Barton Riding & Livery Stables

24/04/2024

I hired the lorry last week and had great service

16/03/2024

💔What would *you* do if you were alone and had a heart attack?💔
1.
Take a 2 minute break and read this:
Let's say it's 5:25 pm and you're driving home after an unusually hard day's work.
2.
You are really tired and frustrated.
All of a sudden you have chest pains. They are starting to radiate in your arm and jaw. It feels like you’re being stabbed in the chest and heart. You're only a few miles away from the nearest hospital or home.
3.
Unfortunately you don't know if you can make it..
4.
Maybe you've taken CPR training, but the person running the course hasn't told you how to help yourself.
5.
How do you survive a heart attack when you're alone when it happens? A person who is feeling weak and whose heart is beating hard has only about 10 SECONDS!! before losing consciousness.
6.
But you can help yourself by coughing repeatedly and very strongly! Deep breaths before every cough. Coughing should be repeated every second until you arrive at the hospital or until your heart starts to beat normally.
7.
Deep breathing gives oxygen to your lungs, and coughing movements boost the heart and blood circulation. Heart pressure also helps to restore a normal heartbeat. This is how cardiac arrest victims can make it to the hospital for the right treatment.
8.
Cardiologists say if someone gets this message and passes it on to 10 people, we can expect to save at least one life.
9.
Instead of posting memes, you're helping save lives by spreading this message.
♥️ COPY (hold your finger down on the screen over this message, click on the text until it’s all highlighted, then select copy, go to your own page and where you normally want to write, hold your finger down again and then select paste)♥️
♥️IT♥️SAVES♥️LIVES♥️

06/02/2024

Can anyone help me by getting this questionaire completed if you own a horse

Please take a few minutes to take our survey.

09/01/2024

Such useful information

*** END OF LIFE - PART 3 ***

Sorry for the delay, but here, finally, is part three.....

There are several options for your horse's final journey, and once again, it's a personal decision.

The most commonly used option when I put horses to sleep, is to use a stock disposal service (knackerman). These people can also shoot, so this can work out a much cheaper option if the euthanasia is planned, and funds are tight. If you simply use them for taking away your horse's body, then the cost of a stock disposal service/knackerman ranges from £250-£350. The bodies have to be cremated under very strict guidelines, which is why the cost is seemingly quite high. In our area, the stock disposal companies are always extremely efficient in coming out as soon as they possibly can when I call them. They will also give you the option to have your horse cremated individually (they are normally done in a mass cremation), so you can have the ashes back. This obviously costs a bit more than a standard cremation.

If your horse has been put to sleep by lethal injection, then the hunt cannot really help out, as obviously they cannot feed anything to the hounds that contains the injection used to put the horse to sleep. However, once again for planned euthanasias only, the hunt may be an option for you to consider if you are wanting to have him/her shot. The hunt staff are very experienced and efficient, and this is certainly an option worth looking into, especially if you wanted to take your horse away from the yard to be put to sleep, as they also often offer that option.

The final option is using a specialist cremation service. This is the option I would always now choose, as I am extremely sentimental about my horses, but it is certainly not cheap. The cost of using a cremation company, is around £1000-£1500. This includes individual collection of your horse in a trailer, individual cremation, monitored throughout, and the ashes back in a wooden casket. There are other companies available for this, who are a bit cheaper, so it may be worth looking into these options at a time when there is no pressure to decide.

I always try and make sure my clients have a bit of mane or tail when I have put their horses to sleep; some don't want anything other than memories, but for some people it leaves them with a little bit of their horse. There are companies that make bracelets etc out of horse hair, so it's always worth having a bit of mane or tail if you are even considering that.

As vets, we always need to try and think about where we are going to put a horse to sleep, especially in an emergency situation. Getting a large, dead horse out of a stable, is really very difficult. Obviously, if a horse is down in his/her stable with severe colic or a broken leg, for example, I will definitely not even attempt to get the horse up and out, and the problem of getting the horse out has to be dealt with afterwards. However, if there is any chance of getting the horse or pony to a suitable area with good access for a lorry, then that is what we do.

I normally advise that we put a horse to sleep out of sight of any other horses, but then that any close companions are brought over to sniff/see the body once he/she has passed. I do think that close companions need to know that their friend is no longer alive, and they often sniff for a minute or two and then either want to leave, or start grazing near the body.

I always advise people not to watch their horse being loaded onto the lorry; it's not a memory you want to have. This is the point at which I think it's sensible to allow a friend to take over; if you have stayed with your horse until this point, you have done everything you could have done for your horse in his/her final hours.

I will just reiterate that it’s always good to have a plan in place before the dreaded day occurs. Would you want your horse to go for colic surgery? Do you have the funds for that? If not, and you opt for euthanasia, would you want your horse cremated afterwards, and by whom?

I hope this mini series has been of some use (you will find the first two parts further down on my page!). It is not an easy topic to even think about, let alone talk about, but it's something we need to think about before having to make a rushed decision.

Feel free to share.

15/11/2023

20/10/2023

🥕 QUICK CARROT FACT 🥕

It's carrot time of year again!

Carrots are a useful succulent for horses on winter mostly-dry diets e.g. hay and bucket feed, with limited grass intake.

Carrots are LOW IN SUGAR on a fresh basis at around 5%. Compare this to a typical sugar content of hay of 8%:

🥕 1 medium carrot (60g) = 3g sugar
🟨 1 small bale slice of typical meadow hay (1kg) = 81g sugar

Owners often consider carrots to be high in sugar but that's on a dry matter basis i.e. if you dry the carrot. Most of a fresh carrot is water - around 80% - and this means its sugar content is diluted.

Some vets recommend not to feed carrots to overweight, laminitic or EMS horses or ponies, but this is due to the risk of the owner over-feeding carrots (the risk of 1 becomes, 2, becomes 3, becomes half a bucketful) NOT the sugar content of a single carrot.

Please share to help me spread the truth about feeding carrots! 🥕🐴🍏

10/08/2023

*** DRIVERS: PLEASE, PLEASE WASTE 30 SECONDS OF YOUR DAY and SLOW DOWN FOR HORSES ***

I hacked Alfred out this morning. He is only 5 years old, and he has taken a while to not panic when larger vans and lorries come past him. Every single vehicle today, big and small, bar ONE, was outstanding! This one driver was a local “horsey” family, well known for never slowing down for horses, who now seem to be into tarmac driveways. There’s zero point naming him/them as they won’t change until they kill a horse and/or rider, and probably not even then.

So, I thought I’d write a post for non-horsey people, on why it’s so important to slow down for horses on the road. About two weeks ago, a really lovely female driver stopped to ask me at what speed she should go past a horse and rider, so I’m hopeful that some drivers who don’t slow down, simply don’t know why, or at what speed they should go past a horse out on the roads.

Firstly, every horse is different. It’s really important to take advice from the rider on to how quickly to pass them, or whether to just stop for ten seconds. You can’t see what’s behind walls and hedges, and the rider may need you to stop if they are about to pass some sheep behind a hedge, or a lawn mower, for example. However well educated a horse is, they will always be a prey species, so should always retain their natural survival instinct to move very quickly away from what they perceive to be imminent danger. They are likely to only shoot sideways a step or two, but that could be straight in front of your car. The rider will likely have picked up on the horse’s fear, and by following his or her instructions to just stop your vehicle for two seconds, everyone stays safe.

Horse riders do not ask drivers to slow down or stop, because we are pompous a**eholes. We may indeed be pompous a**eholes, but that’s not why we are asking drivers to slow down or stop. We are doing it because we don’t want to cause a fatal accident.

Young horses need to get used to traffic. If vehicles constantly shoot past a young horse, they will be terrified of traffic for the rest of their lives. The ONLY way to get a horse safe on the roads, is to expose him/her to the roads. My aim with young horses, is to give them time to assess the vehicle they are about to pass. If that horse needs that big lorry to stop for a minute, whilst he assesses that the big lorry is safe to go past, then unfortunately that needs to happen. If the lorry continues to move past that horse, and the horse panics, whips round, and bolts in the opposite direction, then not only will the driver be held up for far longer, but that horse may either slip over in the road, or need five minutes to pass the next lorry. Yes, it’s extremely frustrating to be held up on the roads by a horse rider, but a minute or two really won’t change your life.

I thought I’d clear up some common misconceptions, too.

1. Yes, horse riders have as much right as cars to be on the road.
2. The Highway Code states to pass horses at 10mph. Therefore screaming out of your car window that you were “doing 30”, when asked to go slower, isn’t a valid argument.
3. We don’t want to ride on roads, and we don’t enjoy riding on roads. It’s unfortunately a necessity to get to quiet country lanes and bridleways.
4. We can’t just “ride in fields”. As much as we’d all like to chop off padlocks to all of the local fields, and use them, the farmers would get a tad unhappy.
5. We don’t clear up our horses’ poo, because it’s a very safe waste product. Human excrement is used as a fertiliser for many of the food that you eat. I know whose excrement I’d prefer on my tomatoes.
6. Horses have to be introduced to traffic in order to get used to traffic; they weren’t born knowing that cars weren’t going to kill them, or drive into them. In fact, they are right to be scared of fast moving vehicles, until they are older and experienced on the roads.
7. We pretty much all own cars, and many of us also own horse lorries, so yes, we do pay as much road tax as you.
8. If we ask you to slow down, please slow down. It is for your safety, as well as our own.
9. It is actually a lovely, brief, interaction when a vehicle is considerate to a horse, and stops if asked. The rider smiles and thanks the driver, and the driver smiles back. The horse is also happy, and has had a good experience.

Slowing for a horse may take as little as twenty seconds out of your day, but it may save that horse and rider’s life.

My final point is to also ask all RIDERS to always thank drivers, IF they slow down. There is nothing worse, even as a horsey person, to slow right down for a rider, and be given a blank stare. If you can’t take your hands off the reins, then a smile/nod/mouthed “thank you”, is fine!

Please share, especially with non horsey friends/groups!

Photo of wonderful Alfred today, after his hack. This was his first hack without a person on foot, since I injured my pelvis over 4 months ago!

14/07/2023

*** MOUNTING FROM THE GROUND; JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD! ***

I can’t recall the last time I mounted any horse from the ground. And that’s how it should be. Mounting a horse from the ground is, quite frankly, unnecessary. There are many varieties of safe, cheap, portable, plastic mounting blocks. Unless you weigh about 5 stone, which, let’s face it, not many of us are even close to, you will be causing your horse discomfort at the very least. At its worst, clambering up onto your horse can result in long term back pain for your horse. Studies have shown just how much excessive pressure is caused to the withers when a rider mounts from the ground once. Just imagine the cumulative effect.

I’m anticipating a couple of “arguments” that people will come back at me with, so I’ll address those now! Yes, there’s not always a mounting block handy if you are out hacking. No excuse. Unless you are riding across the desert, or are truly in the wilderness, there is always something you can find (gate/log etc). Just keep walking until you find something suitable; great exercise for you, so it’s a win win situation 😉

I’m sure someone will point out that there are far more important things to worry about, and I’m sure I’ll be told I’m scaremongering. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not as important as getting veterinary care for your horse/feeding your horse/worming your horse (actually, let’s not open that can of 🪱 🙄😉). But surely anything we can do to make our horses more comfortable, including not mounting from the ground, matters?!

To those of you who can vault effortlessly onto a horse from the ground, you’re not welcome to join this conversation 😉😉 But you may continue to “mount” from the ground!

Don’t ever be made to feel stupid because you “can’t” mount from the ground. Those people need to polish their halos and state that even if they could, they wouldn’t want to put unnecessary strain on their poor horses’ backs. Not to mention constantly twisting the saddle tree.

In summary, just because you can mount from the ground, doesn’t mean you should. Get a leg up, or use a tall mounting block (or anything else you can find….) to mount your horse.

Photo of me mounting the only horse I probably need a 5 step block for!

Feel free to share!

24/06/2023

To anyone not concerned about the horses being ridden in heat like this, here is some great, educational information for you!

01/04/2023

ELM Wildlife in Crisis
Can you help?

I’m very sad to say this could be the end of ELM, and we may be closing in 5 months.

I hate to be so dramatic, but I have exhausted every avenue I can think of to help us and have to say that I feel beaten. For the past 4 years I have been looking for a larger and more stable site for ELM to lease or purchase; or if by some miracle, have donated to us. We have bid and offered as much as we can on many pieces of land, only to fail for many reasons; I have to say that a lot of times it was due to greed. I have also contacted many large organisations, landowners, charities and individuals that I felt would be able or interested in helping us. I have painfully and sadly drawn a blank with all of them contacted, in some cases even worse with them stringing us along for months/years; I will elaborate on some of these if we finally must close.

After all these years of putting the wildlife first and saving as many animals as we can; plus, the struggle to keep the centre manned and funded; our billionaire landlord (Simon Karimzadeh the self named Crazy Billionaire) has delt the final blow. On the 6thMarch 2023 he increased our rent 114%, -yes you did read that right - one hundred and fourteen percent! which was to be paid at the start of April 2023. After negotiations we were offered 6 months, with a statement that read “By that time, either you will have either departed your space or agree to the new terms”; therefore, by the 7th of September 2023, ELM is out of a home and probably closing down.

All our dreams of creating a large wildlife rescue centre to cover all wildlife in Devon, seems to have now gone out the window. ELM accepts around 1,200 wildlife casualties a year, with the majority of these being hedgehogs. With needing more internal space and a total lack of external space, we have had to turn away around 800 other wildlife species per year; when you love animals as we do, this is devastating; a lot that we can’t take die, go to unsuitable places or are shipped out of the county. If you’ve ever called the RSPCA, RSPB, Devon Wildlife Trust or your local vet, there is a good chance you’ve been given our number; as a side note, we receive no help from these organisations. I don’t think I can properly convey our feelings on the thought of closure, I honestly feel I have failed, and the thought of around 2000 animals with nowhere to go, not to mention the distraught finders/rescuers, it’s crushing. On top of the animals we are going to let down, we now have two employees and our hope this year was to employ more people; careers in animal rescue or wildlife are hard to find.

You may ask, “why close and not just move”.

• Money is always a deciding factor, the rent we have been paying is appropriate for the condition of the building and the compromises we make at Seale Hayne. To pay more for what we have would be ridiculous, but a move with another lease would cost us more; and I’m not sure we’d find the extra money. Renting at Seale Hayne has taught us that we need to ultimately own or have a very long lease.
• To move the rescue centre is difficult at the best of times, there is a massive amount of equipment to move; and the moving of sick animals is always problematic.
• Finding us, when we moved from Torquay it took the best part of a year to stop people turning up at the wrong place.
• We rely heavily on our very supportive volunteers, a constant change in town or district will/may impact their ability to help.
• We commute every day, this is expensive and creates a problem with constant or emergency care; we have been waiting to move closer and another temporary site is going to stop that.
• I was 55 when we started ELM and to be honest I’m not sure how much more I have in me. I feel I could still manage building a new centre now, but I’m not sure I’ll have it in me after another few years renting, I think Jacky feels much the same. I don’t want to bore you with what building and running ELM has done to us, but I’m sure you can imagine it hasn’t been good. My dream was to build and organise a new centre, and then gradually take a step back.

As I said, ELM has treated thousands of animals and the demand for our services are massive. We support the community as much as the wildlife - if you’ve ever found a casualty and wanted to help it, we have been there, not left you on the phone for hours or just hung up on. All this, plus the enjoyment/social interaction/wellbeing that our 130 volunteers take away, the ambulance Messenger group we run, the rescue and advice telephone line, years of treatment and caring skills, the centre’s organisation/infrastructure and our personal drive will be gone………. unless we get help.

We need you to spread the word far and wide, to keep our dream alive, and to help all wildlife in need. We need 10 acres plus of land, potentially near the A38 between Chudleigh and Ugborough if possible - please see the attached diagram of our search area (it’s a guide, not set in stone) - it’s shaped like a champagne bottle in anticipation. We have scraped together a personal amount of money, plus a generous loan; we are not wealthy people, but we want to try and make ELM work.

Do you own some land; do you know a land/estate owner or farmer? Maybe you know someone influential, famous or a good contact in the national press or tv, who can get the message out, about our plight - five months will fly by and I don’t feel I have got the energy to keep battling against the odds.

Please also carry on supporting us financially and with your time, if we make the decision to close, we will inform you about Standing Orders; this year was always going to be tough for us with the economic crisis. Thank you so much for all your help.

We really need to own a permanent base for ELM or at least a long-term lease at reasonable rent. Please help us, or we will not be there to help you.

Thank you for reading this and I hope so much that you can help.

Best regards,

Rick Parker CEO - ELM Wildlife
Telephone: 07971 276658
Email: [email protected]

Please do not use this email for wildlife related problem.

04/07/2022

Highly recommended

25/06/2022

~ Equine Strangles confirmed~

There have apparently been cases of Strangles confirmed in the pony herd currently based at Meldon Hill near Chagford and so people are advised to avoid contact with the ponies to prevent the spread to other herds and any horses you may come into contact with elsewhere. Riders are advised not to use this area of moorland as Strangles is highly contagious and there is a great risk of exposure up here.

The current update is that the herd will remain on the moor without intervention until the disease has run it's course.

Information on strangles here: https://www.bhs.org.uk/advice-and-information/horse-health-and-sickness/strangles #:~:text=Strangles%20is%20a%20disease%20caused,handler%20clothing%20and%20boots%20etc.