Preparing for snow

If the forecast is to be believed, parts of the UK are set to be gripped by the white stuff!

And while snow can be beautiful and fun, it can also be pretty troublesome, especially with ice and plummeting temperatures, so here’s a few top tips on preparing for snow.

Rug up your water supply!

Frozen pipes can be a nightmare, so if possible insulate the pipes.

Leave a football in outdoor water tanks to help stop it from re-freezing.

And small balls in indoor automatic drinkers.

Always drain hoses and put away to help avoid them freezing in the night.

Get the kettle ready, and use warm water to defrost!

Clear paths from the get-go, and grit!

Don't delay when it comes to clearly paths, the more its walked on and compacted, the harder and slippier it becomes.

Get your shovels at the ready and scrape away the paths morning and night followed by putting grit down, but remember that salt will damage concrete!

Some people use table salt in horse walkers so not to damage the rubber matting.

And think before you throw your bucket of water away, if you throw it on your yard and its due to freeze, you could be skating around in the morning.

Turn out when you can.

Horses are always better off out, and best kept to their usual routine so if possible, keep turning them out with a supply of fodder.

But if you cant turn out or exercise always try to let them have a leg stretch if possible by being lead out in hand, and cut out the hard feed!

And talking of exercise....

The deeper and more powdery the snow, the better it is to ride in. Their hooves don’t tend to ball up as much when its deep and even when they do, they don’t slip because the deep snow prevents it.

The worse kind of snow to ride in is when there is only a small amount of snow down.

A shod horse will without doubt have snow ball up in its hooves far worse than a unshod horse ever will, so use Vaseline or some kind of grease to help prevent the snow balling effect, and always carry a hoof pick to knock out those stubborn ones!

On the plus side of riding in snow, its fantastic for their legs as it constantly cools, the tendons.

Be sensible, if your unsure as to how slippy it might actually be, sometimes its not worth taking the risk, especially if on a new , young or spooky horse!