*** reassessed and still a nope ***
Stay inside guys and stay safe ❤️
Due to the beautiful weather the ponies have decided they would rather have a duvet morning please. Lessons up to 12pm are cancelled and we will reassess this afternoons lessons as the wind and rain is supposed to die down as the day goes on. Stay warm and safe everyone ❤️
It’s a…..
Can you guess whose baby it is by the pony?👶🏼
🤩Lesson availability Fridays 🤩
We have new slots available Fridays with Faye Bedford!
4:30pm - look out for our Black Friday Mega Deal!!!
5:00pm
5:30pm
Private lessons £30 or share with a friend for £25 each 🤩
Text 07475741180 to book your place
❄️Winter Feeding❄️
So here is another consideration for us here at TopLine. Now the grass is losing value and becoming mud what do we do? It’s not quite as simple as some people might think.
Do you know your horses metabolism slows down during winter naturally to conserve resources when food is scarce? This is around the time most horses are rugged up as it gets cold… brought in as it gets muddy…work is reduced due to lack of light … each of these would warrant a reduction of feed however, what do we typically do? Introduce hard feed 😅
Fibre is important. Our horses have ad lib hay except for browsing time in the fields. We know who will share and who won’t. The problem with hay as we get further into the winter is that it loses its nutrients. So we need to make sure our horses are getting the right amount of vitamins and minerals from another source. Especially vitamin E which does not store well in hay but is vital for our horses health.
So we may start changing what hard feeds we use for our horses. We feed Veteran Vitality as a base for all of our horses. It has an excellent level of vitamins, protein, fibre, oil and probiotics that covers most of our horses’ needs. It’s low in starch and sugars which are known to upset our horses digestive system and behaviour. It’s a mash so adds to their water intake, is easily absorbed and they all enjoy it!
We also feed a lot of ours fibre beet which is an alfalfa based mash once soaked, which again increases horses’ water intake and contains good protein and fibre helping to build muscle and condition. This gives them a bit extra. Especially our slimmer ponies (ex racers - Teo, oldies - Sasha etc).
We have baileys conditioning cubes or ease and excel for any horses needing a bit more still. They have a high Digestible energy content but can make some too energetic!
We feed our horses based on so many factors - just because it gets cold doesn’t mean we up their feed. We judge their f