No turnout dilemma

[[155411]]

I have to move my mare to a yard that has no grass turnout in the winter months. This is blamed on clay ground. My current yard is closing down and I have limited options. This is close enough to home, in my budget and offers assistance. New yard has a horse walker and a sand pen for turnout (to be shared by all livery’s) but will end up being a hour or two a day at least 4x a week. I will do my best to give her as much in hand grazing in local hacking fields. Summer turnout in big fields 24/7. Great hacking with hills etc and big, long arena. Horse will be coming into full med- hard work (showjumping) soon. Stables have bars so chance of horses interacting to some extent? When I went to view the yard all horses seemed to be very happy, chilled and looking fit and healthy. However im keeping my options open incase something more suitable in the area comes up. I am nervous to see how my mare copes as she loves her field time but should be happy with all the horses in the barn. Her stable is also next to the side opening in the barn having the arena and turnout pen in sight which should provide some stimulation and airflow. I will put down a big hunters shavings bed and I will provide ad lib forage using a homemade hay feeder, nets, balls etc so she never goes hungry. Her legs tend to fill so am looking into magnetic stable chaps etc.

Any tips or advice to make this a bit more bearable for my darling girl and would be very appreciated also what forage replacing feeds work well? Hay cubes/ grass nuts/ forage blocks etc? Supplements to replace all the goodness from grazing? Balancers?

Many thanks, a stressed and guilty horse mum.

 

[Hallo2012]

whilst i absolutely 100% think that all day turnout is best, staying in with plenty of exercise is better than being knee and hock deep in mud with nothing to graze just for the sake of people saying they have turnout.

i would say that whilst not ideal, if she can go in the pen for a couple of hours (pref with a mate) and go on the walker, and go out for a hand graze, and be ridden (even if just 20 min walking and stretching) every single day, you will be fine.

hide grass nuts and carrots around her stable, offer a trug of damp readigrass mixed with fresh hand pulled grass to pick at and ad lib hay.

if you can get her out and let her have some mutual grooming time with a good friend either in hand or the pen each week that would be nice too.

 

[PurBee]

If i was having to deal with your yards restrictions, i’d try to evenly stagger throughout 24hrs the sand school turn-out, the hand-grazing, and the riding. This then gives the horse a regime of being stabled no longer than about 6hrs - which helps her legs from filling, gives routine stimulation guaranteed in her world, regularly.
It would be better than 20hrs stabled, then sand turnout, grazing and riding happening in one time-frame chunk of 4hrs.

 

[PurBee]

Simple system feeds do hard forage blocks - ive never tried them but theyd offer a diet variety and some stimulation.

 

[SEL]

With my bodyworker hat on I get twitchy when horse have no turnout - whilst knowing its a horrible fact of life in a lot of livery yards.

However you do it just try and make sure that somehow she is getting movement during the day even if that is a combination of sand paddock turnout, in hand grazing and formal exercise. Muscles and the lymphatic system do struggle quite quickly and it isn't obvious to the eye (its one of the reasons vets don't recommend total box rest unless its an acute injury these days - most patients get walked out). Your warm-ups when you are riding will need to be longer and slower to take account of the fact that's she's standing still for much of the day.

Can you get anyone else in during the week to help ride out? If you are planning a decent schooling session then having someone do a quiet hack earlier on in the day would really help loosen her up. Horsewalkers have their uses but people tend to go overboard when they've got no other form of exercise for their horse and that's when repetitive strain type injuries happen.

In terms of stimulation then I've used the forage blocks (Halleys do them as well as Simple Systems) and they are good. You can buy little nets if you want to slow them down further. I've also seen a ball thing that had carrots in it but even pony nuts in a treat ball can occupy most horses for a while. Haynets hung in different parts of the stable, carrots hidden in them or even carrots hidden in the bed can all help keep a horse occupied.

 

[dottylottie]

i opt for the silvermoor grassabix, the bumper bags of 10 are about £12 where i am. i put them in the little nets you can buy for them and hang from the ceiling, or if given overnight i hide them in the middle of their normal nets.

plain fibre nuggets in their treat balls.
a friend has started making a fruit/veg kebab for her pony, by putting bits of carrot, celery, swede and whatever else on a bit of baling twine and hanging it in the stable, very cute! not convinced it takes her pony any longer to eat it than from a bucket mind

one of mine has a hayball that she loves, whilst the other one isn’t allowed it in the stable because she picks it up and puts it in her water!

 

[cauda equina]

Simple system feeds do hard forage blocks - ive never tried them but theyd offer a diet variety and some stimulation.

I've used the timothy ones for my ponies on restricted grazing and they seem to enjoy them

 

[tyner]

Simple system feeds do hard forage blocks - ive never tried them but theyd offer a diet variety and some stimulation.

These are very good, silvermoor also does them.

The plastic hay balls with the holes in, my horse loves them.

 

[PurBee]

These are very good, silvermoor also does them.

The plastic hay balls with the holes in, my horse loves them.

The plastic balls with holes in were a huge hit with my pair, although i bought just 1, thinking they’d soon get into some equi-football and have bags of fun together, but no..lead mare hogged it, wouldn’t let the boy near, he was getting stressed and wouldnt tackle her for it! I had to resort to supervised ‘sharing’ sessions, until getting more

 

[MagicMelon]

Id keep looking, even if you have to move the horse there for the time being and try and make the best of it. But Id ask around, perhaps a private yard would take 1 horse etc. I personally couldnt keep a horse fully stabled, itd make me die a bit inside all the time, itd make me so sad for them.

 

[little_critter]

I moved my boy to a yard with no winter turnout (but it had a horse walker) 2 years ago.
If you were to look at him in the stable you wouldn’t have seen any problem, but he turned into a spooky twitchy idiot to ride.
We moved.
Incidentally he’s currently on box rest and outwardly looks chilled, however I’m fully expecting him to explode as soon as he starts rehab.

 

[myheartinahoofbeat]

Simple system feeds do hard forage blocks - ive never tried them but theyd offer a diet variety and some stimulation.

I've tried these and my horse devoured them in about 5 mins much to my dismay!

 

[pistolpete]

Agree with everyone else and advise as much enrichment in her box as possible including hay nets at different heights maybe some straw to pick at too. A salt lick and a brush head screwed to the wall for scratching? Make it a fun place for her.

 

[[155411]]

How long should my walk warm up be?

 

[Birker2020]

I have to move my mare to a yard that has no grass turnout in the winter months. This is blamed on clay ground. My current yard is closing down and I have limited options. This is close enough to home, in my budget and offers assistance. New yard has a horse walker and a sand pen for turnout (to be shared by all livery’s) but will end up being a hour or two a day at least 4x a week. I will do my best to give her as much in hand grazing in local hacking fields. Summer turnout in big fields 24/7. Great hacking with hills etc and big, long arena. Horse will be coming into full med- hard work (showjumping) soon. Stables have bars so chance of horses interacting to some extent? When I went to view the yard all horses seemed to be very happy, chilled and looking fit and healthy. However im keeping my options open incase something more suitable in the area comes up. I am nervous to see how my mare copes as she loves her field time but should be happy with all the horses in the barn. Her stable is also next to the side opening in the barn having the arena and turnout pen in sight which should provide some stimulation and airflow. I will put down a big hunters shavings bed and I will provide ad lib forage using a homemade hay feeder, nets, balls etc so she never goes hungry. Her legs tend to fill so am looking into magnetic stable chaps etc.

Any tips or advice to make this a bit more bearable for my darling girl and would be very appreciated also what forage replacing feeds work well? Hay cubes/ grass nuts/ forage blocks etc? Supplements to replace all the goodness from grazing? Balancers?

Many thanks, a stressed and guilty horse mum.

You sound like you are at my old yard in the HP area of Warwickshire! When I moved to a yard i was told when I asked that turnout was 365 days a year only to find out when I moved that turnout between October - May involved 2 hours a day in a sand paddock shared by another horse with a division down the middle so they were separated.

They were given a large haynet that all the horses on the yard munched on throughout their time in the sand paddock and during the rest of the time they were given nets of hay in their stables. They had ropes across the doors so they could see each other. So every two hours another 2 horses went out, and this was repeated throughout the day.

It actually benefited my horse Bailey as at the time as she was recovering from a leg injury so I didn't want her running around in deep mud anyway. The fields were peat based so the drainage was awful and they got very poached in winter, hence no turn out. It wasn't ideal for a horse with arthritis but she managed fine and actually seemed happier in the stable. She was 17/18 at the time and was in gentle rehab work.

Its not something I would choose for another horse but it suited our requirements at the time. It is doable and I said at the time, that SOME turnout was better than NONE.

 

[SEL]

How long should my walk warm up be?

So much depends on the horse but if it's straight from a long period of stabling then I'd aim for a minimum of 20 minutes. I tended to walk a few laps of the school in hand when I was riding straight from overnight stabling.

One of the physios who works for a dressage yard was telling me the horses there do a 20-30 minute walk with the grooms before the main riders start a schooling session. I assume under saddle.