How we currently manage horses as a whole, you know, we just
took them out in a paddock and don't really think about what
what the consequences are for the soil gynecologist.
It's basically a product of me marrying my 2 passions together
and also realizing that there's a huge gap between all the
knowledge, research and information that's out there and
actually applying it in in real life and actually bringing it to
people who are actually managing their horses.
Whatever decision we'd be making about the land, is that going to
be beneficial to the horse or not?
So I'm always looking for opportunities to give the horse
a chance to be more natural because horses naturally would
be on these huge. Open Plains and what can we do?
What one thing can we do now, immediately or later today,
Annabelle, to immediately improve our paddock, not only
for our horses, but for the Land's sake as well.
Hello and welcome to the Curious Equestrian Podcast with me, Anna
Louise. And today's guest is Annabel
Holmes. An equine ecologist, Annabel has
been a lifelong horse lover and has been fascinated by animal
behavior from a young age, teaching her chickens to do
tricks, believe it or not, and learning different styles of
horsemanship whenever she wasn't in school.
She grew up living next to a nature reserve, where she
volunteered regularly and went on to study ecology at
university. Annabel's worked in conservation
and consultant ecology sectors ever since.
And has also studied equine behavior and nutrition.
Annabelle, we're thrilled to have you on the podcast.
Thank you for inviting me on. It's really exciting.
And recently, Annabelle started the equine ecologist, bringing
her two passions together, nature and horses, to help
people keep horses in the best way possible for the
environment, for horse welfare and health.
So Annabel, first of all, so we can dive into your world.
What does it mean and what is that chynaecologist?
So chynaecologist, it's basically a product of me
marrying my 2 passions together and also realizing that there's
a huge gap between all the knowledge, research and
information that's out there and actually applying it in in real
life and actually bringing it to people who are actually managing
their horses. So you know, there's there's
particular courses and things that you can study, but if you
don't have the time for that and but you still want to do
something for your horses welfare and do something for the
environment. And that's where I come in as
the Acrin ecologist and I can sort of help you understand your
land and specific to what you need and what your horses need
rather than subscribing to a particular type of method of
doing things. I can help you find what's right
for you. And what is the day in the life
of an equinecologist like? So at the minute I'm doing
things a little bit part time because I'm a mom to a little
one year old. So I spend a lot of time running
around after a tiny child. But in between that I'm sort of
building up my clients. So I'm going out serving plants
and doing soil testing, helping people understand their land,
doing sort of free stuff. So I'm putting together a free
guide, putting together my website.
Yeah, just sort of building up a bit of a knowledge base as well
for horse owners. I'm hoping to be a bit of a hub
of information for natural horse care and things.
And what inspired you to start your journey in equinecology and
eco friendly Land Management practices?
And so I studied ecology at university and within that I did
some animal behavior things. And I think growing up is sort
of thought there was your horse in the field and then there was
nature and they weren't really intertwine that much.
You know, your horse would eat some stuff out on a hack or
you'd see a cool bit of wildlife in your field.
But I sort of, you know, growing up, everyone, you know, Chuck
loads of fertilizer on their fields or just took the horse
out in the field and brought them in for the winter.
And it wasn't really the done thing to mix the two.
And I didn't really think that you could do that.
But then I started working in conservation and I realized a
lot of nature reserves are using horses to manage nature and to
manage the reserves for nature. And I sort of thought, oh,
actually there is a way that you can keep horses in nature
happily together. And I sort of got more and more
into studying the behavior and and different courses like the
aquaculture course and horse track systems and then realize
that there is a way to manage it.
So they both work together and and produce some pretty
beautiful results. And just give us some of those
examples of conservation horses and ponies, because so often we
think of conservation. Grazing and sheep come to mind,
whether it be at the National Trust or out on the mountains or
on larger states. How good are horses at
conservation? So yes, horses are actually
quite good, Specially Hardy native types.
They tend to be used on different reserves and the
famous one would be the net rewilding projects.
And they've got heard of X small ponies and on the one of the
reserves that used to work on over in Wales and they've got
some feral Welsh ponies. And what horses tend to do is
they can trample things like bracken really well and bracken
tends to spread pretty quickly and horses can get in there.
They'll graze it as its toxicity reduces a bit later in the
season, but they sort of flatten it all out and then you compare
it with the sheep, sheep and they'll come in and nibble down
the other bits that the horses don't want.
So sheep and horses work beautifully together and cows as
well to maintain grass and habitats and which are actually
really rare. And how do we change the
perception of of horses? Because I think so often we
hear. It be land owners or farmers or
estate managers saying, you know, don't want horses on our
land or don't want too many horses on our land because of
the poaching of the ground, they wrecked the fields.
How do we change people's perception of horses on the
land? Yeah, so horses have got a
little bit of a bad Rep and it's it's not the horses, it's the
management of them. I think how we currently manage
horses as a whole, not, you know, there's three people
doing, doing things differently. But as a whole, you know, we
just check them out in a paddock and don't really think about
what what the consequences are for the soil and the ground.
And you know, we don't think about the weather and what that
means for the horse's nutrition as well.
So what we need to look at is how we can manage how often our
horses are on certain paddocks, perhaps with rotating them and
resting areas and also learning how to manage bare ground, which
is the main problem. It leads onto weeds like ragwrts
and and dark nettles and also how horses poo in particular
areas sort of creates concentrations of nutrients and
then they graze down big sort of lawn areas that deplete the
nutrients there. So then you get this massive
imbalance and then you've got a lot of repair work to do, which
is what I'm trying to help people to do, is to rebalance
it. And how easy is it to rebalance
it and change the way that we graze our animals?
And how do we write some of those problems, Annabelle, that
you were just mentioning like going in one area or grazing it
down as a lawn. So it sort of depends on the
field. Some fields, you know, a really
lush because they might be converted cattle pasture, which
contains these improved grass species like rye grass that's
being designed to fatten up cattle as quick as you can and
that leads on to problems with laminitis and things like that.
So there's ways to manage that. Or if you just got loads of bare
ground and you don't have much grass coming up.
Although with this weather this year, there's many people
complaining of that at the minute.
I think everyone's just got a rush of whatever plants they've
got because of all the rain and warmth, But there's ways of
managing it. So you can think about
controlling the mud. You can think about using
different agricultural methods to to fix what you've done
essentially. You can also use plants on your
side, so there's certain plants that are slightly parasitic on
these grasses and that can sort of hold them back a bit and give
a chance for other plants to take over.
There's lots of different things, and it sort of depends
on your soil and your plants and what you want from it as well.
And that chronicology involves finding that Bunce that you
mentioned between horse welfare and environmental
sustainability. How does your approach address
and bring together both of those approaches?
So I always make sure that I'm putting the horses welfare and
the the Land's welfare 1st. And that's sort of how I look at
it as I think is this whatever decision we'd be making about
the land, is that going to be beneficial to the horse or not?
So I'm always looking for opportunities to give the horse
a chance to be more natural because horses naturally would
see on these huge open plains of grass, they'd have different
sort of terrains, they'd find trees and they'd go to water in
different places. So it's it's about trying to
mimic that and also benefiting the area that you do have
because we can't give them all that unfortunately.
It would be awesome if we could, but we can't.
So it's about mimicking that natural way of living because
it's so beneficial for horses it it's good for their minds.
And there's some really cool studies that have come out
showing that horses with better welfare have less accidents.
And there's another one saying that they understand or learn
their owners cues quicker than horses that aren't kept out in
their head. And so there's some really cool
research coming out and I think it's really important that we
start taking this on and applying it to what we do and.
What can we do? What one thing can we do now
immediately or later today, Annabelle, to immediately
improve our paddock, not only for our horses, but for the
Land's sake as well that will have an impact on the welfare of
our horse. And that you say we can't mimic
the wilderness and give them acres and acres and acres of
Rome and. Rivers to wander and paddle
through and mountains to climb. But what can do to change a a
square or circular paddock to make it more interesting for
them? And so it's all sorts you could
do. And even if you don't want to
just change your paddock, you can even take your horse out for
a little bit of a foraging walk and in hand and just give them
opportunities to just reach for some leaves out of trees, those
wonders for their muscles, good stretch.
It helps them shift their balance onto their hind legs and
gives them a chance to do all this selection and and natural
grazing behavior. Because if you've got a field of
just, you know, ryegrass and Clover, say that's only two
plants to choose from. And if they're quite high in
sugar, it's sort of like being stuck in a sweet shop and you
really want lunch. And so if you take them out,
they can go and select all these useful plans for themselves.
And then maybe longer term you could look at introducing these
things into your into your own setup, which I can help with.
I've also got a free guide that's coming out with the
launch of my website that sort of helps you actually make a
difference to not just to the environment, to the to the
climate in general. And there's a few extra pointers
in there. So that will be coming out
hopefully and. Talking of our horses and their
paddocks, many horse owners strive to create a more
sustainable environment for their animals.
What a basic actable steps that we can take, any horse owner can
take to improve the paddocks ecological health as well.
And so if you can I would look into perhaps looking at whether
you can rotate paddocks and give the grass chance to rest.
And because overgrazing means stressed worse and that produces
a lot of sugar in the grasses, so not only is that harming your
horse, but also you've got this stressed out grass and there
will be pulling loads of nutrients out the soil.
You'll also be compacting the soil with the horse's feet on
the ground a lot. So if you do have the
opportunity to give give some areas, even if you're sort of
using electric fencing to split up 1 past year, just as long as
they've got enough room obviously.
But just to give some grass a chance to bounce back, that can
actually make quite a big difference.
And to both your horses health and to the to the soil and the
grass. Health on a myth.
Bust something out of our If I may pick your brains, I've got
my horses on a track system and I've got an area.
It's marshland that we rested and the grass has got very long.
It's probably about knee to waist height in some places and
it's sort of paled out. Like, hey, you know, like hay
does. The grass is dried out at the
moment. They're on their grazed down
sort of short and sharp sugary grass.
And I do want to rotate them and move them on to the longer
grass, but some people have said that'll be an aluministic
hazard. Is that true or is it?
Is the grass safer because it's longer?
And dried out, yeah. So it it obviously depends on
what species you've got there. But it there is this general
thought that you need to keep alamistic horses and and horses
in general and really short pasture which is kind of
counterproductive because all this sugar is in the base of the
plant and horses teeth are great at actually getting the whole.
So they're getting all of that sugar at the bottom.
But if you're putting them in a pasture where they've got plenty
of long fibrous grass, they're going to be snatching these long
fibrous pieces. So like this dried out stuff and
and they're going to fill up on that which is actually low on
sugar and they're going to feel, you know, they're going to keep
themselves full on lower sugar stuff, which actually is better
phalaminitis. But obviously it depends on the
plant. It also depends on weather
conditions and all sorts. But yeah, generally, actually
longer. Really interesting.
And you mentioned the weather as an equinecologist, has your job
become even more challenging this year with the incredibly
changeable and unseasonable weather that we've been having
through the spring in the summer?
Yeah. So this year has been wet.
But actually we need to start adapting to this because this is
just going to keep on happening. This is the result of climate
change and we need to really seriously think about what we're
doing with our land. In the UK, 40% of the the
landscape is grassland and it's something really tiny, like 2%
is actually natural. That figure might not be exact,
but there's so much of it is, is this sort of, you know, designed
grasses that just aren't suitable.
And if you've got a more natural grassland and that you're
grazing on, it's going to be more resilient to the conditions
because it's adapted. The plants are adapted to the
conditions that you've got and they're not going to be bringing
up all this sugar. They're not going to be getting
all these nutrients out of the soil.
Or you know, it's it's it's a lot easier to manage in the in
the wet or in different parts of the world, you know, with
wildfires it's much easier to manage if you've got the right
ecosystem in place. And again, that also helps with
all the carbon being sequestered, which basically
means captured and stored back into the ground.
If you've got the right plants in, it's going to be
contributing to that rather than causing problems.
If you've got bare soil, you're going to be making it worse.
And so it's just about trying to get it right.
The better the biodiversity, it's intrinsically linked into
the climate. So get the biodiversity right
and you're making a difference, the climate, and you're going to
be able to tolerate it all a lot easier.
And you can be all smug when you've not got it all where all
this horrible grass and you're trying to keep your horse inside
and you don't know what to do. And it's.
Interesting you mentioned grass species is a key part of getting
this right now and about few times and just wondering about
paddock grass. Is that play such a crucial role
in the diet and well-being of our horses?
Can you provide us with some guidance on selecting and
managing certain grass species that promote both horse health
and environmental vitality as well?
Yeah, so the best thing is to look at what is local to you,
what you know, what species are local to you.
So if if you're in the Highlands or up in the hills of Wales, you
wouldn't want to be putting in the same grasses that someone
down, you know down South of England or wherever.
So I'd say first Port School is looking at what is naturally
around you. So you can look at local
Wildlife Trusts or I can research that for you and then
go from there with those. There are a few general species
like there's a group called Feskies which can be quite good,
but so if the more local. More nature related the better
and because they tend to be better for your horses too and
and sort of standard off the shelf paddock mixes generally
don't tend to be great because they are still putting that rye
grass and Clover. In How do we change a grass
species? It seems like an awful lot of
work. I know that my landowners that I
rent from said that many moons ago.
They. Cloud the land changed the grass
and I just couldn't imagine the work involved.
How easy is it to do with Annabelle?
And also how worthwhile is it? So first of all, it's very
worthwhile, 'cause you won't have to worry about bring your
horses in so much, and you're also doing a massive favor to
nature. I'd say it it depends on the
site. If it's absolutely full of this
ray grass, it can be a challenge to get rid of because it's it's
meant to be able to tolerate a lot of things, so it can it can
be a bit tricky to get rid of, but there's different methods of
doing it. There's this sort of organs,
blazing chemicals and machinery methods and if you want it done
more quickly and you just want to completely blank slate it, I
wouldn't recommend that for for many people because that's quite
aggressive. But in some cases it is needed
and all there's the more gentle methods using plants and or
using different grace methods to suppress the growth of certain
plants and then allow the other ones to grow at the right time
of year. So yeah, again, very specific to
to each area. And make the most of our little
helpers and they'll enjoy the process as well.
And talking of our little helpers, our horses that we all
spend most of the day thinking different things through,
working out different arrangements for our horses,
Should they be in, should they be out.
From my point of view, building track systems, me and my mum on
on 7 acres try and manage the land and trying to give the
horses that sense of direction and movement instead of being
within. Around traditional paddock that
we see at most livery yards and at most you know in most fields
that we that we have to manage as horse owners.
But looking at behavior and welfare and assessing is so
important as horse owners, and they're essential to ensuring
that our horses thrive on land and the environments that we
give them, what it indicates or behaviors.
We should be looking out for on a daily basis when evaluating
the world, being of our horses and whether they are happy in
the environment that we've given them.
Yeah. So a lot of the time there's
obviously there's the red flags, you know, looking, bolting,
aggression, all of those things you you'd want to check out with
the vet 1st and perhaps talk to a behaviour consultant.
And. But there's some things, there's
some signs, you know, like if they're chewing the fence line,
you know, they're probably lacking the opportunities to
chew as much as they need. Or if there's loads of mud up
and down one fence, then you can be pretty sure they're probably
pacing at some point. And if you went to a zoo and you
saw an animal pacing, you'd be like, oh the the welfare is bad
here, but in a equestrian setting we seem to ignore it.
But it's good to pay attention to these things and then there's
there's there's lots of little things but if there's any new
behaviour or there's anything where you think actually this
doesn't seem they don't seem relaxed and.
What about if our horses are happy?
So if our horses, maybe. It's very subtle, isn't it?
If we're not picking up on the fact that they're unhappy, what
signs will they shove that they are really happy and thriving in
the situation that we've set up. So signs that they're happy,
usually they're a bit more willing to do things you can
just tell a relaxed horse you know they're they're not on edge
all the time. And there's also chance if
they're out in a head and they're just happily playing and
doing mutual grooming and and they're able to sleep properly
so they can sleep lying flat out in the field.
Horses take it in turns to sleep and while others watch over.
So if they're kept on their own they they can't do that or they
they might not feel comfortable to do that.
So it's important that they get that sleep, so if they're well
rested they'll probably perform better and whatever you're doing
with them. And then there's also there's a
pain if the gram of horses. But also you can the similar
similarities with stress as well, with the shape of their
eyes. And there's some stuff I think
it's. And sometimes it is just being
taking the time to to tune into our horses, because I think we
can all be guilty of, you know, busy work schedules.
Social lives we've got to build in family time.
We've got to rush to this appointment and get that done.
We need to exercise the horses to make sure they're back out,
but actually booking in that time if we have to, to just
stand in the field and watch them and enjoy them and sit with
them maybe. So for the other day I thought,
I'm going to take just 20 minutes with my life that we're
doing it, walk around the field. And we noticed that alongside
the track, there's a big tree in there alongside the track that
we wanted to include in the system.
So they had that natural shade and shelter and the in amongst
all the the crevices of the bark was Winnie my 15 hand Columar
cross all her fur where her her summer coats thickening up again
and and coming through again and and losing that coat again and
that that late summer coat change shift and she's itched it
out like blew the bear from jungle Burke.
Into the tree and you can see I've not caught her doing it
yet, but you can see the evidence left behind.
There's been wedged in the little bits of bark and is
sticking out from the tree, but sign that she's been having a
whale of her time and enjoying herself when we're not there,
Yeah, that's brilliant. And also the the hair that
you're leaving on that tree is obviously going to be used by
birds for their nests and it's yeah, it's it's really awesome
that we're finally thinking outside the box some well, some
of us and I would love it if more people thought like that
and just spend a bit of time. A lot of it is just standing in
the field. That's what I would do.
If I'm going out on a consultation, I'm going to spend
a few minutes just staring at the the whole picture and just
soaking in what what it feels like, you know, looking.
They're birds and. It's I think it's ingrained in
us from a young age or whatever age that you start riding,
whether it's friends, horses or a riding school on holiday
trekking. We're so used to thinking that
actually the exercise part, the riding or the training is the
enjoyment and is the activity. But actually, sometimes just
being with our horses when they're at rest or at play in
the field, and taking in time to walk along with them and
investigate what they've been up to is just as fun and rewarding
as. Being out and about with them
and doing exciting things that that we've done that we always
hope to do with our horses. Also wanted talking along the
lines of Track Systems, Annabelle, what other ways are
there to keep our horses other than a circular paddock or a
square paddock on the land. So for those, don't know if
Track Systems came into our being or came into our realm and
in the UK about 2017 or a bit before, but there are US
constructs. In the hope that actually you're
creating more of a natural environment for horses that
encourage movement. What other options are there for
us as horse owners? Yeah, so track systems.
I think it's really brilliant that they've started to catch on
because our horses need need more than just this these square
little panics. But there are other options I I
like to think of it as there's you can cherry pick from these
systems so there's there's a few other different styles of doing
things. There's also aquaculture, which
I really like and I'm a bit involved with.
It's it's sort of looking at nurturing your soil and thinking
like a grass farmer rather than a horse owner.
But in some places that might not work.
So I think we need to not get stuck in one particular style of
doing things and thinking actually I can't do a full track
or maybe I don't want to put in a full track because I want I
want more grass and or if you want to do aquaculture but you
think actually I don't know how to get it set up right so you
can introduce many tracks between areas.
So it's about picking out bits that you want and and it can
take a lot of time to study all of that.
So I hope that I can help people get to that decision quicker
because it takes time to put these things in place and it
takes time for the ground to heal and grass to grow.
Sometimes you go through a phase of some weird plants coming up
and you think, oh, if I'm doing this right, but actually if you
commit to it the following months and years, it's sort of
snowball effect. It just gets better and better
if you've got it right in the first place.
And you mentioned earlier a success.
Quick way to add enrichment to our horses, paddocks and tracks.
Take them out for Hedro foraging walks and in them explore and
then also bringing some of that foraging aspects in bushes and
hedros back to our paddocks. With your help and assistance.
What do you make of paddock enrichment toys that are on the
market? Things like balls and swinging
tools from trees. Do you think that it's worth
going along that those lines and and buying toys and enrichment
products or can it all be found in the landscape ourselves?
Like with everything, I think it's a balance and these toys
can be good, but if you've got millions in your fields, then
they're maybe not not so helpful.
And it's also important to introduce them carefully to your
horse. And there's a concept called
flooding, where you sort of expose a horse to something that
they're frightened of until they stop reacting.
And actually that's not helpful to the horse and they could just
still be frightened of it, but they've just learned not to
react to it. And so it's important to make
sure that they're really comfortable with these toys and
also that they're safe. They're not going to
accidentally ingest bits of rubber or whatever, but also
they can be really useful if you've got a horse on box rest
or you have to keep them in a stable because that's what your
yard wants you to do. But there are really, really
cool other options that are actually a lot cheaper than
buying toys. You can use different flavored
teas like peppermint tea to drink some hay in and hang them
up in different places, have different hands around and
about. And there's a bit of a fashion
in the children raising worlds, which I'm deeply in at the
minute of rotating toys, so they're not overwhelmed with all
different toys at once. And I think that's probably,
that could probably translate over to horses.
Maybe it's good to rotate what they've got so they've got a
little bit of novelty in their lives because it's it's really
important that we think it's not just that hour or two that we're
training with our horse, there's all that other time that you've
got. And we know that you've
emphasized support and project management.
Can you share a success story where your guidance, your advice
and support has led to a significant improvement in both
horses welfare and behavior, and also the ecological health of a
paddock in the land? So yeah, so at the moment,
because I've only just started up, it's everything's a bit of a
work in progress at the minute, but I'm working on a really cool
couple of ones. There's one where there's some
quite rare birds nesting, so we're working on setting up.
So the birds still have their habitat, but they, the owners
can still get what they want from the land and the horses can
still get enough grass because at the minute it's more, there's
more other plants rather than grass.
And then in one of my previous roles in consultancy, ecological
consultancy, there was a massive housing projects that I was
involved with and we moved thousands and thousands of newts
and toads and as the little creatures as many as we could in
the old bucket traps and we relocated them over this sort of
purpose built. It's called a mitigation area.
So. So it's sort of an untouched
area that's specifically for all the creatures that have been
displaced by the housing. And it was really magical just
seeing that just come to life because I was I was working
there for a very long time and just watching things just get
better and better the more we put into it.
So we'd installed some ponds and you could see the the wildlife
and the flowers slowly starting to come up.
The IT was old farmland, so it was all this cracked, muddy
ground. That's absolutely phenomenal.
And just thinking about your job as well, Alibo, you must have to
be so diplomatic, Not only talking to us as horse owners
and and helping people sort of find new ways to keep their
horses, but also dealing with yard managers and land owners
who might not necessarily feel the same way as the horse owners
do about how they should be kept.
How do you deal with situations where owners are coming to you
and saying the yard manager or the landowner doesn't understand
they want the horses to be, you know, inside their stables for
the majority of the day or for 12 hours a day?
There's reduced turnout. How do you kind of help juggle
the personalities, the different opinions and experiences of
those who actually might sort of lay law down in terms of the
land? Yeah.
So that one's really tricky. It's it's hard to get through to
some people sometimes. But I think it's important to do
baby steps. It's not, you know, I'm not
going to muscle in and say you need to put in a surface track
and do this and put in these plants because you've got it's
it's going to alienate people. So yeah, it's baby steps.
You know, it's showing the benefits, educating about what
it can look like if you just do tiny little tweaks and and you
know, quite a lot of farmers now you pick up a Farmers Weekly
magazine 10 years ago and it's all about machinery and things.
And now there's so much more about the environment and
regenerative farming and looking after the soil.
And I think a lot of people are waking up to that.
And so I think it's just about educating, taking little baby
steps and not going in thinking you are wrong.
I am right. It's about finding a balance.
And it's the same with the conservation world and the horse
world, butting heads over certain things, records in
particular and a few other plants and and they're quite a
lot, quite often they're using the same evidence for each side
of the argument. And so it's about looking at the
evidence and just finding what works for everyone and looking
and actually looking at the data and realizing.
So I imagine you're always staying up to date on the latest
research and having to to stay in tune with what's going on
around you as well as working with your clients.
And if I'm just touching on the ragma argument, it's so hard,
isn't it? As well so as having this
poisonous plant on our land that we want to get rid of because.
Might harm our horses, but also, I know 'cause on the marshland
we have lots of ragworts in we try and keep it into the sort of
bushes of the the strips of strips of lands that we keep for
wildlife, like the month Jack and the barn owls at the fall
called the marsh. But we have a huge butterfly
population and that's where we think they're, you know,
breeding and feeding. And when we always feel torn
from getting rid of our ragwort for our horses and leaving it
for the butterflies, what do we do?
How do we help you know, keep it in balance and and.
How do we manage this Ragwort? Yeah, so Ragwort is, yeah, I see
constant arguments about it on the Internet and I think the the
facts are it is poisonous to horses and we need to just
accept that. That is the fact.
There are laws that we need to remove it, but we can prevent
its growth by actually setting up the ground for success.
So you're not giving the ragwart these opportunities to grow.
At the moment. How we keep our horses is just
like throwing the doors open and say come on in ragwarts.
You don't need to do that. You can you can manage it so
other plants are are there instead of the ragwart you.
You might still get the occasional bit, but it's it's
about managing it so it doesn't come along.
And also if you've got enough grass and you've got enough
other grazing, unless you're using it for hay, obviously,
definitely pull it out for if if it's being used for hay.
But if you're not, horses don't tend to go for it.
It's got a very bitter taste, so they don't tend to go for it.
Pull it out if you see it, but obviously if you can prevent it
growing, that's even better and you can prevent it growing and
support wildlife at the same time.
I have, I have that in dead hatred.
But I also have that internal war when I'm pulling it out and
I can see all the butterflies around me.
Ohh, real, real internal struggle.
That one, Annabelle, I have to say and how can you mentioned
earlier climate change. And I think we all feel quite
powerless as as hall owners with climate change and a lot of the
time we're so worried about our horses and what they're doing.
We kind of, you know, it goes to the back of our minds, yeah.
So I'm putting together a little free guide that will cover a
little bit of that because I think it is really easy to feel
helpless with all this doom and gloom in the media.
And it, yeah, it feels, it feels like it's our own fault all the
time. And then you sort of think, Oh
well, I can't really do anything and you get in this cycle.
So I just want to say that it's not your fault individually.
You know, it's it's a big sort of political issue.
It's these big businesses that are polluting all the time,
water companies, fuel companies. But at the same time, any little
thing that you do will make a difference, even if you don't
feel like it is. Even just the time native
plants. You mentioned using plants
within the land, but the native plants and biodiversity play in
creating a healthier ecosystem for horses and wildlife.
The better the biodiversity, the more resilient it is to climate
change, and also the more it's contributing to slowing it down.
And you're giving homes for so many different animals and
insects and plants, and you know, stuff might be.
There might be seeds in your soil that you don't know about
that just need the right conditions to bloom.
And you might have some rare plants that you know are
desperately in need of growing and supporting insects, So.
It's really interesting, isn't it?
Because talking, hearing you talk about baby steps and little
bits of difference, where we rent this piece of marshland and
we've got our track system that we try and rotate around as much
as we can, we always leave an area of the marsh, that's the
long grass we aim, keep a little bit of ragwe in there for the
butterflies. And there are hares in there, a
Munchak. And there's a ball now that we
love coming to watch at dusk. And he hunts and he swoops down
into the long grass and picks things up.
There's moles and mole hills. It's the most incredible sight
to see the horses grazing alongside all of these different
wildlife species that we've never seen that place before
because we move from Kent. Very highly populated county,
very busy to Suffolk which seems to be a little bit more wild and
the nature seems to be thriving more in Suffolk than it
certainly was in Kent in our experience.
And it's amazing because pretty see this Marshall and has always
been kept so that the grass was short and neat and smart.
But we always try to keep an area of it long for the animals,
for the wildlife and just watching it come alive with
creatures has incredible and also we hope that that.
Encourages the horses to live a more natural life and that they
get the enjoyment of sharing the land with critters.
Other than the little herd that we have.
Yeah, definitely. I think I used to do a bit of
forest bathing and it's it's so beneficial to to people and
there's all this green prescribing doctors you know
prescribing time outside and it it must be similar in horses.
You know it plays into that enrichment for them to interact
with wildlife and things and and have it around them must be good
for their health. And yeah be really interested to
see any research and that I don't don't know if there is any
but be really cool to find out how that affects horses because
it's it's really important for nature and for us as well.
You know you feel so much better when you hear a bird.
So, right is those little things that keep us going in in the
hardest of times and and how often.
Even if we haven't got a hospital stay, but how often, if
we've had distressful dad does a walk, help us sort of channel
those emotions and feelings and just getting outside wherever it
might be out into the green space to just let loose.
Sort of harking back to the times when it was the only thing
that we had when we didn't have technology and TV's and phones
and emails and what nature in our paddocks, What about the
plants? What plants can we actually
plant ourselves so if we don't have sort of naturally borning
plants? Hopping up and the hedgerows
sort of rich at the side of the borders of the field.
What can we actually put in and and plant ourselves, Annabelle,
for the horses And yeah, so you can put in the hedgerows instead
of your fencing around the edge. There's actually some grant
schemes out there to help with the cost of that.
You can also, I saw a really cool thing at a question center
that I visited recently that's doing a lot of rewilding stuff
and they've put in living fence posts.
So trees, trees that have been put into the ground and then
screwed in the electric fencing into the trees and it's not
harming the tree, but the the fence is living, which is really
cool. And there's also the ancient art
of hedge laying, which can turn your hedge into a beautiful
fence and there's a lot of wildlife and trust sort of
places or local conservation charities that do courses on
that. So you could learn to do it
yourself. How cool would that be?
And and then if you can't do any of these really cool things and
you could also make like a little browsing garden for your
horse so you could get various herbs and plants that you could
grow in a little area. I've got on my Instagram,
Facebook, I've got some safe plants.
I usually do like a plant spotlight every few days and you
can put in some of these plants and you could either pick them
for your horse or if you're into destruction you could take your
horse in there. But they might try and eat
everything. But yeah, you could you could
give them all this free choice selection, which would be really
good for them because there's sort of this area called Zoo
Farmer cognizy, I think it was called that horses self select
different plants and herbs and things to help themselves with
and. It's also the funds as owners to
watch the horses exploring the plants as well as enriching A
horse's life, isn't it? Because I remember, and this is
really stuck with me, it must have been about three years ago
now, 3 summers ago that like my little miniature horse Diesel
that I own with my mum, he was in his summer turnout paddock,
which we always have restricted element of grass and it's a bit
sort of more of a rocky terrain. And lower quality grass, less
sugary, and on the sort of hill with lots of stones, thistles
would grow. And I never thought anything off
of it because thistles would appear.
I know they weren't harmful to the horses.
I equally I thought they never ate them anyway.
And one time I saw I put them back in their leopard, and I saw
him go over to the Thistle, get his tiny little miniature who?
Dig up the Thistle. So he was actually digging it
out of the ground with his little hoof, and then he picked
it up between his teeth and really carefully ate this purple
and grim Thistle, sort of little stem by stem, leaf by leaf,
avoiding anything that spiky and crunching it down if it was.
And it was the most hilarious and fascinating thing that I've
ever seen in my life. I was transfixed.
That image will never leave me, but it just shows.
Goes to show you that they might be having last and getting
something tasty to eat and the real treat for them, but also
it's very entertaining for us at the owners to see our horses
behaving in new and different ways.
Yeah, definitely. And you think that must be
really good for his mind to think, figure out problem
solving. And you think how satisfying it
is when you've successfully prepared a meal or you've got
like a new tricky fruit and you figured out how to get it out
and you've got every last little tasty morsel.
It must be the same for them, that satisfaction of their
getting every tasty bit from a plant.
And yeah, thistles. Loads of benefits to thistles.
Not all horses go for them because they are quite brickly.
But yeah, no, that's really cool.
How cute. I'm trying to think that.
I know they've got some minerals in them.
Trying to think off the top of my head.
I'm doing it. Plant spotlight on them soon.
Keep an eye out for my plant spotlight, yeah.
I will, I actually, I will keep an eye out for your guides.
I'm. I'm really intrigued as to why
he went for it but he is. I swear he is the most clever of
the of the herd of three horses that we have.
Our little American Miniature Diesel.
He's very sharp and very on it and always hasn't since he was a
fault, so it doesn't surprise me that he's the one navigating and
negotiating the prickles and. The thorns of the Thistle
because he knows what he's doing.
He's very smart little boy, that's for sure.
Transitioning from conventional Land Management is daunting to
eco friendly options. Can you prove out overwhelming
ourselves and our horses at the same time?
Yeah. So I think it's good to sort of
first get it clear and you had what you actually want from it
all. Because there's no point going
down 1 route and then trying to undo what you've done or not
fully understanding what you're doing and then ending up with
loads of rank grass with nettles and weeds and you think, what
the hell have I done? And so I'd say start with 1
paddock or one area. Then if you mess it up, it you
know you you're not. It's not the whole place.
You haven't ruined everything, you've just got one area that
you've experimented with. You can study these courses, you
can read these books, or I can jump in and teach you it all
from scratch or just teach you the bits that you need to know
for your particular bit of land. But basically the the idea is
you sort of look at what you've got already, look at the plants
you've already got like a botanical survey, which I can
do, or you can go out there and learn it or you can get some
help and then look at the soil, get your soil tested, see what
your soil is lacking or has too much of.
And that's sort of your baseline.
Then you can look at what does it need, what doesn't it need?
And then you can figure out how you can use your horses to help
you with that. Do you need to take them off
that paddock to rest it so the grass can grow?
Can you so you can actually see what's there and see what comes
up where? And then you could it sort of,
yeah, it snowballs. And you, the more you learn, the
more you're like, oh, this works.
That works. That doesn't work for me.
All of it just plays in together and but yeah, don't be afraid to
experiment in small areas and you and get.
To grips with it as well because it does take a lot of time and
management. I know from me and my mum who
have our little herd together on the track, it's taken, I dread
to think days, probably weeks of solid time, setting up the
fencing, moving it, rotating it. So it is an investment as well
isn't it? We know that although it's going
to take a lot of our time and a lot of our effort and actually a
lot of graft and muscle work, it is going to benefit our horses
and. Ultimately, hopefully make our
lives and their lives a lot easier in the long run.
Instead of thinking about turning out and then taking back
in again and mucking out stables.
Actually, we're putting that time into the land around us,
definitely, Yeah. You're saving money in the long
run and you're saving time in the long run.
It's it's a long game rather than a quick fix, and it can
take a long time for the ground to to balance out.
But if you think about it in long terms, if you've got this
all set up, then you don't have to be mucking up stables like
you say you're not spending all that money on bedding.
Petting prices seem to be skyrocketing constantly and you
know, hard feed costs. And then on the Environmental
Center, it's saving on all those single use plastics that wrap up
the bedding and the feeds. Yeah, it just, it's if you can
think long term with it, it is. It does pay off.
And education is key, as we know, listening to you and and
hearing all of your expertise and your tips and tricks that
are going to get us through. But how do you work to raise
awareness and educate horse owners about the importance of
sustainable Land Management? So I'm post like mad on social
media with my little plant spotlights and my wheels that
quite often involve the Crocs that I'm wearing or my child
screeching in the background. But I hope it's like little
snippets of education. But there is also chances to
actually get quite deep into it. There's the equiculture course
and there's links that I've got on my social media and things
where you can, if you have the time and the energy to study it,
you can get deep, right, deep into understanding it all.
And and then I'm hoping to sort of like here talking podcasts,
go and talk in places where people might not be thinking
about that sort of thing. So like the next couple of
weeks, I'm going to speak on a panel at the Blenheim Horse
Trials. So I'm hoping to reach some
slightly different audiences there.
Come and say hello if if you are going and I'll be on the beyond
the stable stage. And yeah, just sort of trying to
inform people, I think it's becoming more and more on
people's radars. And I think if we carry on
managing the horses how we do, there's likely to be some kind
of legislation coming into play because it is really degrading
the land. But on the flip side of that, I
think there may be incentives to manage our land better that will
come out of this, which would be really exciting.
And I'm hoping to keep a finger on the pulse for all of those
and help people achieve what they need to be able to receive
the funding from those things or the support or whatever is going
to be provided. I'm hoping to be able to help
people get that. Well, Albo has been absolutely
fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing so
many gems and so much of your expertise.
To help us all get started on our Land Management for both the
environment around us and for our horses welfare, we've got
some great first steps.