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Chester's Hope

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Canada
Sunderland, ON
Chester's Hope

Natural Equine Care, Stables, Horse Boarding, Pasture Tracks, Slowfeed Haynets, Natural Horsemanship Contact us for more details.
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We are a small, private boarding facility that uses natural horse keeping ideals. We use slow feed haynets for our horses, and our track-style pastures are set up to promote rotational grazing with lots of movement. We have indoor and outdoor boarding, an 8 stall barn with heated tackroom and 4 stalls have direct walkouts to paddocks.

60 x 120 indoor arena as well as an outdoor sand ring and a full size grass ring & round pen. Horses are checked and handled daily, owners live on the premises.

05/29/2024

We have a couple of spots available for outdoor and indoor board.

Indoor board with walkout to paddock and grazing area. Haynets, drinking post, two meals fed daily with vitamin/minerals and salt. Owner can provide additional supplements. Blanketing, flymasks, boots, medications, as needed. $800 plus HST.

Outdoor board on pasture tracks with controller summer grazing, winter haynets, drinking posts, one meal fed daily with vitamin/minerals and salt. Owner can provide additional supplements. $500 plus HST.

Full use of all amenities, 60x120 indoor arena, 60x180 outdoor sand ring, round pen, outdoor wash stall, viewing room.

Owner lives and works on site. Casual family type setting welcoming all disciplines.

05/11/2024

Seven years ago it all started, Molly and Finn arrived mid morning on the 10th, and look, we had grass!!! I remember inviting friends to bring their horses to help graze down the paddocks cause they were hip high in grass. Ha, those were the days.

04/26/2024

Sunny mornings make for sleepy horses.

Everyone is preparing for changes happening at Chester’s Hope with room for a few different options for boarding.

A couple of outdoor board spots are open immediately. Very specific, one has to be a gelding to join three other geldings, and one has to be an easy keeper to join my easy keeper. Horses have access to controlled rotational grazing, and are fed with slowfeed haynets, no round bales, one soaked haycubes and vitamins/minerals meal fed daily. Owner can provide supplements to be added.

One front spot is available immediately as well, where the stall door opens to the paddock, and the horses are closed in overnight only for cold nights. Two meals per day and hay in nets as well with feeder boxes if your horse has shoes. This is for horses with higher maintenance needs like blanketing and more precise feeding needs and medications.

And we are offering up to 4 stalls for DIY board as of June. Includes use of stall, locker, feed room, outdoor sandring, indoor arena. Details to be discussed to find the right fit.

No lesson programs, quiet farm setting, no jumps other than a couple of old jump standards and rails, and maybe a couple of yucky hay bales to really spruce up things. 😉 You get the picture.

Come for a visit, see for yourself and we’ll chat. Message me to arrange a time.

04/05/2024

He’s not impressed with all that snow either.

03/28/2024

First photo is from 2017, of my two little guys, Dallas and Zeke, no longer with us. Came up in my memories today just as I was about to post the second photo, which is my current crew, Oscar and Satchmo.

Oscar (on the left) is 8 months old, but he is already as tall as Satchmo. Yikes. His paw is still healing, after he refractured the toe that he broke originally. Seems to be healing even better now, so it looks like it was a good thing, maybe. Ortho specialist says six more weeks and he should be 100%. Fingers crossed. Toes maybe not, in case they break. 😉

01/20/2024

Morning check for the drinking posts.
-18C this morning, with windchill -27C.
No problem.

Water comes up, water drains out. No heaters required. Worth every penny.

01/14/2024

My girl destroys every water bucket in her stall. Even the rubber ones that flex, she sits in it and rips it off the hangers. No water for the night and a soggy stall is the result.

I found a way to keep her butt off her buckets. So far so good and since we only bring them in for extreme weather and change stalls sometimes, this can be done in any stall with a feed door.

12/23/2023

Oscar is wondering if he can help with the Christmas decorations.

Merry Christmas everyone.

11/25/2023

Starting rehab on Monday to get function back in his paw and leg, but no surgery needed according to the ortho specialist.

Still a bit of a haul ahead for our little guy, but we’re getting there.

The toddler shirt helps cover the sores on his elbow so he doesn’t scratch them with his hind legs.

11/21/2023

Having a cast on means limited activity, means boredom, means watching TV.

Hopefully he’s out of the cast later this week before he clubs my TV with it. I change channels when the hyenas come on, they get him going.

10/06/2023

Video may cause dizziness and laughter.

09/23/2023

This is Oscar.

Oscar will be helping Satchmo run the farm. He is already skilled at chewing and tugging on anything with a string, and he excels at running around the house like a maniac, then flopping down for an instant nap. Hiccups are a special skill as well. He’s a keeper!

09/16/2023

My big boy can pull off a pink mask, right?

I love these masks, soft airy ears, shaped nose piece, mesh off the eyes cause this one fits his big noggin, washable, and it stays on better than most.

Why yes of course it’s an expensive one. 😔

09/05/2023

In this picture I see three little stories. The setup is such that we have long pasture tracks to the back with a wide grazing area there and near the barn there’s another wider area that funnels to the narrow gate area where you see the three of them.

Skinny Finnie the Pooh on the right needs extra feed so he gets a lot of extra hay, among other things. Since he’s the boss of the herd, it works out well cause he can stand there and eat happily. Once the other two finish their flake of hay, Opie, the little tough one in the middle that you can barely even see, makes her way up to Finn and joins him. I’m good with that cause she’s growing and can use the extra for sure. Finn is good with it too once he’s had a good amount of hay.

Today we also have Howie there, he’s the gorgeous round copper bum on the left, strategically having Opie as a buffer and sneaking a few morsels of hay very quietly. He doesn’t need the extra, so less is better which again works out great.

Howie ended up with a bug on his side, but dared not swish his tail too hard or he would hit the electric fence. Same reason he didn’t swing his head around. He did that a while ago and learned not to do it again. Smart boy.

So he just stood, flicking his skin, waiting for the pest to leave, but staying put to grab a few more bites of hay. Again, smart boy.

While I’m typing this, Finn caught on to the sneaky hay thieves and decided three’s a crowd and with some hoof stomping and ear pinning he dispatched Opie and Howie in one teeth-bared charge. The hay is all his now, herd order is intact. He bares his teeth but tends to not actually bite, as long as the others heed his fair warning.

Herd dynamics are hard on the human heart, but they are necessary and they are good for our horses. The only time I interfere is if there is excessive chasing where a horse can’t get at the food or water resources. Otherwise I allow them to learn that there’s a leader who will hog things and you just have to be patient for your turn, and the lower horses learn to yield to pressure and exactly how big or small the lead horse’s bubble is. They learn to respect the warnings before they lead to a bite or kick, provided the leader is fair enough to give such warnings. Some give more, some give less, and it depends on their mood sometimes too.

I prefer to be the owner of the underling cause alpha horses tend to get dirty looks from humans, even though most horses are very happy to have a lead horse they can follow. Life is easier that way. The lead horse has an important job to look out for trouble and defend his herd, it’s a tiring responsibility. And I’ve found that when my horse was lower ranked she was easier to manage for me too, having learned to yield to pressure and what happens when you defy the pressure of a lead horse or human.

Large herds on large fields often build little friendship groups within the herd too. I love seeing larger herds, but we have too many specific feeding needs and medication needs here so we end up with herds of two or three per track.

It’s so much fun to watch them and learn from their interactions. Who is sassy, who is timid, who runs the show and how fair are they. Who’s a slow learner and gets bites cause they ignored the warnings and who dares to challenge the leader cause they can leap sideways with ease if the leader doles out a bite or kick.

My boy Atlas tends to be slow and dull to the warnings and has had some pretty serious bites cause he was in with a leader who goes from warning to delivering a bite very quickly. Not an ideal match, so we’re working on a new scenario. I’ll keep you posted on that.

But these three are good, the lead horse is fair and the two followers are respectful. Great lessons for the filly to learn as she grows.

08/28/2023

Satchmo was guarding me while I was mucking paddocks, but you can see how reliable he is with that!

08/25/2023

Edit: Thank you all for the lovely words, I appreciate that very much. We’ve got people coming this week and next for visits.

We have two super sized stalls available for your unicorn. We’re located just north east of Uxbridge.

These stalls are 10x15 and lead out to a dry lot holding area which then leads out to a pasture. Individual turnout for these two spots, but with as much or as little contact with the neighbouring horse as possible.

Horses have free access to the stall except during cold winter nights or the rare occasion that the wind is blowing the rain into the stall, when we close the doors overnight.

Horses get two meals daily (soaked hay cubes, vitamins, minerals, salt) plus whatever supplements and oils the owner provides, unlimited hay in haynets, unless they’re shod. Blanketing, flymasks, boots, kisses and hugs, all included.

The bay horse in the picture is 17.1hh and the one behind him is 18.1hh. The pony has room for three, lol.

$750 plus HST.

20x40 indoor arena, 20x50 outdoor sand ring, 20x60 grass ring, round pen, small trail around farm. Heated viewing room and tack room, outdoor wash stall. Nothing fancy, but it works.

We’re a small group of fun loving boarders, looking to add two more to our barn family. Owner is on site 22/7 (I need groceries once in a while, you know.)

08/21/2023

Flymask fail! It’s a daily adventure to find out who still has their mask on and what shape/position is it in.

07/14/2023

Ok, what the he!! Is this??? Was sitting on Atlas back and I was brave enough to go there and smack it.

Looks like a fly on steroids cause it’s huge, and it was taking chunks out of his back.

I know a couple of other people who’ve seen these this summer and I’ve seen it before years ago, but yikes, hopefully it’s rare? This isn’t even the biggest one out there, so again, yikes!!!

07/07/2023

Farrier day. Atlas and Johnny grew a lot of hoof in just four weeks.

06/14/2023

We have three fox babies in the neighbourhood. Today they are hanging out in my driveway, and at 9 am they were still scrambling when cars drove by.

Second video in the comments of them playing at 3 pm, and they have already gotten used to cars.

Acclimation to humans is deadly for wildlife. I don’t feed them, but there are chickens around the area, keeping the fox mama and babies close to human contact, which is unfortunate for the chickens and the fox family.

06/13/2023

Chester’s Hope proudly offers dust free footing for our outdoor sand ring!!!

Just kidding, I hope everyone got through the downpours ok and you’re enjoying the clean fresh air we are breathing at the moment.

But we are actually getting a new dust control product for our outdoor and indoor arena and will keep you posted on how it works. First step is to thoroughly water the arena - I think we’ve achieved that. 😊

06/09/2023

Four weeks since the last trim. We sure know how to grow a hoof around here. 😉

Can’t believe how symmetrical they are, had to offset them just to show that there are two pieces in each pile.

05/23/2023

Surveying his kingdom at sunset. Horses are on new tracks, enjoying their dinner.

05/15/2023

The magical world behind the cat door had their undivided attention.

05/06/2023

I’m thinking I should cut back on the bottle of beer in their meals. 😜

04/18/2023

I’ve informed the horses that dinner will be a bit late tonight. I am holding out for something a little less “Decemberish”.

04/05/2023

Here’s a better one. Finn stood nicely in the pouring rain while I filmed his amazing raincoat.

04/05/2023

Atlas did not want to be on camera to show off his built in rainsheet. He opted for the hay chewing close up instead.

All the horses had a bit of shivers this afternoon, blanketed or not, it’s just miserable. At 4 degrees Celsius it was not as warm as they promised and extra flakes of hay were needed to stoke their furnaces.

Address

12600 Sideroad 17
Sunderland, ON
L0C1H0

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 9pm
Tuesday	9am - 9pm
Wednesday	9am - 9pm
Thursday	9am - 9pm
Friday	9am - 9pm
Saturday	9am - 9pm
Sunday	9am - 9pm

Telephone

+16476807879

Website

http://chestershope.ca/

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Videos

Morning check for the drinking posts. -18C this morning, with windchill -27C. No problem. Water comes up, water drains out. No heaters required. Worth every penny.

No surgery needed!

Starting rehab on Monday to get function back in his paw and leg, but no surgery needed according to the ortho specialist. Still a bit of a haul ahead for our little guy, but we’re getting there. The toddler shirt helps cover the sores on his elbow so he doesn’t scratch them with his hind legs.

Oscar is bored

Having a cast on means limited activity, means boredom, means watching TV. Hopefully he’s out of the cast later this week before he clubs my TV with it. I change channels when the hyenas come on, they get him going.

Zoom zoom zoomies

Video may cause dizziness and laughter.

We have three fox babies in the neighbourhood. Today they are hanging out in my driveway, and at 9 am they were still scrambling when cars drove by. Second video in the comments of them playing at 3 pm, and they have already gotten used to cars. Acclimation to humans is deadly for wildlife. I don’t feed them, but there are chickens around the area, keeping the fox mama and babies close to human contact, which is unfortunate for the chickens and the fox family.

Here’s a better one. Finn stood nicely in the pouring rain while I filmed his amazing raincoat.

Atlas did not want to be on camera to show off his built in rainsheet. He opted for the hay chewing close up instead. All the horses had a bit of shivers this afternoon, blanketed or not, it’s just miserable. At 4 degrees Celsius it was not as warm as they promised and extra flakes of hay were needed to stoke their furnaces.

Bear is demonstrating his perfect rainsheet. You can see the channels on his back that guide the water away and then it just drips down his side. This is not an anti-blanketing post though. He’s a healthy horse that is able to grow a strong coat that can do this efficiently. We have other horses here that have rainsheets on cause, for various reasons, their coat would not be as efficient and they would be wet and cold by now. Temperatures are mild, there’s no wind, and the rain is supposed to stop by this evening. All factors that help us determine blanketing needs for each horse. I hope you’re staying warm and dry and your boots don’t have holes. Happy New Year’ Eve! 🎉

Fuelling up for the long trip south, this beautiful Monarch butterfly makes me less bothered by the weeds along the fence lines that I haven’t gotten around to trimming.

A quiet evening for some of our pasture track horses as the sun sets tonight. We had to say goodbye to a herd member today, and that’s never easy, but the horses eating their hay so peacefully helps settle the mind.

Finn recently had a lip twitch to the right that had us concerned. Vet exam determined it was not neurological, but rather voluntary, likely caused by blunt force trauma to his face that caused a nerve to be over reactive. No bruises or wounds on his face, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I have no idea where or how Finn (the smaller black horse) could have sustained such an injury. Certainly not from his roommate, right? 😉 The twitch is gone, btw, and Finn is back to normal. In other news, it’s snowing!!!!!

Book: It was a mild spring-like morning. The melting snow was creating little rivers flowing into the fields, melting away winter’s hardships, and the birds were singing promises of a beautiful summer ahead. Me: There are rivers of poop literally everywhere. This is all gonna melt into a giant pond of poop and then refreeze tonight with the next polar dip, leaving the horses stranded on a brown skating rink. And the wind, wtf? If I hold my arms out and hold my jacket open, I can surf right now. Birds? There are no birds. Just crows fighting over the dead mice that are being exposed with the melting snow. Next on the list, mud!!!!! Lol, tell me your barn reality as we head into spring, it’s important to laugh about these things and we need to be lighthearted these days.

We’ve been wondering why Finn (black horse) is always grumpy and tired. Seems his roommate is the problem. Watch til the end.

Slow feed haynets are a great way to keep your horse from being bored. I think Atlas is taking that to the next level though. This went on for about fifteen minutes.