Nutrition & care

Both herds have access to a round barn, where they can eat ecological hay as much as they like. From this hay-barn they have access to a roofed barn where they can sleep or take shelter. In winter and times when there is little grass, the horses are fed with Vitalbix (Breed & Grow). The foals and the other horses get a feeding bucket of their own. In this way each horse gets the amount it needs and, if necessary can be fed a supplement.

Checking the herds
The herds are checked twice a day for general health. We handle the horses manually a lot and they are accustomed to our presence, especially the foals. Any moment they can be taken out of the group by us or the owner. We teach them to stand still and to be quiet when they are at the farrier’s or with the veterinarian. If the animals have a (little) wound, they are immediately taken care of. If necessary there is always a separate stable available for the horses.

Farrier / vaccinations / worm-cures
We take complete care of the horses upon ourselves. We arrange the farrier, the worm-cures and the vaccinations. Every other week there is a farrier at Lelymare and he has a close look at which animal needs to be attended to. It sometimes happens that a horse has to go to the farrier a little more often in order to slowly get a posture correction. Usually other horses only need new horseshoes every 6-8 weeks. We work to measure on the horses.

The foals get a booster influenza when they are five to six months old. After the booster this is a vaccination for every year. Alle horses at Lelymare are vaccinated twice a year for the EHV 1-4. Broodmares get an EHV vaccination during the pregancy 5, 7 and 9 months.  Before winter starts, all horses get a vaccination agains strangles.

At Lelymare we carry out our own manure research, which enables us to de-worm the horses in a very targeted way. With new horses coming in, we do this by defoult, so that we can be sure that they enter the herd 'clean'.