Wretched horses!!!!

setterlover

setterlover

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They are still on their summer grazing which was looking ok but today it has been drizzly miserable and windy and this afternoon they decided to gallop madly around like total lunatics and have torn up huge clods all over the top half. .Considering they are 20 and 25 why they suddenly decided to tear around bucking and skidding all over the top half of the field.
We have stamped a lot of it down and as soon as we get a dry day hubby will lightly roll it and we will shut it off for the winter..It does mean I am going to have to spend tomorrow putting up a load of electric fencing to give them an track on the winter field to go onto.I don't usually move them until mid to late October but the summer field will be trashed if I leave them on the summer field .
If this is how it start this is going to be a challenging winter starting a month earlier on the winter fields.
Honestly I thought now I was down to 2 the summer field would last into November.
 
I feel your pain. Mine have also been trashing their summer fields. I have one native with a muzzle on, we are getting to the point where he will only have mud clods left to eat through his muzzle. But I don’t want to move him yet as it will be too lush for him, even with a muzzle on, in the winter fields. It’s a nightmare!
 
My 2 were running about a bit today was definitely the wind luckily the field has dried out but we are meant to get 24 hours of rain from tonight.

I'm keeping them in tonight as it's strong winds and rain it feels like November and it's still September, I'm starting to really hate this countries weather it's just vile.
 
The problem is there is far too much grass on the winter field to let them onto it this early so will be spending all tomorrow morning creating a wide track around 2 sides for them to go on.
Our fields are free draining but will not stand two horses galloping and doing wheelies for an hour or so.when I looked out at 4 pm all was calm but by 5 pm it was cut to pieces and I could see horses flying around like lunatics
Added to this I have badgers grubbing around the bottom edge of the hayfield turning the grass over but as a protected animal there is nothing I can do about it .
Fortunately it's a large field and it's along one edge.
It's going to be a long hard winter!!!!!
 
setterlover said:
The problem is there is far too much grass on the winter field to let them onto it this early so will be spending all tomorrow morning creating a wide track around 2 sides for them to go on.
Our fields are free draining but will not stand two horses galloping and doing wheelies for an hour or so.when I looked out at 4 pm all was calm but by 5 pm it was cut to pieces and I could see horses flying around like lunatics
Added to this I have badgers grubbing around the bottom edge of the hayfield turning the grass over but as a protected animal there is nothing I can do about it .
Fortunately it's a large field and it's along one edge.
It's going to be a long hard winter!!!!!
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Plenty of people do something about badgers I’m sure, they just don’t tell anyone. I mean I doubt the many dead badgers I see every day on the roads have been reported as struck 👀
 
Roasted Chestnuts said:
Plenty of people do something about badgers I’m sure, they just don’t tell anyone. I mean I doubt the many dead badgers I see every day on the roads have been reported as struck 👀
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This does make me smile, sorry correct me if I'm wrong.. so your saying someone kills a badger, loads it in their car, takes it to a public road and puts it there so it looks like it been knocked down?? Sorry if that's not what you meant. It's easier to dispose of the badger down a ditch on farm land, near where it was killed, or under a hedge. So the ones you do see on the road have actually been struck. Again, sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick!!
 
Badgers don't do a massive amount of damage, it's only surface stuff. I'd leave the horses in the summer fields, grass is pretty resilient and always comes back. I'd harrow rather than roll, once they do come off.
 
I have spent 3 hours putting up a track around 2 sides of a field I use for early winter until I move onto the winter field of foggage after Christmas.The summer field I have spent more time kicking over and treading in the clods and it looks a bit better.
The summer field is right next to the house and the view from the conservatory and it really drags my mood down if it looks a mess .If we get a couple of dry days (supposed to be mid week) hubby will lightly chain harrow ( chains not spikes down ) and then roll with a light ballast roller to tidy it up.
I like to use that field in the winter to let the dogs have a run so can't risk the horses causing more damage..
At least they don't seem to have done themselves any damage skidding and charging about
 
Flowerofthefen said:
This does make me smile, sorry correct me if I'm wrong.. so your saying someone kills a badger, loads it in their car, takes it to a public road and puts it there so it looks like it been knocked down?? Sorry if that's not what you meant. It's easier to dispose of the badger down a ditch on farm land, near where it was killed, or under a hedge. So the ones you do see on the road have actually been struck. Again, sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick!!
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Absolutely

At the riding club ( a very large show centre in the Midlands where my partner was head groundsman for two decades) we had a dog stuck down a badger set. The Fire Brigade came out and long story short said they had to get a licence from DEFRA as they couldn't dig a live set. 24 hrs later licence in hand and a DEFRA bod plonked next to the set they placed vibration equipment and put a camera down the set and then dug and retrieved the dog whose lead had stuck around a tree root deep within the set.

As the dig took many hours I got talking to the chap from DEFRA and said I couldn't believe how many badgers were on the roads having been killed by cars. He said it was interesting I'd brought that subject up because they had long ago suspected foul play so they found a couple of dead badgers in East Anglia where they carried out research into badger populations. These badgers they had found dead on the roadside. Both badgers upon a post mortem were found to be riddled with gunshot.

So its pretty likely to have been the local farmer that shot them and set them on the road to look like roadkill. Being as it takes only 12 run overs to completely obliterate an animal from a road they were lucky to have been discovered anyway.

I can imagine there are many farmers that routinely shoot badgers and place them as roadkill so that they do not affect their livestock with TB. Its not right, or fair but this is what happens.
 
Birker2020 said:
Absolutely

At the riding club ( a very large show centre in the Midlands where my partner was head groundsman for two decades) we had a dog stuck down a badger set. The Fire Brigade came out and long story short said they had to get a licence from DEFRA as they couldn't dig a live set. 24 hrs later licence in hand and a DEFRA bod plonked next to the set they placed vibration equipment and put a camera down the set and then dug and retrieved the dog whose lead had stuck around a tree root deep within the set.

As the dig took many hours I got talking to the chap from DEFRA and said I couldn't believe how many badgers were on the roads having been killed by cars. He said it was interesting I'd brought that subject up because they had long ago suspected foul play so they found a couple of dead badgers in East Anglia where they carried out research into badger populations. These badgers they had found dead on the roadside. Both badgers upon a post mortem were found to be riddled with gunshot.

So its pretty likely to have been the local farmer that shot them and set them on the road to look like roadkill. Being as it takes only 12 run overs to completely obliterate an animal from a road they were lucky to have been discovered anyway.

I can imagine there are many farmers that routinely shoot badgers and place them as roadkill so that they do not affect their livestock with TB. Its not right, or fair but this is what happens.
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My comment was meant to say exactly the opposite!! I don't think that anyone would dump a shot badger on the side of the road to be seen by the public and for people to find with gunshot. These badgers will have been shot on farmers private land so why not bury them or hide them on that private land, no one knows any better?! If any of these farmers were caught dumping them they would be in a lot of trouble.
 
OP - I feel your pain. My lot have been on the winter field for about 3 weeks as the acorns have started dropping on the summer field. I'm hoping to move them back when the acorns have rotted down a bit (what we usually do) but the grass has come back so lush I don't think I'll be able to until much later into winter when it gets wet in places. the jugging act is never ending is it.
 
I completely get it OP. I don't mind spending hours fencing, poo picking, moving mud mats etc, etc in whatever weather but sometimes its scary that one good hooley and you feel like you might as well not have bothered 😤 It can be a soul destroying hobby at times!

Rightly or wrongly, I save the paddock closest to the house as a summer field so I don't have to look at mud. It gets me down as well. You're not alone.
 
Roasted Chestnuts said:
Plenty of people do something about badgers I’m sure, they just don’t tell anyone. I mean I doubt the many dead badgers I see every day on the roads have been reported as struck 👀
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Amazing, when we lived in Essex how many badgers were struck in this tiny little one track lane, adjacent to a farm owned by a man with repeated convictions for digging them.
🤔
 
Flowerofthefen said:
My comment was meant to say exactly the opposite!! I don't think that anyone would dump a shot badger on the side of the road to be seen by the public and for people to find with gunshot. These badgers will have been shot on farmers private land so why not bury them or hide them on that private land, no one knows any better?! If any of these farmers were caught dumping them they would be in a lot of trouble.
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Because it would be easier, on your way home from your sporting night out, to dump them than to risk their carcasses being moved by other animals and found by a passer by.
 
Flowerofthefen said:
My comment was meant to say exactly the opposite!! I don't think that anyone would dump a shot badger on the side of the road to be seen by the public and for people to find with gunshot. These badgers will have been shot on farmers private land so why not bury them or hide them on that private land, no one knows any better?! If any of these farmers were caught dumping them they would be in a lot of trouble.
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Because it's done it the dark and when your whizzing past in a 50mph road you don't really have time to assess for gunshot!

If they thought there was, or they completely wanted to negate the risk if TB they wouldn't bury on their land. Unless I'm mistaken don't TB spores live in the earth for many years?
 
Clodagh said:
Because it would be easier, on your way home from your sporting night out, to dump them than to risk their carcasses being moved by other animals and found by a passer by.
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If they were smart they would dump them in the middle of the rode to be squashed by other vehicles. No evidence of gunshot when is be run over a few dozen times 👀 I’ve often wondered if this was the case with the ones in the middle of the road as badgers are quite heavy and that hitting the front of a car would do damage. I hit a fox once years ago and the mess it made of my car 🤮 I was smelling rotten flesh for weeks despite power hosing my car several times.
 
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