Monday 20 December 2010

Crazy weather

Well, we're certainly getting plenty of winter weather just now! Luckily, the horses and ponies with their nice hairy coats are warm enough and happy spending time in the field, but we've been managing to get some lessons on as normal.
It's really hard work when the weather is this bad, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the livery horses cannot be turned out first thing in the morning if its icy, so instead of having 15 to muck out, we have over 30! Its also much harder to push the wheelbarrows around and we have all been feeling our leg muscles!
Water is a total nightmare - we have one ground feed tap on the yard, so it is very easy to defrost once temperatures drop below zero, but as it is in the hay steading, it can be quite a long walk to the paddock boxes with buckets! We have been using a clean wheelbarrow to transport the water about, but again, its pretty hard work.
The fields also need watered each day, as they have automatic filling troughs, which freeze over. So we need to fill a massive container which we then drive around the farm, filling bins with water in each field. Haying and watering the field horses alone can take over an hour and a half when its bad weather, which all adds up to a pretty long day.
Quite a few brave members have been making it up for lessons - well done to them! However, we're still advising that if you aren't comfortable driving in these conditions, then you should stay at home - it simply isn't worth it for a riding lesson if it will make you nervous!

Sunday 12 December 2010

Recent News

Thank goodness the snow has gone now! It has been a very hard couple of weeks - mainly because when we have that much snow, the staff have double the work to do because the horses need hayed and watered in the feild constantly, and the liveries take much longer to look after as it is occasonally too icy for turnout.
The school horses and ponies had a great holiday because of the snow - it was lovely that some of our members got in touch to check that the horses and ponies were coping. They cope much better than people! Horses in the UK can cope with temperatures of up to -20, as long as they are dry and out of the wind. Our horses all wear nice thick waterproof rugs, and have loads of haylage in the field, so they are happier out than in!
We took Melody, Belinda and Aero in as Melody and Belinda don't wear a rug (Aero does as she is a bit older). Melody and Belinda were fine, but we were worried that the cold would affect Aeros breathing, so we thought best to get them into the cosy. Melody behaved really well and enjoyed her stable time in the warm next to mum.
The school horses and ponies were all quite fresh when they came back into work, so the staff had to ride some of them for a bit before members got on them. Worst culprits were Timone and Scrufty, who took the greatest of pleasure in squealing and jumping about with what appeared to be a sense of humour.
We are nearing Xmas and New Year now, and all the staff and horses are looking forward to some nice days off.