EQUESTRIAN NIGHT ROUTINE

I forgot my key. It is so dark, my guys. Literally so much darker than I expected considering it is eight o'clock. Eight o'clock. I've literally, look at, I mean, it's kind of creepy. It's got Halloween-y vibes. Oh, my little doggie, can you see him? I am wearing the only stable shoes that are appropriate. My trusty Crocodilios. It's this dark. That gives me the ick. Can you see me? We got the key. Let's do the night checks. I just heard the whinny, did you hear that? They know we're coming. They know it's tea time. Help if I put the key the right way around, wouldn't it? All the whinnies. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to my YouTube channel. Boys, I'm trying to do my intro. They're hungry. It's dinner time. So tonight we are gonna film the night routine of an equestrian. This might be different for everyone, but this is my night routine. As you can see, guys, I am not in my normal horsey attire. I am in my fashionable Crocs, my extra large oversized hoodie, and a baseball cap because it is nighttime and I look horrible. Typically, the horses get done at about 8.30, nine o'clock. That's when I come down for the night checks and to give them their dinner. Sonny, I'm coming. Stop being grumpy. Sorry, they're very impatient. Yeah, typically we come down just before bedtime, give them dinner, check on them, make sure they're warm enough, et cetera, et cetera. This means I'm always on the sofa or doing something up at the house. So I will normally just chuck a coat on and come down in whatever I'm wearing. I did chuck a baseball cap on to save you all the horrible view of this tonight, so. But I'm gonna walk you through our night routine. So we did just get some new carrots, so I'm gonna get them a little chunk and put those in their dindins. We've been a bit lazy and not had many carrots recently, so I'm gonna get them a scoop. I think they're in here, actually. Yeah, they're in here. My horses love carrots. They just go through them so quickly. So it's kind of hard. That should do it. A couple more for good luck. Dottie, come on. Hi, boys, is it dinner time? Right, we'll give Sonny two or three. So Sonny has a very, very small meal because he does suffer with his weight. You know, I can sympathize. I'm a girl who loves food and he's a man after my own heart. So with Sonny, he is the only horse at the yard that gets a hay net. I personally really don't like hay nets. It happens a lot. Horses can get stuck in them. Excuse me, stop being rude. Might give him his dinner just so I can talk and he can munch. Yeah, so hay nets can actually be quite dangerous. The horses can get tangled in them. They can catch their metal shoes in them when they roll. It can be a whole drama. And obviously, because we're going to bed now, so it's from, I don't know, what time is it? Oh, it's actually eight o'clock. From eight o'clock till eight in the morning, they're gonna be asleep. So if anything happened, it could be quite dangerous. But he gets like triple netted because not only does he suffer with his weight, but he inhales his hay. I don't know how he eats so quickly, but this is more just to slow him down rather than to punish his appetite. So I'm gonna give him a hay net. He's actually not finished his other hay net, which is really unlike Sonny. He must've been asleep. But I'm gonna untangle it if I can and then take it down. Because again, I don't like leaving extras up. It's just like half my body weight, Jesus. Your girl needs to gym more. All right, I'm gonna... Not having the easiest time there, but with hay nets, we like to do a quick release knot. So it's basically just hooked through there. So then if need be, you pull it like that. I don't know what knots anyone else uses. It's just the ones we do. And I sometimes just tuck it through there just in case because I don't want it to fall on the floor. See his temperature. Are you warm enough, babe? He's nice and cozy. Oh, not to forget the carrot scoop. That would be tragic. Hi, handsome. You all right? Hello. Give you a little preview. He loves carrots. So I'm actually gonna bury some in his food. He likes very mushy food and I'm not sure why. He's just so, so fussy. Like it has to be pretty much soup. Otherwise he's not interested, but I'm gonna bury some to keep him occupied and let him hunt for carrots. Look at that. It's practically gourmet presentation. Hi, gorgeous boy. Every time guys leave Blackjack alone, they bully him, I swear. Yeah, G also gets a lunchtime feed because he exerts so much energy on a daily basis. So he needs a lot of food. He gets fed off the floor. I do prefer feeding them all off the floor because it's better for them. It's less risk of accidents. It's good for them to stretch and a lot more natural for the horses. So we put these blue bags outside of their stable at night and just empty onto the floor. G gets a lot of hay and he's got a really funny quirk where he likes to get a piece and dip it into his water. And it's haylage, so it's pretty moist as far as haylage goes, but he just likes that. But I don't mind. Other than it messes his bed up a lot. Nice big pile. Just gonna check his temperature also. You're nice and cozy as well, good boy. Sloppy is perfect consistency tonight because he's not kicked it over. Result. Oops, little scoop. I leave these here and then collect them on the way back. Oh, I keep forgetting my tub of carrots. Hi, Bill Bubs. They're being very patient. Normally they are absolute kicking down the school at this point, so the school kicking down their doors. Good boy, Bill. Nice and cozy, just grab him his haylage while he absolutely annihilates the carrots. Little man. Guys, leave him alone. This is literally my favorite bit of the night. He is probably the biggest character on the yard. He is so funny. The Winnie normally gets louder and louder and louder until it's like a screech and like a firework. He literally squeals. Not doing it tonight for some reason. But excuse me, guys. But because he's so tiny, he only gets a small scoop of nuts. We just don't want him to feel left out when the others are being fed. And probably my favorite thing about this little guy, I feel like it's a life lesson because for this tiny, for this tiny scoop of nuts, he is the most excitable on the yard. He gets so overexcited. And it just shows you that you should be happy with these little things. So let's go and spread them. So also he eats them far too fast. So I'm gonna spread them around and let him search for them. Hello, little dude. Come on then. He is also the cleanest on the yard. I'm not sure if you guys can see, there's just one little poo there and a tiny one there. And normally he does them in a pile. Jack, Jack, come here. Let's have a little sprinkle. So this should hopefully keep him occupied all night. I'm gonna grab his little haylage. Oh, okay, I lied. He's the only other one that gets a little hay net, but I don't worry about him getting tangled in it because number one, he doesn't have shoes because I don't know if they make them for little hoofies this small. Look how tiny they are. And also because I put it a little bit higher so he can reach it, but he's not gonna have a problem. Again, he eats quite fast compared to the others. Sometimes though, Billy likes to undo the net with his teeth and I'm not quite sure how he mastered that, but horses are very strange animals and they can figure out things you wouldn't expect them to know. But Jackie's very cute because as soon as he's finished his food, he will back his bum against the wall, like into the corner and he'll just sleep. I'm also not sure if you guys can hear this. I might put my microphone. How sloppy this sounds. The table manners of my horses is not the best, but I love them. I'm just gonna grab him some water. So all the other horses have water drinkers and they're automatic, but obviously Jack is far too tiny to be able to reach. So he gets a manual bucket every night. Just a little top up tonight. That's good. And he hasn't got a rug yet because he's getting his little fluffy Shetland coat back, but we do have a hot pink rug for him and I'm kind of excited to put that on. I left the key in the door. So I'm just gonna hightail it back to the door, get the key, get the torch because I wanna go and check Teddy and Bacardi out in the field, just to make sure they're not causing any havoc or having any parties. Jeez, so filthy, that's grim. So I think the thing about night checks for me is we've done everything we can to make them as easy and chilled as possible because I love coming to see the horses. I love making sure they're okay, but I wanna make sure it's quite quick and that we do all the prep in the afternoon because what would be the point of making all the feeds right now and packing hay nets and stuff? It would just be silly. We work smarter, not harder. And also a lot of our feeds, they like them very wet and they just don't have time to soak. Much better to have a wet feed. It's easier for them to digest it and swallow it, et cetera. And they just don't have time to soak if we'd make them now. So that is the reasoning. Things are so easy. Except all these knots, jeez. Right, there we go. Now we can have that on the floor. Sonny has already demolished his dinner. He's already finished. I think that explains to you guys how quick he eats. I'll remove his bucket. Otherwise, he will throw it out the window because that is Sonny's party trick. I'm not sure if anyone else has a horse that throws a bucket directly out the window, but that is him. Gonna go and put these back in the net box. Grab my torch and my key. Go and check on my other boys. It's really nice though, because it's not that cold. So they've all got rugs on because it does turn a little bit chilly overnight. But normally I'm down here in like three coats and I have to start putting socks on with my Crocs, which is awful. It's unlocked again. Right, I'm definitely gonna need the torch to locate them because I cannot see my dudes anywhere. Where are they? Oh, I see eyes. There's Teddy. I think little man will be around him. Well, let's go a bit further up. Okay, we're just gonna go and find the boys. Pretty sure they're here. Oh, Teddy and little Jack. Bacardi, not Jack. Sorry, that's my bad. Hi, Ted. If you guys can see Teddy there. Hello, Teddy. And little Bacardi. Little monkey moo. So both are fine. Both looking a little bit muddy. Have you guys been having a roll in a little bath? Okay, both good. Everything in the field looks all right from what I can see, but obviously my vision is pretty limited and there's my little doggo. So I'm gonna head back in, finish off. And then that's pretty much it. So a few of you might have noticed that Teddy is wearing a head collar. I don't normally turn them out in a head collar. The only rare exception is if my horses are difficult to catch, which 90% of them are. Bacardi wears a head collar because otherwise we really can't catch him. And then even with the head collar, still can't catch him. Teddy, literally it's whatever mood he's in. Sometimes he's by the gate shouting to come in and sometimes you walk up to him and he'll run off and run off and run off just for like sport. So yeah, the head collars are just on so we can catch them because otherwise that would be a problem. But where possible, I do remove head collars and normally Teddy's pretty sensible. So I don't worry too much about him. But yeah, so please don't have a go at me for that. There's a reason. There's always method to my madness, I promise. It's really nice tonight. It's got a very like still peaceful vibe about the yard. And this is what I love so much about this indoor enclosed yard. So when we put them to bed in the afternoon, they just go to sleep and it's really relaxed. And I find like a relaxed environment makes it quite calm for them, which is really nice. And yeah, they just typically sleep pretty well and they wake up very chilled, which is nice. So good vibes at the yard. I might just give you an extra carrot, cause why not? Or an extra four. He's devoured the dinner though. And he's loving life. We had a bit of spillage there and we have these grass nuts that we feed them. Like I said, I will do a feeding routine, but they're like nuclear green. I don't know. Look at this pile. Oh, we can get it out later. I always also go into the tack room just to check the coffee machines off and all the plugs are off. You know, it's a bit of a fire hazard and I'm not normally that OCD about plugs, but when it comes to the horses, there is never such thing as being too careful. All off, all off. They were actually on, so that was a bit of a mistake from our part. So yeah, just a little check of everything. And like I said, it's not a very detailed night routine because we've perfected the art of an easy, relaxed night for the boys. And they know what time dinner is. They know what the drill is and they're very, very happy. So it's just what works for me and what works for my horses. If you guys do it different, they'll be really interested to know what extras you do. But that is pretty much it, guys. That is my nighttime routine as an equestrian. And I've been doing this routine probably since I was 12, maybe eight. I don't know, around the young era. It's been a long time and it has worked for us. So, so yeah. Thank you for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please do like and subscribe and I will see you guys next time.