For most people, the only good thing about the country being in lockdown has been that the weather has been gorgeous. So leaving the house for your daily exercise or spending time in the garden has been glorious. However, at our yard we have been praying for rain!
Fertiliser
Last weekend we were forecast rain so our yard owner fertilised the fields. We don’t have loads of grazing, each horse has their own field and that is it. So when the fields are fertilised, the horses have to stay in until we have enough rain for the fertiliser to soak in. Needless to say, with the weather we have been having, we have not had enough rain and the horses have been in since Friday/Saturday.
Neighbours to the rescue
Luckily we have some amazing neighbours who are currently not using all their land. One of their paddocks is the other side of our arena, you can see it form our stable block and they kindly offered it to us to use this week.
This has been a life saver. But being a small paddock and there being 6 horses on the yard, we are having to do shifts and with the fencing not being the best, nobody quite trusts the horses to stay in there too long unsupervised.
Lunchtime grazing
Scottie has been going out during my lunch break. I head up the yard, usually with a packed lunch, and put Scottie out for about an hour while I sit on the yard having my lunch and keeping an eye on him until it’s time to come in.
Nutty horses
However, the idea of having to walk through the arena to get to the lush grazing combined with being in for longer than usual has meant all the horses have gone a bit nutty. Some of them, Scottie being one of them, are even struggling to focus when it comes to working in the arena. I have stopped Scottie’s daily walks for now as all what is happening is he is jogging round in circles and napping to the gate when the paddock is.
We even had one escape from the farrier, come tearing through the school before having a fantastic time running around refusing to be caught while I was trying to walk Scottie yesterday morning. I managed to slowly lunge Scottie on a leadrope in tiny circles back to his stable before heading out to try and catch said horse!
Please rain!
So while we have been able to use the paddock, we are all now praying for a small amount of rain. Luckily it has been cold over night so there has been a good dew on the grass every morning. So even without rain we are hopeful that it will be safe to turn out again very soon. But some rain would put all of our minds at rest!
Last Updated on 05/06/2022
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I was having problems with my TB, at 8pm on Thursdays, when people were clapping and saucepan banging, and fireworks for the NHS, as I have a big residential caravan site behind me, she was rearing in the stable, gave her this wed and Thursday, and she was calmer and just kept looking out of her stable then going back to her hay
I think it’s just a mix of limited turnout and lush grass. They aren’t stressy horses at all. They’re just all really fit!