Who Keeps Their Horse In 24/7 ?

My old horse was in 24/7, he was ridden twice a day, six days a week (for at least an hour at a time) and had 3 hours in the field on his day off. He hated being out and used to jump in and walk into his box...

I have changed the way I manage my horses now to suit them, but would go back to it if I had the time/it suited the horse.
 
I couldnt think of a reason either so thought I'd post on here and see if anyone does :) And I dont mean on box rest, just in general really
 
Mine is in about 20 hours a day. I'd rather she was out a lot more, but we're at a central London yard with limited turnout, she is perfectly happy stabled and most importantly, she's on a strict diet as we can't risk another bout of lami. There's no way I could adequately control her weight/food intake otherwise.

All of the horses on livery here are on a similar routine and to be honest they're all perfectly happy/chilled in their boxes get regular hay nets and feeds and there's not a vice to be seen between them. It's a very busy yard, so if they're not snoozing or eating there's always something to keep them occupied!

It's not perfect, but as long as she's happy and healthy, so am I.
 
Our horses are in most of the time in the winter because we haven’t got very good grazing at my mums and if you put them out they want to come back in after about 5 minutes! Think it would be a bit mean to keep them in in the summer..
 
Mine have been in the winter. We have wet heavy clay. The oldie was offered the choice of 10 hours in a cold wet field up to her fetlocks in mud with hay onthe floor, or the th chance to stay in her stable all the time with haynet, dry & warm. day after day she chose to stay in. She was always offered the choice.
the next yard i went to had the same probelm (as it was a few yards down the road). But it has a horsewalker & school, so i could ride almost every day & put them on the horse walker & this worked fine. Even with a 4 year old dumblood :p
But they were always out in the summer.
Likewise i offered the oldie the chance to stay out 24/7 int he sumer after 2 nigths she always wanted back in so she could have a proper rest. I always gave her the choice.
 
My working horses are in 24/7 in the winter, because they just hate being out!

I'll put them out for an hour every 2 weeks and it'll be guaranteed that they'll be back by the gate within half an hour. They'll go on the walker for 30 mins twice a day plus being ridden for at least 1 1/2 hours. They're very happy with it anyway. They are now out 24/7 for the summer. My broodmares, horses out of work and youngstock are all out 24/7 all year round or barn kept in a group in the winter :)
 
amymay said:
I can't think of any reason why someone would (unless obviously on box rest).
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I agree.

I dont care how much exercise it gets it totally cruel!

A girl at our yard does it keeps her in for 2 weeks (doesnt always ride) turns her out for a few days, doesnt even check on her then turns her back out again.

I suppose this isnt so bad as continually in but its still not right.
 
Last winter, turnout was banned for 3 weeks, getting on for nearly a month. The horses seemed fine, but I was really stressed and totally exhausted by the end. I'd never been so glad to have the fields back in use! It was worse because the snow and ice put the school out of use too, and the hacking wouldn't have been safe either.

I was so stressed, because I was paraniod that my horses topline would waste away, their joints would seize up, and I was worried that if their circulation was reduced that they'd get colic or Monday morning disease. I was then stressing about the dust in the barn and that they weren't able to breath fresh air, so I put them onto the low energy blue horsehage to cut out any possibility of hay dust, and reduced the cereals in their feeds. I had them on the horsewalker twice a day, massaged them vigorously and put magnet boots on them for a couple of hours every day. The horses fared fine, but I was knackered!
 
blucanoo1990 said:
I agree.

I dont care how much exercise it gets it totally cruel!

A girl at our yard does it keeps her in for 2 weeks (doesnt always ride) turns her out for a few days, doesnt even check on her then turns her back out again.

I suppose this isnt so bad as continually in but its still not right.
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Well all i can say is that you are obviously very lucky to have prefectly free draining land and plenty of it, so that turnout is obviously not a problem for you. Not all of us are that lucky & we have to exercsie our judgement.
To me turning out a 19yo with mild arthritis in the fetlocks in to a field deep in mud for 10 plus hours a day was cruel.
 
This is the thing, those who are on sandy/well draining soil and have no problem turning out all year do not understand what it is like for those of us with clay soil. My horses hate being out as all there is deep wet mud when they can be in their warm, dry stables with ad lib hay (that is also another point I would never keep in 24/7 if they weren't on ad lib hay!!!).

For my liveries I have never stopped turnout, although I refuse to turnout in awful weather, so they go out for 4-6 hours in the winter which keeps them sane and from hooning around when they are turned out. Then they are out 24/7 in summer.
 
Since my horse tied up 3 years ago from YO enforced 24/7 stabling, I would never ever ever go back to having to keep a horse stabled completely.
She was perfectly fit, young and healthy and getting plenty of exercise but her body just couldn't cope with it for reasons that will never be known. We wouldn't have known beforehand, its not like there are signs of a predispotition to it....she was the type that had never been sick or sorry....now she is very very prone to it and its a lifelong condition that has cost several thousands of pounds worht of treatment and has to be managed very very carefully.

So for me, I will never go on a yard that enforces it due to bad weather in the winter....far better to get at least a couple/3 hours turnout a day in fields that aren't over-stocked and get wet and soggy than bring on another attack of azoturia.
 
In the winter she doesn't go out if its wet, windy and cold, she HATES it and I would rather her in her stable, warm, dry and plenty of hay than charging around her field for 8 hours, screaming her head off, skidding all over the place, falling over and potentially injuring herself. She totally wrecked her field in 3 days at the beginning of last winter (and the ground still hasn't recovered dispite being harrowed/rolled) and I can not see the point. She is ridden every day and if she is happier in then thats where she will stay, if she wasn't happy in then it would be a different story.

In this weather she is out every day, she goes out at 6am and is brought in at 1 o/c, she has her lunch, has a snooze and gets up just as I arrive to ride :rolleyes:
 
Never unless on box rest! And I would never move to yard that requested so.

We have clay soil with awful drainage. The horses are paddocked separately, and although the drainage is pretty rubbish, our fields do not get tooooo bad. I would rather turn out in mud and bad weather with hay than keep them in. The horses are happy, and we turn out 24/7 in the summer.

Luckily the farm has enough land for winter/summer turnout rotation. The yard owner does not cram the yard full of too many horses that the land cannot support and we do just fine.
 
heather_bambi said:
I would rather turn out in mud and bad weather with hay than keep them in.
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I wouldn't mind turning her out in wind/rain/mud whatever IF she was happy and settled but she isn't. I have no idea whats happened, she used to live out 24/7 and alway seemed quite happy then last year we moved yards and she now has a stable......she has decided that she likes that much more than being out in the wind and rain. When you go to bring her in when she is 'going off on one' you feel her physically breathe a sigh of relief when you put her leadrope on and her whole body relaxes as soon as you start to walk in, its strange, very strange but in the sunshine she's as happy as larry :rolleyes:
 
i had to keep taz in for about a week due to the amount of ice that it wasnt actually safe for me to get him to his field but he was perfectly happy got his equisage twice a day just to keep him in a happy mood and he had plenty to play with, taz loves his stable, only this morning did i have to bribe him out of it with a bucket of feed!
 
Lots of "working" horses don't get turned out. Racehorses, police horses, army horses - once they get into a routine, they don't seem that disturbed about it.

Our horses all go out regularly - some 24/7, some every day and others every few days. It depends on what suits each horse.
 
I don't like the idea of my horse being in 24/7 but there were a few occasions last winter when they all stayed in for 2 or 3 days at a time because of the weather. We did turn out in the snow for an hour or so while we went round and did their boxes but YO didnt want them out trashing the fields all day so they came in again after a stretch. She was actually quite chilled about the whole thing but i don't know what she would be like being in for a prolonged period of time e.g box rest, she is quite a stress head so it would probably be a nightmare!
 
I hate these threads, I hate it when i hear about horses being stuck in doors and I hate even more when people say, ''oh he doesn't like it outside''... No. your horse is used to his routine of being in, they want to come in for dinner. Horses do not think like us, i.e see into the future like we do.


My mare will not spend a single day cooped up in her stable, she is the anxious type but because she goes out everyday in winter, no matter what the weather she will happily go out alone (if needs be, as some don't turn out when heaven forbid when it's cold or when had snow) now my Mare is not the type to go out alone but this is her routine and she loves being out, she wouldn't be in her stable alone for two minutes. People humanise everything and this is what worries me so much, a warm cosy stable is OUR comfort not theirs.

x
 
amymay said:
Although thankfully the P2P's on my yard go out for several hours a day.
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The P2P's at my yard also have several hours a day out in the field during the winter, and have been turned out 24/7 with a field shelter for a couple of weeks now which is nice :)
 
heidirusso said:
I hate these threads, I hate it when i hear about horses being stuck in doors and I hate even more when people say, ''oh he doesn't like it outside''... No. your horse is used to his routine of being in, they want to come in for dinner. Horses do not think like us, i.e see into the future like we do.


My mare will not spend a single day cooped up in her stable, she is the anxious type but because she goes out everyday in winter, no matter what the weather she will happily go out alone (if needs be, as some don't turn out when heaven forbid when it's cold or when had snow) now my Mare is not the type to go out alone but this is her routine and she loves being out, she wouldn't be in her stable alone for two minutes. People humanise everything and this is what worries me so much, a warm cosy stable is OUR comfort not theirs.

x
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So do you think its better for a horse to be out in a field, looning around for hours, constantly skidding to a halt after doing loop after loop after loop of their field. Falling over as they are going too fast, hurting themselves as they have lost all self preservation? thats better than being in a 'warm cosy stable'??

Not having a dig, just asking your opinion :)
 
QR:
If it's too wet in the winter then YM tells us no turnout until it dries out/there's a frost, although slightly annoying it doesn't harm their health. They still get the same amount of care, attention and get ridden. We have a play pen that we can turn out in but sometimes they just stand there and prefer to come in.
I'd prefer them in on really slippery days then risk them hooning around in their paddock which is on a slope and risk injury.
 
At the yard where I work a few horses go out overnight, a few for the day, some for a couple hours and a couple for just one hour. But then there are some that don't go out at all. They are ridden most days as well as going on the walker and they don't seem to mind, they are used to it now. But I would prefer it if they went out. Of course I have no say in this but still. In the winter very few went out because of the weather, the yard doesn't have anywhere near enough grazing for all the horses that are there. Most of them are 'precious' dressage horses as well and get incredibly babied.
 
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