Welcome to day three of our Hay Crisis Special.
We're talking to three equestrians over three days to
find out how they and their horses are coping with the UK's
hay shortage after the dry spring recorded in 100 years.
Today, in the final part of our very special series, we're
talking to a livery yard owner who has struggled to source
enough hay for the dozens of horses in her care. 1 Hay
harvest shockingly set on fire during what was the hottest
summer on record in England. Lauren Johnson joins us now, the
owner of Grave new equine horse Track System in Faversham in
Kent, winner of Livery Yard of the Year 2024.
Lauren, thank you for coming on Curious Equestrian.
Before we get stuck into talking about how the hay crisis is
affecting you at the moment, talk us through your setup and
your herd of horses. OK, so I run a track system and
we essentially concentrate our forage on hay.
So we distribute hay around the track.
The track is to try and emulate what horses would do in the
wild. So we want them to to make
friends, we want them to have a herd.
We want them to move as far as they can in a day.
So, you know, some horses in wild and feral horses will move
around 30 miles a day depending on what they're looking for.
And obviously we need to try and emulate the forage that they
would eat as well. So unfortunately we don't have
the luxury of putting them out in fields all the time.
And yeah, hay is their main source.
So this year particularly has been quite a challenge when it
comes to hay. And obviously we're, we're quite
active on social media, so we've been talking to a lot of other
people about what they can do to try and, you know, brace
themselves and get through the year essentially.
And Lauren, how many horses do you provide hay for on your
livery? Track.
So we have 20 horses at the moment.
Yeah, we tend to fluctuate around the 20 or low 20s mark.
But actually, to be fair, we've got space for a couple of more,
but I probably won't be taking any on this year purely because
of the concern with the amount of hay that we can access at the
moment. And just talk us through what
you would usually do to hay your twenty horses on livery.
What does that look like through the day when there isn't a hay
crisis? OK.
So we have feeders dotted around our track.
Basically we have probably 10 or 12 main feeders which involve
taking a Bale of hay out, putting it into the feeder and
covering it up with a slow feeder net.
We then have some smaller Nets that we will dot around on a
daily basis just to mix it up a little bit.
And we will also put some loose hay around as well depending on
the weather though if not if it's all going to blow away.
Oh, it's such a struggle, isn't it?
Anyway, winter, let alone during a hay crisis.
Tell us how the shortage is affecting you Lauren at the
moment. So we are really lucky that on a
normal year we've got a fantastic hay supply.
So we used to make our own hay when we had slightly smaller
numbers of horses. And probably about six or seven
years ago we realised that what we have wasn't quite going to be
enough if we added extra horses to the track.
So we, you know, formed a, a really strong relationship with
a great hay supplier and he, he's been incredibly reliable.
He's been really open to discussing the requirements that
we have for our hay. So obviously we need a a low
sugar, low starch hay and he has essentially been amazing.
But there came a point this year when he realised that he just
wasn't going to have enough grass to make the hay that we
needed. So luckily I was also in
discussion with another contractor at the time and that
was purely luck really. I wasn't planning on switching.
It was someone that I got in contact with through a friend
who was getting hay from him. And I was actually more
interested in the fact that he was testing his hay in bulk,
which is something again, the horse track system kind of group
of people is really interested in, in the nutritional value of
hay. And someone that actually
actively tests their hay before they send it out was really
interesting to me. So I got chatting to this other
guy anyway, which it turned out has saved my bacon essentially.
But my hay supplier thought when he got to the point of actually
cutting the grass, he contacted me and said, look, I think I
might just about be able to get the hay that you need for this
year. And I was like, OK, brilliant.
Because it's, it's always my least favorite time of the year,
trying to make sure that other things that can impact hay like,
you know, the rain, which obviously doesn't like to stop,
you know, doesn't affect things. I then got a phone call a few
hours later after he'd started cutting the hay to say that the
field was on fire. So because the weather was so
hot and the grass was so dry, it, you know, some sort of spark
from the machinery had basically set the hay field on fire.
So I feel that he would usually get around 500 large bales of
hay. So bales that weigh about two,
300 kilos. He got 80 bales off this year.
So I took a small amount from him and obviously I had to pay
extra per Bale, which was, you know, frustrating, but for both
of us. Not just for me, for him.
But I was able to obviously speak to another supplier that
brings hay in from all different places around the country.
And because I'm lucky enough to have a big barn to store it in,
I could get what I needed and get it safely into storage and,
you know, try and relax a little bit.
Because of course farmers that are having to buy hay in are
then having to increase their cost dramatically to pay for
their delivery of hay as well. Did you notice that ramp up in
in costs, Lauren? Yeah, there's been a huge ramp
up in costs and for instance, my hay bill on a yearly basis is
around eleven, 12,000 lbs or has been for the last few years.
And for slightly less hay this year I paid an extra £3000 which
is is a lot and and it's not a buffer that I can, you know, can
take on. I can't swallow that cost.
And my liveries have been amazing and they obviously
understand and I've explained it to them.
But yeah, I've had to put my prices up, which nobody wants to
do because everyone's struggling, aren't they,
financially at the moment? And that's the thing with such a
huge ramp up in costs, Lauren, it's like, where does that money
come from? You've had to increase your
costs. And for those with other types
of work that might have a a work contract, they're not going to
see an increase in their wages to cover the hay costs.
So it's an absolute impossible situation isn't it, for hay, for
horse owners at the moment? It is and historically livery
yard owners do try and swallow a lot of the costs in increases,
which, you know, they just don't have the buffer to do.
There's there's so many livery yards that are unfortunately
just about covering their costs. Livery yard owners that aren't
paying themselves and haven't paid themselves for months, you
know that they're just, the money's coming in from the
liveries and it's going straight back out on, you know, things
like, hey, at the moment. And you see, don't you, in a
ride in schools livery shutting down because they just can't
cope with the increase in costs? Yeah, yeah.
They, they can't cope with the increase and also, you know, the
clients because they're being pulled financially in all
directions at the moment. You know, everybody's bills have
gone up in general, household bills, you know, the cost of
food, the cost of living has really gone up.
And livery clients are looking for something cheaper and
cheaper and cheaper. And in our area, we've seen some
of the really big livery yards that have just, you know, shut
down. We can't do it anymore.
And obviously, as soon as they're offered a bit of money
for, you know, land for housing, it's a no brainer for them,
isn't it? It's it's let's get rid of the
the noose around the neck, essentially.
And there's less and less land for us to keep our horses on.
And you constantly see, don't you?
And across Facebook and across forums, people looking
desperately looking for for livery spaces or land to rent.
And it just becomes more and more of a problem.
But jumping back, Lauren, to to the farmer saying to you, my
field is on fire. I mean, what crossed your mind?
Because this is essentially climate change, isn't it, with
increase in temperatures and and the climate that we're seeing?
Yeah. And, you know, we usually have
every few years there will be inclement weather.
That means, you know, the hay supplies a little bit touch and
go. We might be waiting for a break
in the rain. And you know, sometimes we do
have slightly hotter years in the grass.
The yield is slightly down in general.
But it was kind of, I felt like I was on a bit of a roller
coaster because we had, I don't think I'm going to have enough
looking at the grass. And then we went to, I think we
might just about have enough. And then to the, the it's on
fire phone call, I, yeah, I panicked essentially.
I remember talking to one of my libraries a few minutes after
the phone conversation and being like, I genuinely don't know
what I'm going to do at the moment because obviously I've
got people I can contact, but there's absolutely no guarantee
that they will take me on as a new client.
And you know, luckily because I'd kind of been chatting to the
this other contractor, I was able to secure hay.
But there will be a lot of people who, you know, they
aren't able to, to get the hay off their usual supplier.
And you know, as tends to happen in these sorts of events that
hay suppliers will try and do their best for their current
clients, but they don't have the capacity to take any more
clients on. And that is, that's the position
that a lot of people are in at the moment.
They're looking for a new supplier and they just cannot
find anyone. And it's absolutely terrifying.
And I know you said, Lauren, it was great relief shutting those
barn doors knowing that you'd got enough hay for the rest of
the year. And we all know that feeling.
We just about secured hay recently for our autumn delivery
that was double the cost and almost triple the delivery cost,
which was a, you know, hugely frightening and, and really
difficult financially. But for those who are actually
facing going from supplier to supply and not being able to
find any, what I mean, what are their options?
Do you know Lauren? Well, this is something that,
you know, I've been trying to think through.
So we've got a fairly big Facebook community especially,
and, you know, we're trying to help people with lots of
different plans essentially. So obviously we're telling
people if they have the capacity to stock up, so if they've got a
barn or if they've got a space that they can maybe share with a
friend. So maybe they couldn't afford to
rent a barn on their own, but a few friends clubbing together.
If, if you can say to a supplier, look, I can, I've got
capacity for a couple of 100 bales of hay.
You're much more likely to, you know, secure a large load of
hay. And again, hopefully that's
going to get you through the winter or through, you know, the
rest of the year if you're lucky.
Another thing we're doing is we are, you know, really
encouraging people to, to look at how they're storing their
hay. So a lot of people will, you
know, get a pile of hay and, and throw a tarpaulin over it and
hope for the best. And, you know, if you lose a few
bales throughout the winter, it's not so much a big, big
deal. But this year, like, every
single Bale is going to count. So people need to, yeah, if they
can get some kind of barn storage, brilliant.
But if not, looking at some of the specialist tarpaulins that
actually will still let the hay breathe and they won't trap
moisture underneath them. There are quite a few of those
brands available. I mean we've got loads of
suggestions. Another one is looking at either
supplementing with hailage because obviously the the
growing and the times have cut off hay and hailage are some,
you know a bit different. So it might be that in some
areas there is more hailage available, but obviously there
is a potential for gut upset if people are swapping between hay
and hailage. So that's something people need
to think about. It's not something I could do.
I've got horses that are sensitive and I couldn't swap to
hailage, so that wouldn't work for me personally, but it might
for some people. Another thing would be looking
at mixing a certain percentage of straw in as a forage replacer
and a bulk item essentially. So horses generally can tolerate
up to about a maximum of 50% of straw in their diet.
It's something that needs to be done very gradually, though,
certainly not just straight to to lots of straw because it
obviously has the potential to cause colic impaction colic if
you switch over to that. But it's it's good for good
doers because there's not many calories in it.
So it's something that's actually a really good option to
swap to. But again, you know, the
availability of straw is not guaranteed this year either
because it's a crop and it's had the same issues as the grass
has. So that's, that's potentially,
you know, not going to be a, a goer for some people.
Then they need to look at the hay replacements basically.
So different kind of hay nuts, hay cobs, the chaffs that you
can get, you know, just bagged chaffs from the feed store
essentially using those again, just partially replacing
obviously the supply of those sort of products into the market
are a bit more stable. So even if there is a bad year,
the companies will have more of a contingency for getting those
products to the market still anyway.
So that might be something that people can look to, to bulking
out their feeds with On a wastage side of things, we're
encouraging people to, you know, use slow feedinet.
So if you've, you know, you're usually putting hay out loose.
If you use a slow feedinet, they're going to slow down the
consumption slightly, but also they're going to reduce the
wastage. So you're, again, you're, you're
looking at not just not using as much hay potentially, but not
wasting like clawing back the wastage.
Because I, I mean, as a livery yard owner, I know a lot of
livery yard owners will agree, especially when horses are
stabled, there's the potential for a lot of wastage of hay
getting, you know, turned into bedding and trampled on and
going to the toilet on it. So looking at ways to, to stop
hay being wasted as well. It's really important.
There's something else again, which is depending on how you
keep your horses, you can look at utilising pasture and
grasslands. So one of the things I
personally thought about and was planning on doing if I needed to
was using my middle field as standing hay.
We don't tend to do that on a year to year basis purely
because we have some horses that are very sensitive and wouldn't
cope well with it. But for me it would have been a
case of having to split the herd into two groups so the horses
that can cope with it and the horses that can't.
So the ones that can would have had more access to that.
And to be honest, I'm still not completely, you know, Pooh
poohing that idea. Depending on how we go through
the hay in the next few months, it might be something that I do
in the winter for, you know, a few of the horses that can cope.
The, the other thing is considering different species of
hay. So you know, generally, I mean
for me personally, I, I have a Meadow hay, I have a mixed
Meadow hay, but there are other crops such as Timothy hay and
alfalfa hay and sanfoin hay that actually fare slightly
differently in the, the very wet and then the drought conditions
that we've had. So those crops might be more
successful. And again, I wouldn't advice
switching completely over to a different type of hay, but if
you can mix it in, that means that you're just again, just
eking out your supply, mixing in a few different things.
And like I say there, there might be more of a supply of
certain crops that just fare better in drought conditions.
Oh, that's so interesting. And Lauren, are you using chaff
you mentioned, are you using it as a hay replacement?
And how do you do that for those who might be thinking they
should? So I probably wouldn't purely
because of the number of horses we have it, it it would work out
expensive. Basically it it's one of those
things that I would only look to doing personally for a large
group of horses if if we really didn't have any other options,
because again, it would be a lot of buying in and it would be a
much increased cost to normal forage, you know, kilo for kilo.
But if people are going to do it, I would suggest looking to
create slow feeders for the chaff.
So for me, that would look like a big bucket or container,
putting some of the chaff in, but then filling it with, I
mean, trying to use your imagination, filling it with
things like footballs that the horses have to kind of move
around. They can't just shove their face
in and eat, eat, eat. They've got to move the
footballs around and, you know, look for it and get to it.
Yeah. It's just trying to come up with
imaginative ways of slowing them down, essentially.
And for those, I'm actually really interested to ask you
this from a on a personal level as well, Lauren.
So round where I'm based in the southeast of England, but
towards the east, we've been told, as you mentioned, to use
some hailage as well in with our hay to try and count the forage
because again, hay supplies is really difficult around here,
very, very low and and hay suppliers only supplying their
regulars. And even then we've only just
about got enough. So very difficult.
But you mentioned about the gut upset and I've only just started
stocking in halage and I've moved my cob onto part hay, part
halage every day. And then we've got the
miniatures who are on purely soaked hay because they're
laminitic prone. We've got a very very low sugar
halage that they don't seem to do too well on permanently but
the odd day is OK. But I was going to ask you, can
they be on say hey for a week and then do one day on halage?
Or you mentioned gut upset. Is that going to be a bad thing
to suddenly have one day halage? Yeah.
So that's, I guess there's a bit of nuance to that.
So I definitely wouldn't go, you know, hay for six days and then
a hailage day. What I would do is start adding
in. So if you know you're you're
going to use say 7 bales of hay or 7 bales across a week.
And so you've got 6 bales of hay and one Bale of hailage.
Just to sort of make the numbers easier.
Instead of doing the, you know, 6 days of hay and one day of
hailage, I would spread the hailage ration out over the week
instead. I would look to do that.
What happens when you introduce a new feed stuff to your horse
is their gut essentially has to make sure it's got the right
microbes to deal with processing that food.
And you know, one of the biggest causes of colics or even
laminitis is when a new feed is introduced very rapidly.
The bacteria in the gut aren't familiar with the feed and very
simply you have a mass die off event of the gut bacteria.
And when those gut bacteria die, they will release toxins.
So that's when you have things like laminitis occurring because
essentially your horses system has a huge amount of toxins
pouring into it. Obviously with things like
colic, when you introduce a new feed stuff, it can impact the,
the speed that the forage is moving through the guts.
So again, that applies to if you're adding straw to your, the
diet as well to the rations as well.
It's so impacting the speed things move through the gut.
And just again, with the the change in bacteria, you're
you're much more likely to get either impactions or completely
the opposite and get some kind of diarrhea type episode as
well. The other thing to consider when
looking at halage is that it is a slightly different pH to hay,
obviously because of the fermentation process.
And some horses seem to cope with that absolutely fine.
Other horses just never quite, you know, sit right with halage
and they can even kind of move on to the heine gut acidosis,
which again is something that you, you know, if you identify
that you would definitely need to come away from the halage
because it, you know, you're upsetting the gut microbiome too
much essentially. It's so interesting you say
this, Lauren, because you know, not only locally but from feed
suppliers, is this being encouraged?
But also vets are saying as well about moving on to Halage.
But actually, even as experienced horse people like
myself, I was not told that there was gut issues when moving
them between the two. They just said you could use it
to bolster the hay supply without any kind of warning.
So thank you for sharing that because, you know, it really is
important that we educate ourselves into what can happen
if we actually move too quickly between the two when we're
actually all in this desperate scenario where we're trying to
get our hay supply. What else can we use?
How can we, you know, stop our hay supply going down too
quickly? But actually hailage may not be
the answer, even if we've got experienced vets or, you know,
feed merchants telling us, oh, that's what we're all doing and
and that's going to be successful for you.
Yes, and this this is one of the reasons that I've I've been
quite vocal in trying to encourage people to plan because
you know, the person that wants to say like yourself wanting to
use halage, the person that plans that in to their regime a
few months in advance is much less likely to have problems
than a person that goes, oh, we're out of hay.
I'm going to have to go and buy something from the feed shop.
And then, you know, all they've got is the wrapped bales of
halage. If you're able to gradually
introduce something into their diet, you're going to have a
much higher chance of success of that transition than if you're
putting certain feed in and then completely switching to a new
forehead. You know that that's really,
really dangerous and really asking for trouble.
Well, thank you for sharing because that's helped me not
only personally, but I'm sure there are many others like me
doing the same or looking for options like this and not being
given those kind of warning factors as well.
Lauren, when you look ahead to the winter, how are you feeling
and what worries you as we all move forwards, you know, as part
of this equestrian community? So winter for me is always a
time when I just try and, you know, I, I just imagine myself
hunkering down and just planning on getting through it
essentially. But I think as equestrians, we
are facing so many more challenges.
And I don't know if I just have a very romanticized view of
children when I was a child and having ponies, but it just, it
never seemed quite as hard. And I know I didn't have to pay,
you know, the brunt of the cost of things when it was when I was
very young and it was my parents looking after me.
But it feels like every year we are just dealing with more and
more problems. So obviously we talked about
earlier the, the reduction in available livery yard spaces
and, and also, you know, linked to that, it's not just
equestrian land that's being sold for housing developments,
it's farmland as well. So actually hay supply is being
reduced from kind of both both angles really.
We've been kind of being attacked from all different
angles. You know, I know personally I
have had to deal with quite an increase in staffing costs this
year, which again, you know, I'm absolutely all four people
getting a wage that they can survive on.
But as a small business, again it eats into your profits
essentially. So you know, we've had an
increase in the minimum wage or an out of a living wage.
We've had an increase in National Insurance costs as
well. The supply of things like
electricity and water haven't been too bad for us this year
increasing wise. But you know, this hay supply
issue was a real kicker essentially.
And like I say, I just had no buffer there to absorb that
amount of of increase in costs. And as you mentioned, the
increase in everything, the cost of living, the, the cost of food
in the supermarkets and, you know, bills in our homes.
We're all, you know, feeling that pinch on top of the hay
crisis. And, and you bring to our
attention, Lauren, about your hay man.
You know, there he is farming the field.
If the hay is on fire, then we're not even bringing into the
conversation as well that this could be a more common
occurrence as climate change continues.
And actually, you're the first I've heard.
But could it be all of us next year or the year after?
We're in five years time where our our hay farmers are seeing
the hay quite literally set alight in front of them.
Yeah, and climate change is is a massive thing to consider in
lots of different aspects of the equine world.
But yeah, essentially, you know, are we looking at every time a
farmer? So we farm as well.
So we kind of see the other side of the page, so to speak.
Every time a farmer has a really challenging year with a certain,
you know, crop or product, you know, you have to sit down at
the end of that year and say, is this worth the stress?
Are we making enough money from this?
Do we have to look at doing something else?
And again, you know, do we sell the land for housing?
Do we decide to plant a different crop?
Do we rent it to someone else for something else?
So, you know, climate is a really difficult thing to deal
with anyway when you're farming. But obviously from the other
side, not just the hay supply side, looking at things like the
availability of winter turn out, you know, that is something that
a lot of livery yard owners are struggling with.
Now. Obviously we have a surface
track system, so we're never going to be in a position where
we're going. We've just got acres of mud.
We can't put the horses out. But you know, that that's a very
real problem for yard owners now is they're they're looking at
fields that are completely churned up and poached by early
winter, you know, not even getting into the new year.
And there's there's this really difficult balance of, you know,
do do we take on more livery clients so we can get in a bit
more money and then we can do XY and Z.
Maybe we can afford to put in a couple of turn out pens or maybe
we can afford to put in a little bit of a track system.
But a lot of places are finding that because people don't want
to pay as much for their livery because they've got all the
other pressures on on their finances, that livery yards are
essentially overstocking. When actually it would be much
better to have 10 people paying £600 a month, but what they've
ended up with is 20 people paying £200 a month.
It's all, there's so many different aspects isn't there?
And the fact that we we're all using this year as as this
example is what we're going through at the moment, the
panic. Will we be able to get through
the autumn, the winter, will our hay last?
But none of us, yeah, I think it's too scary a prospect to
think about next year and the year after.
The reason we're seeing this hay shortage is because of the
weather and because of the drought and the dry conditions
and that and the grass and the hay not growing.
You know, is this going going to be a usual year for us in the
coming years ahead? And, and it, you know, it's
increasingly likely to be honest.
And I think years like this year make us, you know, look outside
of, of what we're used to slightly.
And I know that some of the bigger hay suppliers and
contractors are bringing in hay, which a lot of people do anyway
every year. But they're bringing hay into
the country, you know, in August and September, when usually it's
much later in the year when you start to see, you know,
shipments of hay coming over from Europe, essentially.
So is that something that's going to become more normal, in
which case the cost of hay will permanently go up a lot?
You know, transporting hay around the country isn't cheap.
And it might be, you know, that that's something that we need
to, you know, can we, can we suck up that cost?
Can we afford that cost? And, you know, as a, as a track
livery owner, it's, it's scary in the way that I can't rely on
grass for, you know, any real amount or percentage of our
horses diet. It has to be a forage that we
know the sugar levels in because we, we can't take that risk.
We've considered putting some of our own land down as hay so that
we, you know, we have our own supply.
But that brings different challenges for us because
because we're arable farmers as well, It would mean potentially
facing a clash between hay season and arable season.
And we don't have the manpower to be able to, you know, set
lots of people different off on lots of different tasks.
I think it was last year actually that because of the
rain, although the grass was growing, there was never a
period of time long enough for them to be able to cut the hay
and to bail the hay. I remember saying to my husband
that I'm actually really glad that we didn't decide to grow
hay this year because what, what would we be doing?
Like we can't not harvest the crop because we need to do the
hay. And obviously, you know, being
able to, to finance, getting all of the equipment for it, but
also then just taking on the stress yourself of having the
time and the money to produce your own hay.
It's, it sounds like a lovely idea, but actually it's quite
challenging in itself. And it's, it's something that
we've decided for the last few years that that we're not going
to do. But again, it's something that
we will have to have a conversation about this year.
Is it something that we look into again?
Yeah, and you're totally reliant on the weather working with you,
aren't, aren't you? And if we had less extreme
seasons, it it may be the case that actually we wouldn't be in
this situation, would be in, you know, you could, you know, grow
your own hay and, and there wouldn't be a shortage
nationwide. And it, it's, it's so
interesting what you say, because actually I've been
thinking it without realising them, without verbalising it
about horse ownership becoming more difficult.
And like you say, that's even not even mentioning the, the
financial rise, a huge increase in costs right across the board
in, in looking after our horses. But even thinking about the
workload, you know, through a lifetime, as many of us are
lifetime horse keepers. I remember many years ago being
able to have horses out on grass that were susceptible to
laminitis, but the, the grass was not so full of the sugars as
it is now. It was much more manageable.
Whereas now we're seeing these extreme weather conditions and
we're seeing things like spring, like grass coming through at
all, all times through the year, Grass that's really, really
short and sugary. And actually we've got
laminitics that now can no longer go on grass at all, you
know, not even in any kind of monitored way.
So again, they're more, they're more in need of us.
They're more intensive to to, to look after and with the extreme
weathers it become, everything becomes more difficult, doesn't
it? And more hard work, hard labour
and hard graft caring for our our beloved animals.
Yeah, absolutely. And I really feel for people
because, you know, horses generally and hopefully God
willing, have fairly long lives. So if if people have taken on a
commitment, you know, 10 years ago and they're looking at
another, you know, possibly even 20 years of commitment to that
animal. Now, obviously people having to
face the reality of do I have to sell my horse, which for a lot
of people is unavoidable, essentially.
But you're also looking at selling your horse into a market
that is flooded with people having to make similar
decisions. You know, and I've, I've, I've
known a few people, you know, within my friendship groups that
have actually made the decision to have their horses put to
sleep rather than risk them going to onto, you know, onto a
life of completely unknown circumstances.
You know, once you've sold that horse, you've got no control
over what happens to it in the future.
And, you know, these, these are animals that people have taken
on intending to have a lifetime commitment to them and then
finding themselves in a position where they, they can't fulfil
that commitment. And it's, it's just incredibly
hard. And again, I'm in a really lucky
position that we, we've got our farm lands, you know, so I've
always got somewhere for my horses.
But I'm, you know, painfully aware that other people don't
have that, you know, that facility themselves and they've
got to find somewhere or someone to be able to, to take on their
horse if they can't afford it. It's either that or, you know,
again, they're looking for the cheapest livery possible or
other areas of their life are, you know, being sacrificed to to
put all of their money in towards their horses.
Absolutely. And you know, you summarise that
so, so well, Lauren, and, and really sensitively as well
because as you say, no one could have foreseen this cost of
living crisis that we're in at the moment, let alone off the
back of the pandemic as well. So it's been an incredible sort
of five years. Isn't it?
Incredibly difficult? Dare I ask Lauren what you think
horse ownership is going to look like in the next 5 years?
I know that's a really difficult question to ask and very
unrealistic for any of us to try and answer, but can you even
begin to imagine what that might look like?
Do you ever worry about a five year plan business wise in terms
of horses? Yeah.
I mean from, from my own perspective, business wise, I
always like to have kind of a generic 10 year plan in place
and a much more specific five year plan.
And you know we do that in all aspects of the farm as well.
It's not just to do with the livery side of things.
I genuinely think we are getting to a point where horse ownership
is becoming elitist again, and not in a bad way.
You know, it's not people with lots of money saying, oh, you
know, you people don't deserve horses.
It's purely the, there's a massive percentage of people
that just cannot afford it anymore and people that you
know, could afford it previously.
And I, and I really think the only people who are able to do
horse keeping on a budget now are those that are lucky enough
to find, you know, those random 2 acre paddocks that, you know,
belong to, again, a farmer or you know, someone's just been
renting it out for horses for years and they perhaps don't
realise the money they could be making from that field.
I mean, just as an example. So obviously I'm in the
southeast and we have a paddock across the road from us that
we're not renting out currently because it needs attention.
So it needs new fencing and, you know, it needs to have a good
old weed kill session essentially.
We've had people offering us £500 a month for an acre of
land, which is, you know, insane.
It's absolutely insane. But people are that desperate
to, you know, find somewhere to, to put their horses on because
they, you know, they can't afford to keep, you know, maybe
four horses at a livery yard. But to be able to put them in a
field together is is slightly more manageable.
But yeah, I think we're looking at a real sort of divergent and
split in the way people are going to keep their horses.
And I think it's unavoidable to be honest.
And I know from the livery yard owner perspective, there's a big
push and a big drive towards livery yards being licensed,
which again, it's going to cut out those loopholes for people
that want something cheaper and perhaps have access to something
cheaper. Because obviously if it's a
farmer being told that you've got to be licensed now to have
horses on your property to run any kind of livery, you know,
they're just going to say I'm not going to do it.
No thanks, I'm out. And, you know, those, those
little pockets of land that people are managing to kind of
keep hold of are going to be lost.
Oh, I mean a terrifying and frightening thought.
And thank you for sort of going there, Lauren.
So I know it's all something we really don't want to think
about, particularly like you mentioned, for those of us who
are renting, you know, odd bits of acreage here and there,
something that I try not to think about.
But when we have these discussions, I think it's
unavoidable. You then start, your mind starts
to wander, doesn't it? If it's difficult now, what's it
going to be like in the future? And we need to be ready as as
horse owners, don't we, if we're going to try and, and combat the
challenges to be able to keep our equines.
But thank you so much for, for delving into some really
difficult topics, but also for sharing your story and, and how
you guys are affected in the current hay shortage crisis.
Lauren, just mention your Facebook page for those who
haven't seen it and for those who might want to go and check
out your tips and tricks and see all your lovely videos of acorn
collecting and and foraging. As well for the horses, yeah.
So we are mainly based on Facebook, so we are called
Gravely Equine and we also have a Facebook group, a really
lovely active Facebook group called Horse Track Systems.
So you generally find me in one of those two places.
I do occasionally venture onto other platforms, but you know, I
do tend to concentrate on Facebook.
Brilliant.