Horses kept on housing estates!!!!am shocked by this!

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cumbriamax

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a few months ago a family moved into a council rented house in our village and brought with them an irish cob and a section A pony and kept them in the postage-stamp-sized back yard, after a while the cob disappeared (apparently is now in garden in carlisle with the brother), but the welshie stayed and they just let him out to graze on the village green, rugby field or just tied him up smewhere nothing stopping him getting on to road from green.

anyway my friend bought him and kept him at mine for a while(not too bad conditionoverall but thin needed wormed, feet done etc). I was telling my farrier about him and he said it is very common now for horses to be kept in gardens and on some housing estates in urban areas everyhouse nearly has horse pony tied up/in garden/or loose in general area, apparently called urban cowboys. but was shocked at how common this sort of thing is!

I was tld it may have caught on from ireland as many kids in dublin area have done this for years now!

anyone else heard this????????
 
Come to swansea, Place is full of horses tethered on commons, in gardens, also on roundabout - apparently it gets youngsters used to cars :eek::rolleyes::p its how some people live....and a lot of these horses are very very well looked after.....common land is free...livery isnt :)

When i was younger a boy in my old village tethered his horse on a mountain, the horse walked off a cliff edge :mad::(

Mine are kept in a field, untethered lol:D
 
There is a housing estate that I drive to to get to my horses field and theres usually a TB horse tethered on one of 4 grassy areas around a small island. It isnt always there so I believe they must move it around regularly to other parts of the estate. It does always have a rug on and always has hay and water.
 
About half an hour drive away from where I live is an area where you see lots of horses in back gardens etc. I could never keep a horse like that and although yes most of them may be looked after well etc. I don't think I agree with it.
 
There are many views on this subject, to me no i would not keep my horse like that, but at the end of the day most of these horses are very well kept.
And before loads of peole disagree, is it better that some horses that are kept in a 12x12 stable 23-24 hours a day
 
When I was a mere teenager, about 13, the local pet collectors got a pony and kept it in their back garden. They kept this pony in the garden and put it in a small garden shed at night - it got no feed, or hay and she would trot it up and down the road with no saddle or bridle - she fell off all the time and wouldnt give me a shot - I was livid :D

Eventually my parents called the SSPCA out of concern for the poor animal when my horse racing mad father saw its feet and got concerned - they came and took the pony away.

I used to pass a womans house every day who kept her horse in the back garden, but it was an enormous back garden that horsey could run around in - I used to sneak him carrots through a hole in the fence - I was 7 at the time and would steal the carrot from home.
 
The TB is probably a standard bred for trotting.

Teathering is so contraversal (sp?) and a common theme on here.

In my opinion tethering is not different to stabling, if done correctly. The RSPCA has a guidance on tethering and what should be done. I think one of the standards is the horse to be moved once every 12-24 hours.
 
miss_bird said:
And before loads of peole disagree, is it better that some horses that are kept in a 12x12 stable 23-24 hours a day
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Yep... failing to see the difference between a backyard and a stable. As long as the horse has everything it needs. Clearly if you are on a yard with a school that makes it 'completely' different *please insert sarcasm*!!! I personally wouldn't want to keep a horse without any turnout but hundreds of horses are kept like this including some of the top competition horses. Obviously I do not agree if they are not being cared for properly!!
 
back in the late 80s i trimmed a shetland and a donkey in a flat 6 floors up so they could walk to the lift to get them out . if i recall correctly the rspca officer was called mr cox , and the owners were an old couple who had lived in the country and the council moved them into this accomadation , they even had chickens and were only found out when the pee soaked through bthe ceiling below
chris
 
I seriously considered doing this myself last year during the bad winter weather. Horses were stabled 24/7 for days and weeks at a time on my posh yard.. Was tempted to bring them home and stick 'em in the garage.
No problem where they are kept, quality of care may be better than on a lot of yards with tiny individual paddocks and limited winter turnout.
 
I'm not for or against. As long as the horse or pony is suited to the environment and has adequate stimulation in terms of a change of scenery or exercise to keep it mentally well, then why not?
 
Haven't heard of this before & am shocked. Unless you've got an acre of garden an average size pony & upwards should not be kept in it. I am a great believer of the fact horses need space to run & must live with at least one other horse.
 
LuckyLaneRider said:
Haven't heard of this before & am shocked. Unless you've got an acre of garden an average size pony & upwards should not be kept in it. I am a great believer of the fact horses need space to run & must live with at least one other horse.
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You need to go and meet some serious competition horses, or working horses, or even Police horses to see that this isn't essential even if you believe it would be nicer for the horse.
 
No opinion on back yards, more interested in care of the horse.

Tethering I never heard of until I moved to Swansea (from the USA) and am definitely against. Common land is public land, and although bad things can happen to a horse in its own fenced field, too, the type of areas that tend to do a lot of tethering also tend to have anti-social behaviour from punk kids who bother, steal, stab and throw rocks at tethered horses. Also, stray dogs etc. I don't agree with a horse having its only natural defense (to run away) being taken away for the sake of 'free' grazing.

Just my two cents.
 
the watcher said:
You need to go and meet some serious competition horses, or working horses, or even Police horses to see that this isn't essential even if you believe it would be nicer for the horse.
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Have worked with competition horses (Showjumpers, eventers & racehorses!) at top level & although they did not get constant access to turnout & other horses 24/7, it was there as often as it could be. If they didn't have it i believed they would be very very unhappy horses... unless they had been brought up without it & didn't know what they were missing.
 
i joke that i keep mine in my back garden. although my garden is at the front of my house and at the back is a paddock of about 1/3- 1/2 an acre where my stable is and we do live in a cottage in the country. I also rent a further 3 acres just along the road, although last winter the river flooded that field and my horse spent the winter months in the paddock , able to come and go from the stable as he wanted.

what makes me wonder about people keeping horses in proper small gardens on estates, is how do they manage the muck and smell? im surprised the local authorities allow it and id wonder about muck heaps and removal of them,?
 
I grew up on a huge council estate and it was VERY normal to have ponies in peoples back gardens - alot of people would have 3-4 stables in a 50ft garden - we often used to ride all sorts of ponies around the parks and the estate and then we would take them back and fuss them - it was the norm.
I wouldnt do it myself as luckily I can now afford a fair amount of luxury for my horses but it really isnt as unusual as some people think it is.
 
My concern about it isnt so much the lack of 'proper' turnout as we all know of lots of yards that dont turn out, tho I dont agree with that unless the horses have at least a month a year somewhere proper for a good holiday and gallop like the cavalry ones.

Its more about the fact that with very little room and very little money and maybe quite a rough area, the likelihood of the horses (which are expensive things if they get ill) being well cared for is lower, the danger from rubbish and dumped stuff is greater and the chances of them being abused by kids throwing stones etc or letting them loose is greater. Added to the fact that the numbers tend to get out of control as breeding becomes pretty indiscriminate.

The tethering practices I have seen have never met the welfare guidelines, I only wish they did, if they did I wouldnt have any problem with tethering. The issue is if the care is lacking, tethering takes away the horses ability to help itself in any way, by finding food, water or by running away from abusers. I dont think it should be banned for transit stopping but I do think it should be restricted as a permanent grazing method in permanent grazing.
 
Round my area there used to be loads of horses in peoples gardens! We are very close to Richmond park and TBH the livery has no turnout round here, so if you've got room for a stable its a far cheaper way of doing things!
 
I think the opposite. When driving past an area the other day I realised that there were no ponies teathered there and I coudn't remember the last time I had seen one. 10 years ago it was a regular sight.
There was also individual fields that you could rent - just a field no facilities..
Also lots of the old posh terraces used to have stables at the back, when I was growing up a few of them were still occupied - none are now.
Everyone one is on "proper" livery yards.
 
Holme wood in bradford seems like the ***** pony teathering central of the world. They're on every single spare foot of grass. Every park, every communal area. It means the kids can't safely play on those areas so play on the roads. Uh, priorities anyone??? Also, they don't seem underweight, but i worry about them being tethered with no defenses in one of the roughest areas of bradford (which is rough itself). They must get bothered by the kids. I just don't see any need. And i would happily rant as much to anyone who stabled their horse 24 hours a day without good cause. Including Anky if it came to it. I just can't see how you can justify taking EVERYTHING from a horse without a damned good reason. The horses life has revolved aroun moving. They even move when they eat. I don't see how just because it has food that makes it ok to be tethered, seperate from any semblance of a herd, with no horsey contact, no protection, comfort, escape or socialisation. Grr!


Ah, aparently that word is banned. I thought it was preferable. 'travelling community' who have now taken over a whole estate. How's that?
 
Ayla84 said:
Come to swansea, Place is full of horses tethered on commons, in gardens, also on roundabout - apparently it gets youngsters used to cars :eek::rolleyes::p its how some people live....and a lot of these horses are very very well looked after.....common land is free...livery isnt :)

When i was younger a boy in my old village tethered his horse on a mountain, the horse walked off a cliff edge :mad::(

Mine are kept in a field, untethered lol:D
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I thought they stopped ponies being tethered in Townhill,Blaenymaes,etc? I know there used to be a lot of it years ago. You never see ponies in gardens here in Neath.
 
Do people honestly pay for livery and their horses have NO turnout? I can appreciate that competition horses and horses that have a job to do, such as police horses, spend many hours stabled, but is no turnout the norm for some horses? I know we are completely overburden with horses in this country at the moment but this is completely unethical. I am gobsmacked. No wonder there are so many screwed up horses out there!
 
In the housing estate I live in back home, I was once being given a lift home from somewhere, and as we passed the local shop on the green outside was someone holding a horse letting it graze :o We have a few horses kept in gardens in my area I think. Also, my mum rang me one day because she had just seen someone walking down the road with a pig on a lead :eek: And one of our neighbours has a garden full of chickens :p Well ... it is called Kings Farm :D
 
My mum used to put electric fencing around the fruit trees and veggie patch and let our ponies graze the 'lawn' for about a week at a time, dog had a hell of a shock when we let him out first time she did it. But that was in the countryside.
We used to have a family who loaned one of our ponies keeping her at the same livery yard as us. they kept her in the back garden for the summer holidays as a treat for the children. It was in a really built up housing estate in bracknell.

But I see what people mean about rough areas but I dont think its any differant to a field without occupancy. maybe safer to be where you can see them. if a choice between tethering or back garden def back garden.
 
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