H&H’s ultimate winter survival guide: things you need at your yard

We’ve got all the tips and advice you need to get through these long months, from the preparations, to keeping your horse clean and essentials you need in your yard. Follow our helpful tips and it’ll be springtime before you know it.

Things you need at your yard:

Make winter at your yard a little easier by investing in some of these useful items now — they’ll be like gold dust when they are needed.

• A big hammer and a metal colander (a plastic one will break with the weight of the ice) to break and scoop out ice in frozen water buckets and troughs.
• A football to put in the water trough to help prevent the water freezing — remember to introduce it early if your horses are naturally suspicious types.
• A head torch will come in very useful on dark winter nights, leaving your hands free.
• Grit, and lots of it.
• Big water containers to fill when the taps are thawed.
• Tyres and a couple of bales of straw (if you don’t have any already) — fill the tyres with straw and stand water buckets in to help prevent freezing.
• Plenty of food stocks: hay/haylage and hard feed.
• Grease to use on your horse’s hooves in the snow.
• Stones that can be used to fill in field entrances before they get really boggy.
• A kettle — nothing will warm you up like a nice warm cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day.