaged.

 

[albeg]

Some yards actually don't allow hoses! Or they freeze. Or someone has bogged off with it because theirs is damaged.

H2Go wheelbarrow bag? (though technically still lugging it...)

 

[Orangehorse]

The way we keep horses. This has been in my mind due to the discussion about the lack of racing grooms. We still keep and care for horses the same as 100s of years ago. If you looked at a film on a farm 50 years ago and now it would be completely different, with machinery taken the place of most members of staff, yet if you took the film in a stables it would be nearly the same, with girls wheeling full wheelbarrows and carrying buckets of water.

I think the design of stables should be altered, so it is easy for machinery to get in and muck out so grooms can ride, groom and care for the horse, but the heavy mucking out business it done by machine.

Apparently in Germany a business man built himself stables where the floor is a conveyor belt, the stable partions can all fold back and every so often the whole floor is just emptied out into a large trailer at the end!

 

[EquineEEF]

The way we keep horses. This has been in my mind due to the discussion about the lack of racing grooms. We still keep and care for horses the same as 100s of years ago. If you looked at a film on a farm 50 years ago and now it would be completely different, with machinery taken the place of most members of staff, yet if you took the film in a stables it would be nearly the same, with girls wheeling full wheelbarrows and carrying buckets of water.

I think the design of stables should be altered, so it is easy for machinery to get in and muck out so grooms can ride, groom and care for the horse, but the heavy mucking out business it done by machine.

Apparently in Germany a business man built himself stables where the floor is a conveyor belt, the stable partions can all fold back and every so often the whole floor is just emptied out into a large trailer at the end!

This is a really interesting concept! Imagine how easy that would make life for grooms on large yards...certainly an idea to explore in my paper. Thank you very much.

 

[HeyMich]

A way to feed hay to a pony in a stable who likes to get his feet into his hay! Haynets get caught on his feet, haybars get emptied, piles of hay on the floor get stomped on and kicked around. So much wastage!

 

[Orangehorse]

A way to feed hay to a pony in a stable who likes to get his feet into his hay! Haynets get caught on his feet, haybars get emptied, piles of hay on the floor get stomped on and kicked around. So much wastage!

There are hay feeding containers that have holes int he top so that the pony can't get stuck inside, and can eat the hay through the holes, can't remember the name, but they are around. I have a Hay Cube, but I don't like it very much really but can't justify getting another sort yet.

 

[Orangehorse]

This is a really interesting concept! Imagine how easy that would make life for grooms on large yards...certainly an idea to explore in my paper. Thank you very much.

I recently watched a film of a farm made about 10/15 years ago, it was for a cropping time that only lasts about a month, so quite hard to justify the expense of new plant and machinery, but watching how the farmer and his staff were manhandling large heavy bags, and putting things onto a loader, and then taking them off again just looked SO old fashioned and there were several members of staff around, and it is just so hard now to get casual farm staff so farmers have responded by making machinery take the place of staff, and working on the design of buildings so that even feeding and caring for hundreds of cattle can be done by one or two people.

 

[Sealine]

My biggest challenge is hay soaking due to my dodgy back. My horse has a large haynet which I soak in a plastic half barrel. The problem is pulling the wet hay out of the water and hanging it up to drain. I then have to tip the container over to empty it. I've often thought that I need a container with a plug that is accessible whilst the hay is in it and a grid or similar at the bottom so that I can just take the plug out and leave the hay in the container to drain.

I could split the hay into smaller nets but that's just more faffing around filling nets. The alternative is to use haylage but I find small bales expensive. Livery yard does not allow large bales and I wouldn't use it before it went off.

 

[Identityincrisis]

Something to fill haynets!! My biggest bane! I have a hay bar but need the nets inside it to slow the greedy sod down

 

[Meredith]

Something that filters hay soaking water so that contaminated water doesn’t go into water courses.

 

[Shavings]

a fly spray that keep horse flies away?
i have been though pretty much every spray,cream, shampoo and still the get attacked!

 

[Kaylum]

The biggest thing for me is meadow management. Some horse owners have no idea about it and spend zero money on it. Yet they are happy to spend hundreds on feed. They don't seem to understand about looking after the land and maintaining it.

Regarding the mucking out process 20 years ago when I was at the German yards they had a conveyer belt running down the middle of the barn ready that ends up in a muck truck. Not sure if they have them nowadays.

A new owners mentoring service is in theory a good idea but would you keep a horse like the next person would keep a horse? Probably not. Just look on the new owners pages here and you can get several different answers to the same question.

 

[gallopingby]

My biggest challenge is hay soaking due to my dodgy back. My horse has a large haynet which I soak in a plastic half barrel. The problem is pulling the wet hay out of the water and hanging it up to drain. I then have to tip the container over to empty it. I've often thought that I need a container with a plug that is accessible whilst the hay is in it and a grid or similar at the bottom so that I can just take the plug out and leave the hay in the container to drain.

I could split the hay into smaller nets but that's just more faffing around filling nets. The alternative is to use haylage but I find small bales expensive. Livery yard does not allow large bales and I wouldn't use it before it went off.

 

[gallopingby]

My biggest challenge is hay soaking due to my dodgy back. My horse has a large haynet which I soak in a plastic half barrel. The problem is pulling the wet hay out of the water and hanging it up to drain. I then have to tip the container over to empty it. I've often thought that I need a container with a plug that is accessible whilst the hay is in it and a grid or similar at the bottom so that I can just take the plug out and leave the hay in the container to drain.

I could split the hay into smaller nets but that's just more faffing around filling nets. The alternative is to use haylage but I find small bales expensive. Livery yard does not allow large bales and I wouldn't use it before it went off.

I have a haycube which does this job.

 

[turkana]

The way we keep horses. This has been in my mind due to the discussion about the lack of racing grooms. We still keep and care for horses the same as 100s of years ago. If you looked at a film on a farm 50 years ago and now it would be completely different, with machinery taken the place of most members of staff, yet if you took the film in a stables it would be nearly the same, with girls wheeling full wheelbarrows and carrying buckets of water.

I think the design of stables should be altered, so it is easy for machinery to get in and muck out so grooms can ride, groom and care for the horse, but the heavy mucking out business it done by machine.

Apparently in Germany a business man built himself stables where the floor is a conveyor belt, the stable partions can all fold back and every so often the whole floor is just emptied out into a large trailer at the end!

I did a riding holiday in Austria & they had something similar, each stable had a hole in the floor, covered with what looked like a metal drain cover, with a conver belt underneath, the dirty bedding was swept into the hole & the converor belt took it to the muck heap! Genius idea

 

[Keith_Beef]

H2Go wheelbarrow bag? (though technically still lugging it...)

You have horses in a field... There is a tap a certain distance from the field... Train your horses for harness, and get them to bring their own water to the field!

Horse drawn water bowser

 

[PoniesRock]

Something that can pick up a small bale of haylage off of a stack and carry it to where you need it. Wrapped small bales are a nightmare!! I just don’t have long enough arms and they are so heavy!

 

[Cortez]

Something that can pick up a small bale of haylage off of a stack and carry it to where you need it. Wrapped small bales are a nightmare!! I just don’t have long enough arms and they are so heavy!

A wheelbarrow?

 

[Chippers1]

My biggest challenge is hay soaking due to my dodgy back. My horse has a large haynet which I soak in a plastic half barrel. The problem is pulling the wet hay out of the water and hanging it up to drain. I then have to tip the container over to empty it. I've often thought that I need a container with a plug that is accessible whilst the hay is in it and a grid or similar at the bottom so that I can just take the plug out and leave the hay in the container to drain.

I could split the hay into smaller nets but that's just more faffing around filling nets. The alternative is to use haylage but I find small bales expensive. Livery yard does not allow large bales and I wouldn't use it before it went off.

I used to use a bin with a very fine crack in it, the water would slowly drain out overnight so didn't cause too much of a puddle and the hay was easy to pull out in the morning as the water had drained off it!

 

[Cortez]

I have used a water butt with a tap on the bottom, I've also fitted a tap myself on a plastic barrel to let the water out.

 

[Auslander]

I think the design of stables should be altered, so it is easy for machinery to get in and muck out so grooms can ride, groom and care for the horse, but the heavy mucking out business it done by machine.

Apparently in Germany a business man built himself stables where the floor is a conveyor belt, the stable partions can all fold back and every so often the whole floor is just emptied out into a large trailer at the end!

Mine open up completely - just a couple of bolts top and bottom. They are brilliant

 

[ycbm]

Hats in hi viz colours so I don't have to faff with a cover that blows off in the wind.

A proper agency for temporary grooms so that I can always get an insured and verified one when I want to go away from home.