Rain Ranting Thread

[setterlover]

You do start to question your life choices!!! I am down to 2 horses both older 20 and 25 .I no longer ride for various personal reasons and these will definitely be the last.
I am lucky the horses are at home and we don't flood horses can be out 24/7 unrugged as they have a huge pole barn bedded down for them and no hard feed just haylege put out am and pm so not too much work but I really worry if the weather is this wet this early as winter has barely started .
I am sick of getting wet sick of wet coats hanging around to dry but I suppose we must be thankfully we don't face what Florida is facing .
Hope everyone can stay safe.

 

[Slightlyconfused]

I think I am going to invest in two coats for me this year, the horse already has two rain sheets so one can dry, its too warm as he isnt clipped yet to leave it on him to dry

 

[tinselbobs]

It was absolutely torrential all night and this morning. This is a pic from our dry walk that normally doesn’t get any puddles or mud.

This is going to be a long winter - Roxie is already unimpressed!

 

[SEL]

I think they'd like a whole field of mud mats!!

Honestly I've had enough. That field is as wet now as it usually is by Xmas when I move them into their winter field. I could move them now but then that one would be trashed.

Any further horses need to be 100% shades of brown with no white bits.

 

[GrassChop]

I think they'd like a whole field of mud mats!!

Honestly I've had enough. That field is as wet now as it usually is by Xmas when I move them into their winter field. I could move them now but then that one would be trashed.

Any further horses need to be 100% shades of brown with no white bits.
View attachment 148443

Lovely ponies!

I've had to section off part of my field where they wait for their dinners as it's already fetlock deep mud everywhere else is still firm at the moment but soaking wet. If they decide to have a gallop about, that'll be it for the ground though!

 

[dorsetladette]

I've just ordered some over trousers and a waterproof 3/4 length riding coat from Rydale - they have 15% off at the moment.

 

[SantaVera]

It's torrential here and forecast to last all day and night. My fields are sodden as are the horses I could weep. It seems to have started raining last October and rarely had a day without since. I dispair.

 

[Squeak]

We've got yet another weather warning for rain. It feels unbelievably wet and like we've already had so much rain for only the middle of October. My fields still try and dry up on days it's not raining but it wouldn't take much to turn them in to mud. Don't think it will be long before we're on the winter fields and hay.

 

[scats]

Pouring all night here and pouring down today. Yuk.

 

[SEL]

I've just seen one of the local yards say they've worked out they've already had 2022/23 winters rainfall in just 4 weeks.

I'm properly dithering over fields. There's plenty of grass where they are but the water table is so high I can see the so-called underground stream. That won't vanish until summer now. I've just walked the winter field and it's also wet but it's knee high grass and they'll explode! I can't strip graze into it when it's this wet and usually by Dec its cold / grass is just fibre.

 

[Crugeran Celt]

I hate the rain, had extensive drainage work done a few months back so hopefully the fields will be drier this year. rained all night last night and still hammering down. Horses are all in, they have access to their stables at all times and come and go as they please. Today they want to shelter from this horrendous weather and i don't blame them!

 

[setterlover]

I think this terrible weather over the last couple of years and predicted to continue due to global warming will force a lot of people out of horse ownership .Livery yards are really going to struggle to offer any amount of winter turn out and the costs of hay feed and bedding when horses are having to be kept off the grass more are going to be prohibitve.
I'm soldering on with my 2 as at 20 and 25 what else can you do .I would never sell or loan horses of that age ( even though both would be rideable)and with no severe medical issues couldn't PTS ( one has very manageable COPD).
When the one with COPD ,( the older one at 25)goes the remaining one will go into retirement grass livery they happily live out with a pole barn shelter not rugged no hard feed just haylege as necessary.
I owe it to these two to see them out but I feel a lot like me will give up on horse ownership.

 

[Steerpike]

I am now considering selling a kidney to get some mud mats, chucking it down with rain and one field already looks like it's been through a wet winter.

 

[Bellaboo18]

Blimey when it rains it really doesn't know when to stop does it! 3 nice dry, sunny and warm days after today in Cheshire. I don't think it's as bad as last year...yet.

 

[AutumnDays]

Rain again, fields bad where the tractor has been... But I bankrupt myself to get mud mats and a poly tunnel shelter! Here's hoping they actually use it and make the most of somewhere mud free to stand, or I will cry! I did post a hopeful thread earlier about wanting to possibly ride again, but the weather and the credit card statement has made me think in hand and beans on toast for the rest of my life!

 

[palo1]

Utterly grim in the Bannau Local roads are all running like rivers, fields sodden, schools closed due to flooding in the classrooms. I hacked for 6 utterly drenching miles on lanes that were mostly either running with water or obscured by standing water. Horrible but the outside work just doesn't stop.

 

[HorseMaid]

Very, very soggy in N. Devon, we're halfway through laying stone in the muddy gateway, horses are shut out in the big field to keep the out of the way, the mud has been dug out, the stone is laid but soft underfoot even though it's been compacted down and I wish I'd had it done in the summer!!! I'm going to have to source something to lay over the stone otherwise it's going to just be trashed, the whole thing is really soul destroying! My yard is a mess where diggers have been going back and forth, yuck!

 

[millitiger]

Yuck!.

Absolutely sodden here
Boys are spending the night in, as more rain forecast, and I don't want to trash the winter field this early in the season.

So, so, so glad my partner spent the day, in the rain, rolling the new stone in the gateways for the new Jelka mats to go down on.
It seemed bonkers spending £1000s on stone and mats but I do think these sort of weather cycles are the new normal unfortunately.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

Mine are in tonight as it’s pouring with rain again but so warm I can’t put their raincoats on. My field is holding up well, the gateway is muddy as always but the actual field itself is fine except that I have far too much grass and fatty has had to go into a muzzle. It does help neither of them are shod and they don’t tear around cutting up the grass.

 

[Gloi]

Flooded roads all over the place here today

 

[Bobthecob15]

Flooding here in Herefordshire! Again….

So glad ours are on full livery so we don’t have to go to them tonight to get sorted, actually couldn’t get to them now if I had to, all routes to the yard currently impassable! Very grateful for on site YO!

And no horses haven’t been out at all today, very happy tucked up in cosy beds with hay!

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

We had thick fog here today, with idiots driving without lights!. Eventually the fog lifted a bit so we could see across the fields for a few minutes, the it came back just as thick as before.

 

[PoppyAnderson]

Blimey when it rains it really doesn't know when to stop does it! 3 nice dry, sunny and warm days after today in Cheshire. I don't think it's as bad as last year...yet.

Cheshire here too and I could sob. After declaring that it was bone dry, it's now not stopped raining for 24 hours straight and there's another few hours of it yet. It's not just a bit of rain either; it's absolutely torrential. We're not even in Winter yet fgs.

 

[little_critter]

I have a bit of a dilemma. My horse started coughing a few weeks ago so we are trying to leave him out in the field as much as possible (away from hay and bedding). The cough is better but of course he’s eating the grass / creating mud at a much faster rate

 

[Bobthecob15]

Flooded at the yard!!! New block of 5 stables have flooded overnight, beds all ruined. Horses fine but....such a shame for YO! What a pain!

 

[Jambarissa]

I'm refusing to look back.

It's a beautiful day today and supposed to be 17 degrees. No rain forecast for the next week at all. I will ride later if I can muster the energy.

 

[JFTDWS]

Yesterday was 20 odd degrees and sunny. I was poopicking a dry field in a t shirt and short boots.

Then last night it actually battered it down. The weather app on my phone said we were getting 5mm in an hour, and more all night…

It’s just weird.

 

[Surbie]

Gorgeous day here too - sunshine glinting off the calf-deep puddles on the track and the pond where the gateway should be...

I feel very lucky to be on a yard with decent acreage per horse. The gateways, water troughs and under the trees are getting bad but the main body of the fields is beautiful. I need to shift my mats out of my old field's gateway to give the horses in my new field some decent footing by the water trough, which isn't a job I am looking forward to. I doubt the liveries in my old field are looking forward to that either - their gateway will promptly become awful thanks to the resident fencewalker.

 

[dorsetladette]

My new water proofs arrived today so we probably won't get any more rain for the rest of winter based on my rugging patterns of late (rug its sunny, take rugs off it rains!). i think I've become the local weather vane for the wrong reasons.

 

[Muddy unicorn]

I’ve just ordered a new raincoat plus waterproof hi viz for the dogs so fingers crossed that works …