General Chat

Hi everyone

Just popped on to see how everyone is doing and all the animals are ok

My horse is getting a bit plump with the spring grass so have cut down on her grazing time, had the vet last week to check her teeth, had to rasp a few sharp bits off


x

Hi,
I had written quite a long post the other day but when I pressed submit it deleted itself!!!

I have been trying to find someone to ride my 12.2hh, I have had her advertised all over the place and had quite a few responses, mostly from young girls wanting a pony, all emailing in text speak which i find quite hard to understand!!! I have had a couple of positive ones which I am following up and hopefull will find someone who wants to ride but keep her at mine as I have ahd a couple of bad experiences when she has been out on loan in the past!!
I had one person come out to see her last week, they travelled 2 hours to get here and then decided that tuppy had laminitus and that I obviously didnt know how to look after my ponies, I was quite cross as I tried to explain to her that she was just a bit foot sore from the hard ground and that once she had her shoes back on then she would be fine but she was adament that it was Lammi. anyone I have had her shoes put back on and low and behold she is completely sound again. its a bit annoying when someone meets your pony for 5 minutes and decides they know them better than you do!!!

The ground is rock hard again we are watering it to try to encourage some growth, I had sectioned off half of thier field to let the grass grow but the terrors broke out 2 nights in a row and ate it all!! I have connected it up to the electric fence now which seems to have sorted the problem!! I am strip grazing them, Bernie and Tuppy could do with getting a bit more but I cant let Molly have too much so i am supplementing them with hay twice a day still.

Went out for a great hack last night, Molly is feeling the joys of spring and for the first time since I have had her was pulling and jogging on the bits where we usually canter!!

Hope everyone and their animals are well

Julia x

Yes we are all well Julia. The weather has got a lot cooler but no sign of any grass yet. The donkeys don't like it much anyway. I have been on a couple of outings with a group of other donkey owners to look at another person's donkeys. One of her jennies had just had a tiny little black foal and it was only a few days old.
It's just an excuse really to go for a long drive somewhere in the country and chat about donkeys all day. Most people have little ones supposedly from the Mediterranean or Mediterranean via America making them Mediterranean- American or even Irish donkeys but donkeys are donkeys in my opinion no matter where they are supposed to come from and they are too small to be useful.
I could get you a rider for Tuppy if you lived a bit nearer to Perth. My youngest grandaughter is a very good rider and very keen. She has been having lessons for years and has no where to keep a horse near her or else we would have bought her one ages ago.
Yesterday I had a short visit from a friend accompanied by a young kangaroo in a bag. It looked so comical with its head and feet poking out of the bag. She let it out and it had a walk around looking at everything and a sniff at our cat's nose then she scooped it up and poked it back into it's bag and I gave it some little bits off our native shrubs which it enjoyed and away they went with it sitting on the front seat of her vehicle inside a box.
Why is your ground so hard if you don't mind me asking. Is it still frozen or just packed down hard.?
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Hi Marjery,

Your grandaughter sounds perfect!! such a shame that she is on the other side of the world!!! I have somone coming to see her this Friday hopefully although they have emailed to say they are stuck abroard at the moment and dont know when they will be able to get a flight.

The ground is so hard because we have now had no rain for about 5 weeks! and for England in April it has been quite hot!! it goes from one extreme to the other at the moment!!

Baby Kangaroo sound lovely!! is it one that has been orphaned??

Julia

Yes it would have been orphaned. A lot of kangaroos get hit by cars because they happen to be standing at the side of the road and when a car comes along they decide to make a run for it and jump out in front of it especially about dusk or sunrise when they come out to feed. Country roads often go through big patches of bush so you have to watch for them.
We have hit two with our car, one in the bush about ten years ago and one in open farm country. back in the early seventies. We didn't kill them as they got up and hopped off but they did a lot of damage to the cars we were in about $3000 worth the last one.
Some people including my neighbour stop and see if they are carrying a joey when they see a dead one on the side of the road and then they have to raise it on a bottle with a special rich milk mixture that they get from somewhere, the Wildlife Dept. I think. They are babies for a long while and are kept in a shopping bag hanging on a door handle and let out for a walk now and then. If anyone is rearing one they usually take them with them when they go out. This one used to go to work with it's carer, but the President of the Donkey Society took hers to meetings and is a registered carer. If someone finds one and doesn't want to rear it they get passed on to Wildlife carers.
Kangaroos live in their mother's pouch until they get too big and then when they leave it another embryo takes its place. There are about four or five in the pipeline waiting for their turn to be born. A kangaroo with head and feet sticking out of its mother's pouch looks quite comical. They are very cute with their little heads and big ears and look at you quite trustingly.

I hope you don't have as hot a summer as we have just had and I don't fancy winter if it's going to be unusually cold. The weather is peculiar everywhere. My sister in the north part of the North Island of N.Z. is having a drought now after a wet summer and they may have electricity power cuts as the lake that feeds the river where all the hydro electric dams are is getting low in water.

Hi,

How is everyone??

I have found someone wonderful to ride Tuppy for me! a small adult who doesnt take any of her nonsence!! The ground is so hard again though there is not much chance of going very fast!
Its really hot here at the moment ( well it is for England!!) we are watering our paddocks like mad, lucky we have our own borehole so it doesnt cost much!!

Hope you are all well!!

Julia

Yes Julia donkeys and I are all O.K. Last night the rain bucketed down for all of eight minutes this morning we had 14mm. in the rain guage so it is a start. When I tell you we have only had rain on nine days since last September and three of those were just light showers we really appreciate it. It rained hard for a few minutes awhile ago but the ground is so hard that it just runs off and underneath it is as dry as a bone. The donkeys retreat to their shed, they will stand there all day rather than come out and get wet.
Glad you have found someone to ride Tuppy.
My neighbour is giving up dressage. She fell off her new horse on boxing day and couldn't remember Christmas Day or anything, even how sh fell off or got back to the house.. Has had scans and tests and now has our vet and her assistant exercising her two horses. We think she should sell them before something serious happens to her. She didn't start riding until she was fifty, my mother knocked off at that age because she thought the ground was too far away.

hello everyone

hope you, ponies and donkeys are all well

the farm where my horse is has run out of their own hay and he is buying it in from Devon apparently hay is in short supply cos of wet summer last year and the bad winter, we will be charged £5. 95 a bale instead of the usual £4

pleased you found someone to ride Tuppy Julia

x

That sounds like about $14 Aust. Yvonne. Rather expensive. Which month is hay making done in.? We cut ours in Oct. and its baled and stacked in the shed. Everyone wants it at the moment as we are having a dry start to winter which means there is no chance of rain until next Monday perhaps. and there is not much growth happening in the paddocks. A friend came the other day to get a load. His wife breeds Arabs and now has nineteen as she can't bear to part with any of them. Doesn't sound as though there is money to be made there.

Hello Marjery

the farmer cuts his hay around July depending on the weather, you have to have a few dry days, then once its stored it should be left for a couple of months but as we have been short he starts using it acouple of weeks after its been cut which shouldn't be done cos its still a bit green and can cause colic in some horses.

we've had some hot weather recently (30 c) now its got cold again (15c) and raining today.

Does your friend breed horses for a living? You can't get to attached to them if you need to sell them

x

I think that was the original idea. She has a job as well and they have a property near us and she shows them.
Do you feed chaff or horse pellets or straw to your horse.? What a worry having to find hay at the start of summer.
Haymaking in England sounds more like haymaking in N.Z. except that it used to be dried out in the paddocks. It's a wonder your hay doesn't go mildewy when it is green and sets the shed on fire.
Our hay has to have between 12 and 27% moisture in it or else it either clogs the baler up or crumbles before it can be baled. It is usually done at night, all night sometimes if the moisture level is right
It was beautiful to-day, 20 C cloudless blue sky and it is supposed to be the start of winter. I think it is worth putting up with the long hot summers just to have fine mild weather the rest of the year.
The farrier came to-day. My Jennifer stepped up to have hers done all by herself. Sometimes he has started before I get out there as they are usually in their pen waiting and he doesn't even bother to tie them up.

I think that was the original idea. She has a job as well and they have a property near us and she shows them.
Do you feed chaff or horse pellets or straw to your horse.? What a worry having to find hay at the start of summer.
Haymaking in England sounds more like haymaking in N.Z. except that it used to be dried out in the paddocks. It's a wonder your hay doesn't go mildewy when it is green and sets the shed on fire.
Our hay has to have between 12 and 27% moisture in it or else it either clogs the baler up or crumbles before it can be baled. It is usually done at night, all night sometimes if the moisture level is right
It was beautiful to-day, 20 C cloudless blue sky and it is supposed to be the start of winter. I think it is worth putting up with the long hot summers just to have fine mild weather the rest of the year.
The farrier came to-day. My Jennifer stepped up to have hers done all by herself. Sometimes he has started before I get out there as they are usually in their pen waiting and he doesn't even bother to tie them up.

Hi Yvonne and Marjery,

mine are all well, they are enjoying a bit of cooler weather! Yvonne- we have had such a struggle with hay this year too, I am having to get the huge 9ft long bales!! it works out at a reasonable price though although you do need alot of storage space as 4 is the minimum he will deliver!!
Our hay field is looking rubbish!! we think we will only get around 40 bales which will last no time at all. oh well, looks like I will be buying it all winter!!!

Julia

Hullo Julia and Yvonne,
What a worry having to get hay all summer when winter has not even started. It must cost a fortune to keep a horse where you are.

Nothing would grow here if it didn't have a lot of fertiliser put on when the oat seed is planted in winter then it has to be sprayed if broadleaf weeds get in it and then urea spread a few weeks before it is cut to give it a quick burst of nitrogen and make it grow tall before it is cut.. Then in summer nothing at all grows as there is no rain and only the stubble is left.

I will tell the donkeys how lucky they are to be having plenty of hay when they come back from the paddocks to go to bed in their shed.
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Hi

Sorry Marjery, didn't explain myself very well, the hay is left on the field to dry then it is baled, but shouldn't be fed as its still too fresh. We feed hay still cos we aren't allowed to turn out 24 hours. The horses have to be in part of the time. I only feed chaff and a horse mix in the winter plus hay but in the summer she only gets hay to munch in the evening and a small breakfast of mix

We had our annual show this weekend, I didn't enter anything this year but I cheered on my friends, the profit goes to charity, this year it was for 'sudden death syndrome'. It was really hot but cooled down in the evening for the hog roast
x

HI,
Its been a while since any of us came on this thread!!
Hope everyone is well.
Update on my lot!!
Bernie left us last July to go to a new loan home where he is getting on well.
Molly and Tuppy are still here and doing well although they are so covered in mud at the moment its hard to recognise them!!!
Molly just had her annual vaccinations at a grand cost of £76!!! The vet must have been here all of 5 mins which included putting on and taking off wellies and signing the passport, can never get over how expensive it is, every year its a shock!!

Whats everyone else been up to??

Julia (in Cambs)

I will add my reply to-morrow as it is late and I have to get up early to-morrow as we are going to Perth (100kms away) shopping for the day.

I have just enjoyed reading this! In particular it's interesting to hear about other parts of the world.

My youngest son rode until he went to uni last year and we had ponies for 7 years. The latest was sold to a neighbor so he is in the next paddock! It's nice to see him but they don't ride him much so it's a shame.

My son did lots of Pony Club stuff as well as private lessons and was particularly good - on his skewbald "Pikey Pony" - at Dressage where he often came 1st.

They had a lot of fun for many years but Pete is now 6' 2" and the pony is 14.3 hands! So he was sold. But, thank heavens, we never had any trouble with him or his predecessor.

Hi,

Helen in Kent-its good to have you on board!!

well its been soooooo windy here the last 4 days, ponies do not like it and everything thats flapping turns into a pony eating monster!!! oh well at least its dry so far, we had so much mud up until a could of weeks ago, leading the ponies down from the field at night was very slippery, I think that if I had put skis on they would have towed me all the way!!!!

Hope everyones ponies and donkeys are well

Julia (in Cambs)

Hi Julia and Helen in Kent.
We have had a particularly nasty week and week end. First we had an unusual weather event that was just like a cyclone but wasn't according to the weather bureau. For nearly half an hour there were 195km an hour winds and dust swirling around, tearing everything to pieces, then 8mm of rain then it stopped and the sun came out again.
What a mess, branches, leaves and debris everywhere, trees snapped off their trunks or blown over and pots minus plants rolling about. No structural damage except one of our verandah posts was lifted out of the ground. The patio on the north side was bouncing up and down but held on.
We were lucky a number of houses in town were unroofed and some splintered into matchwood. No power for most until Friday morning and this happened on the previous Saturday. Our district is a declared disaster area to go along with all the other disaster areas in Aust.
The donkeys stayed quietly in their shed.
On top of all this the leafy bush clad suburbs on the hills around Perth are on fire and fifty nine houses have been destroyed at last count and hundreds of other people evacuated to energency centres . These are the properties where people have horses, alpacas,, aviaries etc so I hope they left their gates open so they could all get away. The fire has been contained so far but it depends on the weather as it is still smouldering. As it has not rained much this year the bush is tinder dry and it wont take much wind to start it up again. Three donkey owning friends live in those areas but so far they have not been affected.
These houses are all large and they were all going up like cellophane paper it was awful watching on T.V.
This has taken up a lot of room so I will leave my account of the donkeys last detal visit till to-morrow.