Late night checks?

Apercrumbie said:
Mine are out 24/7 so I don't do a late check no, it's interesting that I seem to be in the minority here!
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Mine are out 24/7 but I still do a late night check - as I mentioned early I found one horse (RIP) stuck in a ditch at about 11pm :( All was OK at 8pm... We were able to get him to his stable, but sadly he still passed away. I would have been devestated to find him dead in a ditch :(
 
I have always been lucky and had my horses at home, and have done lates for as long as I can remember. I go out sometime between 10pm and 11pm (or 9pm if I'm feeling particularly knackered!) and skip out, hay and water mine. It's perfect for rug changing etc. as well.

The yard manager also lives on site and he goes round and checks the full and part liveries, hunters and all the riding school horses at about the same time. If he's away I do it for him. No skipping out though for that lot or I'd still be there at 6am!!

Doing lates has saved horses many times for me. When I had my own yard I had a pony liveried with me who got cast every five minutes, so always had to check on him, and one who colicked at the drop of a hat. Without doing lates there are a number of horses who would no longer be with us!

I can't sleep if I haven't been and done my pony last thing.
 
EQUIDAE said:
Mine are out 24/7 but I still do a late night check - as I mentioned early I found one horse (RIP) stuck in a ditch at about 11pm :( All was OK at 8pm... We were able to get him to his stable, but sadly he still passed away. I would have been devestated to find him dead in a ditch :(
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Very sad for you.

Equally, a friend lost her horse recently.
She turned it out at 7.30am & went off to work. Had the afternoon off & arrived at yard at 2pm, horse had colicked (never had done before & was 14yr old) and had died in a rather horrid way, was trapped up against the gate where he had got caught when rolling (we surmised). He had been seen by a neighbour around 9am & looked apparently fine then.

Where you have livestock, you also have dead stock & you cannot always be in a position to watch over them all hours of the day/night, sadly.
 
Michen said:
I find it bizarre that anyone would need to check their horses because they would be out of water? I leave mine at 5pm ish and that's it until 6am the next morning- he would never ever run out of water.
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I have found that drinking can vary. Sometimes he has drunk a huge amount by the time I do lates, and it isn't enough to see him through the night. He has also kicked his buckets over before and would have been without all night had I not done lates. The idea of leaving horses unchecked for 12 hours makes me twitchy.
 
Michen said:
What I mean by that is that my horse would never run out of water, he always has at least a third left in the morning- they would never be allowed to run out.
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It is not so much that they might run out as that they could have tipped the trug over or, more likely, use for a purpose for which it was never intended(!) and it prefer them to have clean water available. I must say emptying pooey water at midnight and then refilling the trug is definitely NOT my favourite part of horse ownership!
 
Rollin said:
We have our own yard now and always check our horses at 10.00pm.

How many members check late at night or use livery where the owner checks the yard late each evening?
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At the old yard we used to do a late night check at 10pm and net all horses, but our late night check is anything from half five to seven pm now at this yard. I am always there when its done so tend to do my horse myself.
 
I don't. But then I'm not usually finished until 8.00pm and I don't have them at home. Back when I did, I used to got out around 10.00 for a last check, all was fine one night, so I went off back to bed. Something was bugging me however, so I went back out around an hour later to find my horse had cast himself.

They can get themselves into trouble as soon as your back is turned. I'm considering CCTV, but I have no idea how to power yet, it as we don't have a mains electricity supply.

I have a serial bucket-tipper, so his bucket is now clipped to the wall. Problem solved. Until he discovers some other mischief...
 
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