1. Custom Horsehair Bracelet | 2.  Noble Outfitters Socks | 3. My Horse Box Subscription Box | 4.Engraved Hip Flask | 5. Your Horse Magazine Subscription

Here is part 1 of a few gifts I think would be great for christmas, these are gifts that I would be happy to receive myself (maybe not the hip flask as I'm not a drinker but I feel it's a great gift) as I wouldn't like to recommend anything that I wouldn't like. 

I actually got the Your Horse magazine subscription last christmas myself and am thinking about getting it again off my mum this year. I also think the My Horse Box Subscription would be great as you can chose for it to be a one off box, a rolling subscription or a 3 month one off subscription. The Noble Outfitter socks I feel would be either great as a little stocking filler (depending on how much you spend) or as part of a main present. The custom horsehair bracelet is something I was going to get for my mum this year made with Cloudys tail, but she had a show back in September so I didn't want to be cutting out a part of his tail, and then after that I got a little lazy and missed the deadline of the site I was looking at, but this is definitely something I want to get her and I'm crossing fingers I can get it for her birthday instead. 

Spillers Speedy Mash Fibre Review

I recently tried out a bag of the new Spillers speedy mash fibre to try out on the 2 horses. They are already on fast fibre so with this being pretty much the same I thought I would give it a go to see how they got on. Even getting the bag I was a little sceptical as it gives out an apple aroma and taste for the horses, now this would be great for most horses but knowing Legacy is a little iffy with apples and apple tasting products I thought she'd be a good judge. 

Some of the product features are: 

- Fast soaking in 60 seconds.

- It's safe to give to laminitics and those prone.

- Cereal & Molasses free, high in fibre and low in starch and sugar making it great for good doers and those in light work.

- It contains prebiotic fos and probiotic live yeast to help support optimum digestive health.

- It supplies quality protein to help maintain topline and muscle tone.

- It includes vitamins and minerals including chelated zinc and copper to help maximise absorption.

- It's great for older horses with poor teeth and those who are struggling to chew long fibre.

What Legacy and Cloudy thought of the product:

To first try this product out on the horses I got a sample bag of it, which was then halved and put into their feed for that day along with their graze on grass and some fast fibre to build up their feed amount. Cloudy went over and ate his food like normal without a care in the world, apart from having his ears back at the birds that wait around to pick at his left overs. Legacy was a little more suspicious with hers and gave it a little smell but then started to eat it up as usual.

After them eating the food I had a bag to try out with the two of them. I gave them their usual feed the first day trying it out, swapping the usual fast fibre out for the speedy mash. Like previously Cloudy dove right in and ate the food, Legacy on the other had was a little different. To start with she started to eat the food as usual then ended up sifting through the mash looking for the mix and grass. In the end she ended up leaving her food and heading over to the haynets to eat. We tried her out on the speedy mash again the next day and she just left it again, resulting in Cloudy eating what she'd left over. 

After trying this out I bought her a bag of fast fibre to put her back on while keeping Cloudy on the speedy mash. 

Here I've done a comparison of both the fast fibre and speedy mash dry, these are both 1 stubbs scoop worth which is 1.5kg dry weight of fast fibre and 1.7kg dry weight of speedy mash.

And here is a comparison of the two feeds wet and 60 seconds.

Since finishing the bag with Cloudy Legacy has started to go over and start to steal his food when he still has some left over. This has left me thinking that she will eat the food but only in small amounts. With this food biggest competitor I would say is the fast fibre I feel the apple aroma and taste gives the speedy mash a good edge and opens up to some more customers who like the idea of the apple, it will also close out some customers who have fussy horses like Legacy. 

Verdict from Legacy: Bit Iffy with it so I won't feed it to her.

Verdict from Cloudy: Will eat it. 

If you're looking for a high fibre feed or a soakable feel to keep your horse fuller for longer I would definitely give this a go, as it's high in fibre and low in starch & sugar but if you're horse is already on fast fibre and doing great personally I wouldn't change over and I can't see it doing much different than fast fibre.

You can find out some more info and work out how much to feed on the Spillers website here, or you can try it out at a reduced introductory price of £7.99 (£9.49 RRP) here.

*I did receive a bag to try out for free through my work but have received nothing for this review and all opinions are my own (and my horses).

Changing the laws on fireworks

With the fireworks starting as bonfire night is approaching there has been a petition circulating around. This petition is to stop unauthorised firework displays such as back garden fireworks. This has come around due to the amount of distress it's causing animals when their owners aren't notified and are able to prepare themselves and the animals before hand. 

Personally I feel that this petition is something that everyone should be signing, and not only horse owners all animal owners. It's not only horses that are getting distressed from the random firework bangs and noises, dogs and cats are too. Owners who like to have their animals kept in for the fireworks, when the bangs are at random and days before bonfire night this cannot be done. 

Over the years I have had to see many pictures on Facebook of the consequences people have had to deal with from others actions. I've seen barns been burnt down which has been full of peoples winter stock of hay and straw due to a firework landing on it, I've also seen this happen from chinese lanterns. These people do not only lose out on the money they have spent for the winter stock they have to rebuy again and build their barns back up for storage. The other day I seen a picture of an aborted foal in the field due to the stress fireworks caused the mother. This isn't seen as a financial loss like the barns but more of an emotional one as it was only just forming. I've heard of horses loosing eyes because of fireworks, being burnt etc. I'm not going to add any images here because they can be distressing for some, but I'm hoping if you're an animal owner or even just a lover you will sign this Petition to finally get something done. Currently there is just under 30,000 signatures on it but to make the government consider a change in a debate we need 100,000 signatures. We have until April 2018 to get all of these and I'm hoping it will make a change for next years bonfire night. 

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