No turn out and exercise?

[Silent Knight]

Putting to one side a personal preferance for year round turn out. Questions to those guys who have no option but keep in:

If your horse has no turn out over winter, how much excercise are you giving and are your horses 'climbing the walls' by spring?

Does anyone here keep in all year round?

 

[Luci07]

Not great. We have had times with the snow when the horses could not be ridden or turned out due to safety issues. Last year, our YO and staff actually (and painfully) cleared a horse walkway around the yard and were walking out all the 22 stabled horses several times a day to stretch the legs. Feed was changed as well but she had them out as soon as it was safe to do so. Long time ago I had a TB and no turnout during part of the winter. Massive pain as I had to religiously work him every day to stop him going nuts.

 

[wingedhorse]

No but has sometimes happened in past.

Adlib low calory roughage. Large stable with lots to see helped.

Try to get out of stable for an hour both ends of day. Once to ride and once to hand walk / hand graze / turn out on yard/ in school/ in pen/ lunge/ loose school / go on walker etc.

 

[Fourlegsgood]

All ours are in 24/7 at the moment because our fields are too small and they would trash them within about 10 minutes in this wet weather. All get ridden between 1/2 hr and 1 hr per day. No problems if a day is missed. They get into the routine and they are fine / not loopy. Feed wise they only get haylage anyway and no hard feed no matter what they are doing.

Horses adapt. Routine is what they like best.

 

[be positive]

I turn out most days but have 2 competition horses in livery that are generally worked 6 days a week with comps several times a month, both are happy to stay in if need be, working reasonably hard. One of these was kept in over winter, with just a small allweather T/O in his previous long term home, he is more than happy to stay in and had to a lot last winter as he had mud fever, which is probably due to the fact he had not been out in mud for the previous 8 winters.

I have worked on hunting yards where all horses stayed in, they hunted once or twice a week and just hacked daily in between, the hard work of hunting meant they never got too fresh despite being on loads of feed and very fit.

 

[Luci07]

See thats where the difference is. If your horse is used to it, and your work and feed regime reflects that, that you can manage it. When it is truly weather related, as our was, it was not a lot of fun and I for one, am most certainly not praying for snow at Xmas (humbug I know!)

 

[Dumbo]

I worked at a top eventer's yard in the summer (won't name names) but she kept her's in 24/7/365 and they got out for 20 minutes a day for a canter around the school. These are 17hh warmbloods. Yes they're 4* eventer's and she will have her reasons (I darent ask) but couldn't help but feel sorry for them!

 

[milliepops]

Agree that they adapt better than you think. When I was a kid had a pretty wild pony that had to be stabled all winter due to lack of turnout. The whole yard was in. I could only go up once a day and if I didn't ride on the school I used to take him out to graze on the verges. He was fine

My mare's legs fill when she stands in though, so I just don't think I could manage her in the same way if I had nowhere to turnout now

 

[fishy]

We have no winter turnout and our horses are ridden for between 40 - 1hr every day. They are turned out into the paddock a few times a week (but we are limited to about 1/2hr) and hacked out for longer at weekends. If the weather is really cold or it snows they are allowed out for a couple of hours, but only because we can't get off the yard. Suprisingly they do manage quite well. My daughters little cob had lived out before he came to us and he copes amazingly with it. They do get a little bit giddy come spring, but I think thats because they are fitter as well as being ready to go out. I think routine is important and also they are only fed haylage/hay and a small high fibre feed.

 

[Sparkles]

Mine have never changed at all really. Kept the welsh at college and didn't have turnout for about 5 months, other than the walker, daily lesson and turnout in indoor school [and sneaky half hour turnout halfway through our long rides at weekends occasionally through the out of sight dairy fields].

The TB ended up staying in a bit for his own reasons, again, never changed. Could leave him for weeks not ridden, and then hop on him bareback and hack him out no problem.


Baby coblet when barn kept, doesn't change either.


All on adlib hay/haylage, plus morning and dinner feed.

 

[chestnut cob]

Mine has been in for 3 or more weeks now. Been trying to exercise him twice a day when I can but he's going stir crazy so I'm moving yards to somewhere with more turnout! He's OK to hack but I can't get any sense out of him when schooling now - he's a young horse with bags of energy all the time so being in 24/7 isn't conducive to sensible schooling.

 

[Maisy]

I used to keep my mare on a yard which had very limited turnout in the summer and none at all over the winter. She was used to the arrangement, and was absolutely fine....she didn't want to be in the field for longer than an hour, and would jump the gate/fence to bring herself in.....she was there for 5 years, and I went through 2 pregnancies (one of which I couldn't ride at all through), so I used to loose school her, lunge her and take her for walks. She genuinely was happy, and not at all lively/fizzy.

I then moved her to a different yard, where she could go out all day, and it took months to get her to stay in the field for longer periods of time.

Now she loves being out, and although she will stand in when the weather is foul, she is ready to go out after a couple of days and will get very cranky by the 3rd day in a row....

 

[Misog2000]

Ours aren't in yet, but sure they will be soon. I lunge in the morning and ride for an hour or so at night, but my girl is 16 now and gets a bit stiff if she doesn't get out of her box twice a day, when she was younger I would just ride her in the pm.

She is a bit naughty the first few days she is in, but then she gets used to it and is ok, agree with the person who said its all about routine.....when she comes in hers changes, but once she is used to it, it's no problem.

I actually have more trouble with her when we have every other day turnout (sometimes we are allowed to trash one field, so we do mares one day geldings the next) as she doesn't know what's going on day to day, and sees the boys going out on her days in.....she will box walk and make a fuss then.

 

[Alyth]

For those of you that are forced to keep your horses in due to lack of space - would it not be possible to create a track? Using electric fencing and perhaps using the mucking out straw to create a good footing? We used to do this back in the 50s... you can start with a small circular track and then extend it as you have more straw.....If the ponies get on ok you could turn them out on the track in numbers - at liberty!! But we used to have the ponies out even in deep snow....it was the only time I ever saw my first pony rear!! She loved it!!! Ponies - and horses! - NEED movement....20 miles a day if possible....