Light hearted- old yard ways

ycbm said:
I was DIY forty years ago in 1980, when was the earliest anyone remembers?

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I was on DIY in 1978, Ironwell Lane in Rochford, Essex. I think there is a proper yard there now but at the time it was a farm with a few pigs and that was it. Then moved to full livery while I was abroad and then back to DIY when I took him to Germany in 83.
 
1966 ... 20 or so horses all turned out together all year on a farm. You paid extra for a stable I think there were about 6. Climbing haystacks higher than a house on broken wooden ladders to toss the bales down. Only catching my pony twice in a whole winter because the acreage was so huge, hilly and overgrown. No facilities or yard manager we all more or less did as we liked until the farmer said No. Apart from riding on the farm we hacked 3/4 hour through town on A roads to ONE field where we could canter. If someone had a trailer their parents must be millionaires.
Buying straights at the mill and one day being surprised when I was offered Horse and Pony Nuts, Spillers, I think..
 
1976 - drought summer. Grass livery on a yard that also did pony rides for tourists. The liveries were almost all children from 6 to 16 completely unsupervised. You only went up when you were going to ride which in winter termtime was weekends but someone would look over all the horses when they went to catch the riding stable ones. Fed straights, usually a scoop of oats but other things fed were bran, Spillers pony nuts, flaked maize and sugarbeet and only fed after riding on the days you rode.

A few ponies later I got a nice 14 2 jumping pony with enough blood that needed a bit more care and I used to feed a Hunter Mix made up by a local feed merchants. I remember it being sticky so probably loads of molasses and I remember these little milk pellets that we used to pick out and eat.

Can't say there were any strange rules as there were very few rules I remember.
 
My old routine.
At yard 5.30am, check horses, 6am feed and small hay net, 6.30am turnout those going out, 7am start cleaning 15 stables between 4 girls (full clean no skipping out), 9am quick breakfast for us, 10am - 1pm ride horses that needed exercising, groom and put away 1 - 2 lunch, 2-5 ride other horses, 5 bring in horses from field, Quick groom, check and change rugs, 6pm night feed and hay net. For those not on night shift go home, for others check horses 8pm and again at 10pm. 6 days a week. Best time of my life.
 
I remember it being totally acceptable to canter on verges too.

I can also remember always wearing a hairnet (regardless of weather and situation) and everything was fed straights.

My friend had her pony at a really posh livery yard in the 1980s. I just remember it having an actual café which I was stunned by!
 
I got my first horse in 2000. I remember going to the feed store and buying pasture mix and hay mix. No wonder he was wired!
 
Was bought my first horse in 1969 to get me to accept a 400 mile house move he was a newly broken 15.2 Irish TB he was wonderful his grass livery cost 25p per week or 5 shillings/bob. Cost the mighty sum of £140. He was fed oats and bran mostly although he did get black treacle dissolved in boiling water poured over it in winter. Food came in 1 cwt sacks or roughly 51kgs took two to lift them. Farrier came with a coke forge to my garage to do the local horses who all came there. In awful weather we took the horse to the garage to thatch him and let him dry out while mum dried his canvas new zealand as he only had one. I was 15 at the time
 
I read in a horse book from an old timer of the practice of allowing cobwebs to build up in a stable as they were used to put on cuts and grazes, as something in the spider webs had some healing property....?! Anyone know of this?
 
PurBee said:
I read in a horse book from an old timer of the practice of allowing cobwebs to build up in a stable as they were used to put on cuts and grazes, as something in the spider webs had some healing property....?! Anyone know of this?
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Spider webs are rich in vitamin K, which helps with blood clotting. However, it must be a fresh, clean spider web! Anything old and covered in dust is just going to introduce infection.
 
Pippity said:
Spider webs are rich in vitamin K, which helps with blood clotting. However, it must be a fresh, clean spider web! Anything old and covered in dust is just going to introduce infection.
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Ah interesting, so there’s some truth to it. I did wonder about the dusty ones being risky!
 
Love reading this thread! I can't go back as far as got my first loan pony in 2000 when I was 10, and probably first starting visiting my best friend on her mum's DIY yard in 1996. We used to get up early on Saturday if I'd stayed over and go out to feed all the livery horses (it was DIY but there was a weekend feed rota so people could have a lie in, and we loved doing it!).
 
Frano said:
I remember playing British bulldog on ponies at riding school. Children on ponies at each end of the riding school. Cantering towards each other to reach the other end of the school. Made more fun by trying to avoid the metal pillars holding the roof up!
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Did you go to the same RS as me ??
 
Meredith said:
Getaway.... 7/6d a week,DIY as described above
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Not in the 80's, we went decimal currency in 1971 ? What year was that?


Ani2013 said:
I remember my full livery cost me £22pw in the eighties!
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In 1990 I was paying £60 a week for full livery ridden three days a week, but I supplied all the hard food. That wasn't expensive for full livery around Bristol, either.

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I was bought my first pony in 1971 and she was kept in our 1/2 acre orchard at night and tethered on the village green in the day. She never once in her life worn a rug despite living in North Yorkshire when winters were properly harsh. We regularly cantered on the grass verges and jumped the ditches on the side of the road. My saddle was ancient and as flat as a pancake and the pony bucked like a rodeo bronco - I developed amazing stickability!
 
ycbm said:
Not in the 80's, we went decimal currency in 1971 ? What year was that?





In 1990 I was paying £60 a week for full livery ridden three days a week, but I supplied all the hard food. That wasn't expensive for full livery around Bristol, either.

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I suppose I didn’t make that clear.
My previous post..... 1966
 
nikicb said:
All horses had Mondays off and no liveries were allowed to visit unless it was an emergency (ie your horse basically just about to die!!). This was 40 years ago though!
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I was on a yard less than 8 years ago that this was the case!! Even in an emergency it wouldnt have been allowed!!! And there was early closing on Friday - madness!

Same yard insisted on feeding a hot bran mash every Sunday night... despite several rows with the YO to stop it being fed to my horse, she insisted. Finally she stopped but I left anyway - turnout was non-existent, still wonder how I stayed there!
 
I love this thread. I don't remember any weird or whacky ideas or routines but there was always a lot of copying. For example one horse would need a grackle noseband & then suddenly loads of others needed the same one. Loads of people needed dually headcollars too, all of a sudden.
 
As it was my parents yard I thought everything was pretty normal.

we had 1 farrier - that everyone used.
THE Vet came - same one for everyone.

The broodmares lived out all year, only coming in to the stables for foaling. They had 'the big field' in winter if it was really wet and cold they would come into the indoor school with hay and a bit a chaff.

If we needed an emergency stable dad built it. Either in the hay barn or the back of the school, but he would always find a space.

Mucking out was done first thing, before breakfast. skip out at lunch time and any stabled ponies would get a bucket of carrots. Skip out again at tea time.

Hay rakes were always full - and checked at regular intervals during the day.

Tack had to be wiped over before going back on the rack and bits cleaned.

Biggest thing I remember as a kid was Dad was always on the muck in winter. He stacked it like a castle which never seemed to get any bigger. Only in later years did I realise it was the warmest place to be - the rest of us were pushing wheelbarrows along icy cold concrete yards and he was in his castle as toasty as can be!:D
 
tIn the late 80s I worked at a local riding school in return for 'free' rides (mostly on the nutty horses that were no good for clients). There was one called Orbit (because he's send you into it) and I'd refuse to ride him but wouldn't be offered anything else so I'd work all day for nothing. One of the jobs was making chaff by feeding hay into this ancient chopping machine. It was all belts, cogs and blades with no guards and we'd operate it as 12 year old girls in baggy t-shirts with no supervision. I imagine the machine would be condemned these days for anyone's use - let alone a bunch of kids!
They had a very high-tech hydroponic grass machine that would grow grass in trays. There would be 4 strips per tray so they looked like kit-kats. This was to make up for the total lack of grazing. The ponies would be turned out in a concrete yard with a barn for overnight and the horses had stables and would be allowed into the indoor school in groups for a run around before and after lessons.
 
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I got my first horse in 1999 when I was 12 and kept him at a proper old school riding school on working livery. All the ponies lived in a massive field together and had canvas new zealand rugs, nothing wore boots apart from the 'dressage horses' who had bandages which we were all taught to put on correctly and heaven forbid we messed them up. We were expected to just stand on stable doors to tack up the big horses as we couldn't reach other wise. Always cleaning the horses bit in a bucket by the tack room door on the way int and having to cross the throatlatch over the bridle in a figure of eight with the reins done up to everything looked tidy. Horses had 'sticky chaff' (molassed mollichaff) or 'horse chaff' (Alfa A) if they were over 15'2hh with pony nuts, super barley rings if they hunted and maize. You had to rub your hands in the mazie to clean the molasses off them from the sticky chaff after doing feeds because obviously you measured chaff as a double handfull and not using an actual scoop! Brown tack only and cotton cottage craft girths on all the saddles. I'm still so old school people literally roll their eyes at me on the yard but I wouldn't have it any other way.
 
PurBee said:
I read in a horse book from an old timer of the practice of allowing cobwebs to build up in a stable as they were used to put on cuts and grazes, as something in the spider webs had some healing property....?! Anyone know of this?
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I always give this excuse for the spiders' webs in the house! Yes, keep them in the stables for emergencies, they are supposed to stop blood flow if put on cuts etc. So pleased others have heard of this.
 
annagain said:
tIn the late 80s I worked at a local riding school in return for 'free' rides (mostly on the nutty horses that were no good for clients). There was one called Orbit (because he's send you into it) and I'd refuse to ride him but wouldn't be offered anything else so I'd work all day for nothing. One of the jobs was making chaff by feeding hay into this ancient chopping machine. It was all belts, cogs and blades with no guards and we'd operate it as 12 year old girls in baggy t-shirts with no supervision. I imagine the machine would be condemned these days for anyone's use - let alone a bunch of kids!
They had a very high-tech hydroponic grass machine that would grow grass in trays. There would be 4 strips per tray so they looked like kit-kats. This was to make up for the total lack of grazing. The ponies would be turned out in a concrete yard with a barn for overnight and the horses had stables and would be allowed into the indoor school in groups for a run around before and after lessons.
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I remember a yard near us having the hydroponics thing, us kids thought it was very impressive. Dads reply - TURN THE BL**DY THINGS OUT!!! :D
 
One of the first places I kept my pony as a kid was a proper old farm. Lovely place but falling apart. Great fun playing there as a kid. There were millions of cats (none neutered ?) so constantly multiplying. Everything in the tack room was covered in cat shit. There was no light in there and in the dark I picked up my numnah once and it was soaked in cat diorehea ? helped me build a strong immune system I guess ?
All the horses went out together as a herd in a massive field too. No where seems to do this now
 
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