Someone not horsey who listens to my World of Warcraft podcast asked me what a day in the life of Dino is like. Why does he go out at night when it’s cold? Why does he come in what I arrive at the yard? Don’t horses live in stables?! So I thought Dino could do you a bit of a day in the life of a Dino-saur so you can take a look!
Morning Dino!
Dino & Jakey-Jake coming in from the field
Dino spends his nights out in the field, with his mates Poppy (or Popsicle), Blue and Jakey-Jake. This is a bit unusual, most people keep their horses in stables overnight and out in the field during the day, but it’s much better for Dino. Field time during the day is very restricted in the winter so he’d only get a couple of hours out during the day. Horses are evolved to be roaming animals; in the wild they graze for 16-18 miles a day and roam many miles as they do so.
Keeping horses in stables where they can’t move much doesn’t always suit them and Dino has two aliments related to this: he has very stiff hips which are much better if he’s gently walking and in the past he’s had stomach ulcers. The ulcers happen with stabled animals because horses produce stomach acid constantly, rather than just when they eat, because they are evolved to eat for most of the day. If you stable a horse and give some hay over night most horses (especially greedy ponies like Dino!) will eat all the hay within an hour or two and then have maybe 8 or 10 hours with no food. This means the acid can affect the stomach lining causing ulcers. If I gave him enough hay to keep him eating all night he’d get super fat!!
So he’s out overnight, from around 8pm until 8am. This means he gets lots of time with his mates which is also important as horses are super social animals. He really likes being out and is very sad if he’s left in. In the summer it’s also better for him to be out overnight because he’s a bit allergic to flies and rubs a lot if he gets bitten. There are fewer flies at night but he still has to go out in his Bathorse coat:
Stable time
His stable!
When he does come in in the morning he has a nice straw bed, some hay, some breakfast and a treat ball waiting for him. His treat ball is his favourite thing! It’s basically hollow plastic with a hole in one side when I put treats in. The treats fall out as he moves it with his nose.
After eating all his food he then usually settles down to sleep. Lots of people comment that they find him sleeping around lunch time!
It’s true that horses do rest standing up, but they also need a short amount of REM sleep each day which they can only get whilst lying down. Dino often sleeps for an hour or more though!
Time for work!
Two days a week I don’t go and see him, so after his long nap at about 16.00 he’ll get his evening feed and then the yard staff put him back in the field.
On other days though I usually come and see him in the evening. When I arrive I give him his evening feed and then muck his stable out whilst he’s eating. Once that’s done we go and do some work! We quite often ride in the school, which is a surfaced arena. We have two to choose from, one has mirrors:
You can see the rest of the arena behind us
Sometimes in the summer evenings, or on the weekends, we can ride in one of the fields:
Or go hacking (that is, riding off the yard perhaps up to Epping Forest)
If we go off the yard we have to go on the road so he has lot of hi-vis clothing, including these ridiculous ears!
But then once he’s done with work he can go back in the field with his mates, ready to start again tomorrow!
I hope that answered some of your questions! Let me know in comments if it didn’t 🙂
