LauraJay
Member
I’ve recently moved my 15yo warmblood gelding onto grass livery after having a baby. My previous yard was DIY stable and herd grazing, but horses had to come in every night due to lack of grass. I decided to move him as my income has gone down drastically while on maternity leave and also frees me up more time to get back to riding as baby is now three months old and I’m desperate to get back to it. Fields are chain harrowed and well managed, three fields to be rotated between, sprayed for rag etc. so there are no jobs to do just a welfare check when I go down.
My boy does like to be out at night during the summer but I’m not sure how he will be wintering out. They do have a shelter which they have access to though the YO says none of them use it.
Before I moved I’d also put my name down somewhere for stable and individual grazing where horses are only required to come in at night Dec to March. A space has come available on this yard for beginning of October and I’m super stuck on whether to move him or not. I’ve owned him for 8 years and through the whole time I’ve owned him he has always come in at night during the winter months.
One of the other reasons I chose to move is because he is a bit of a stress head and gets quite bad separation anxiety. If horses in the stables around him go out he will box walk and on occasions has tried to (once successfully) come over the stable door. I also found that when I had him in individual turnout previously, if he sees other horses around him being bought in he tends to fence walk. If both horses either side of him were bought in he would just bomb around the field until he was bought in, even if he there was still other horses out in the vicinity (it was a block of 8 individual paddocks). To try and resolve this I used to make sure he was the first horse out and bought in before his field neighbours. I thought maybe being out 24/7 would help him with this as there are a few retirees that never leave the field and it eliminates the stable aspect.
So my two questions are, am I just being daft for thinking he won’t manage being out 24/7 over the winter? And does anyone have experience with a horse with separation anxiety and how they managed this? Will constantly being out with other horses help?
My boy does like to be out at night during the summer but I’m not sure how he will be wintering out. They do have a shelter which they have access to though the YO says none of them use it.
Before I moved I’d also put my name down somewhere for stable and individual grazing where horses are only required to come in at night Dec to March. A space has come available on this yard for beginning of October and I’m super stuck on whether to move him or not. I’ve owned him for 8 years and through the whole time I’ve owned him he has always come in at night during the winter months.
One of the other reasons I chose to move is because he is a bit of a stress head and gets quite bad separation anxiety. If horses in the stables around him go out he will box walk and on occasions has tried to (once successfully) come over the stable door. I also found that when I had him in individual turnout previously, if he sees other horses around him being bought in he tends to fence walk. If both horses either side of him were bought in he would just bomb around the field until he was bought in, even if he there was still other horses out in the vicinity (it was a block of 8 individual paddocks). To try and resolve this I used to make sure he was the first horse out and bought in before his field neighbours. I thought maybe being out 24/7 would help him with this as there are a few retirees that never leave the field and it eliminates the stable aspect.
So my two questions are, am I just being daft for thinking he won’t manage being out 24/7 over the winter? And does anyone have experience with a horse with separation anxiety and how they managed this? Will constantly being out with other horses help?
