Hay shortage 2018 doubling Eggsy's feed costs

Beginning to feel like all we talk about here on Eggsy's blog is hay, haylage, but, there's a nationwide forage shortage at the moment. The high rainfall during late summer and autumn of last year prevented additional cuts of hay / haylage / silage which has resulted in less available forage, that, and a higher demand for forage, again due to wet weather conditions, has sent the price soaring.

What a shock we had with our latest forage delivery, the bales were less than half the weight of our usual supplies effectively doubling the cost.

As we don't have enough pasture to supply all of Eggsy and his equine friends nutritional needs we have to feed forage all year round so this has come as a devastating blow to us. Imagine if you went to do your weekly food shop and found that everything had doubled in price. This is likely to last for several months until the new 2018 hay is ready, if there is a good crop the prices will hopefully fall again, if not then it will remain high. 

At the moment I don't know how / if we can ride this out, as you know we couldn't afford to finance Eggsy ourselves and depend upon donations to cover the cost of his care. We have had the most wonderful support offered these past few days with huge thanks being owed to:

Elizabeth, Christine, Norma, Lisa, Susan, Sally, Nancy, Amina, Pernille, Eleonore and several Eggsy friends who prefer to remain anonymous.

But can we sustain this during the coming months? What's to be done if we can't? Those are the questions giving me sleepless nights at the moment!

About Eggsy:

Eggsy is a rescue pony he was abandoned and left to starve by his owners as a foal. His care is funded by donations.

You can read the story of his abandonment here: About Eggsy Pony

Would you like to help Eggsy? 

Eggsy has a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for his care, we'd be really grateful if you'd go take a look, share it far and wide via your social media and of course if you can spare some money please donate.

Help Raise Abandoned Foal Eggsy ~ GoFundMe

Thank you, Eggsy and I really appreciate it x

Too wet a winter

It's been difficult to think of anything to blog about other than the abject misery of mud caused by the seemingly never ending precipitation in one form or another. It's heartbreaking seeing your animals in such conditions knowing that there's little you can do to make life more comfortable for them than to keep their bellies full. At the moment there doesn't seem to be any light on the horizon with another mainly wet week forecast. If this is what we're facing with climate change British horse owners are going to have to learn new ways of management.

Times are going to be tough even when the weather improves, there's a forage shortage now meaning rising prices (if you can find any to buy), fields will need repair as will fencing. Some of our fence posts are rotting in the water logged conditions.

See why I haven't wanted to blog? I really don't want to moan & whine all the time!

"Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don't whine. You can be brought low, that's OK, but don't be reduced by them. Just say, "That's life." Maya Angelou

Anyway Eggsy & I have much to be grateful for, your help spreading his story and your financial assistance which has been an absolute godsend with the rising price of forage. I honestly don't know how we'd manage without you.

We have some overdue thank you's for Christine, Philo, Nancy, Norma, Emily, Elizabeth and our anonymous friends it's your generosity that has got Eggsy through these last few weeks. 

"If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded." Maya Angelou

About Eggsy:

Eggsy is a rescue pony he was abandoned and left to starve by his owners as a foal. His care is funded by donations.

Would you like to help Eggsy? 

Eggsy has a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for his care, we'd be really grateful if you'd go take a look, share it far and wide via your social media and of course if you can spare some money please donate.

Help Raise Abandoned Foal Eggsy ~ GoFundMe

Thank you, Eggsy and I really appreciate it x 

Why rescue pony Eggsy needs more forage

I've been going on for months now about needing to feed more forage, "central heating for horses", during the winter months so considering how cold it is out there today I thought I should probably explain why.

Basically horses maintain their core body temperature via the heat produced during the digestion process of long stemmed forage ~ hay / haylage. This heat is produced as the forage is fermented by microbes in the gut. 

Each individual horse requires a certain amount of food a day, approximately 2% of their body weight, to maintain weight, condition and body warmth. As the weather gets colder a certain point is reached, the lower critical temperature (LCT) which varies depending on the temperatures horses are used to living in, when they will start to use more energy to maintain body temperature. If that energy is not provided by food they will lose weight and condition whilst the body tries to keep warm.  

Therefore when it gets cold horses need to be fed more forage or they are going to lose weight, the colder it gets the more weight they will lose. When it gets really, really cold with wind, rain, snow etc the need for more forage can actually double, (you can get more detailed information in this article here), which of course means that feed costs would double too.

This is the coldest winter Eggsy has experienced so far and he is eating loads more than usual, typically forage prices have risen and with people still recovering from Christmas expenditure donations are down, so right now any help via a donation or purchase from Eggsy's shop would be greatly appreciated. 

Provided by CoolFundraisingIdeas.net

A big thank you to Norfolk Bea and Philomena who have already donated this month.

About Eggsy:

Eggsy is a rescue pony he was abandoned and left to starve by his owners as a foal. His care is funded by donations.

Would you like to help Eggsy? 

Eggsy has a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for his care, we'd be really grateful if you'd go take a look, share it far and wide via your social media and of course if you can spare some money please donate.

Help Raise Abandoned Foal Eggsy ~ GoFundMe

Thank you, Eggsy and I really appreciate it x 

Eggsy's January

So here we are the last day of January 2018 and what a month it has been!

It's mostly been about weather some days have been so cold that the ice on the water has been re-freezing as soon as it's been cleared. So cold that I've been wearing two coats. 

So cold that lots of extra feed has been given.

Other days it's been so warm that I've been working in a t shirt, although those days they have been few and far between. But mostly it's been rain, rain and more rain with some of the highest rainfall in years.

The land is saturated, our track down to the horses is impassable in a vehicle, I had to be towed out back in December,  which means I have to carry all their forage, hard feed and water down to them by hand. Can't even use a barrow in this mud. Walking in mud is exhausting, carrying heavy feed stuffs and containers of water is exhausting. 

I'm really rather tired. 

Eggsy and friends are weathering the weather with their usual cheerful demeanor's. Always delighted to see the arrival of more food and what a lot of food they're getting though. So Eggsy and I are even more grateful than usual, if that's possible, for the help purchasing feed via your donations. 

Thank you Elizabeth and our anonymous friend for your January donations they have helped keep Eggsy warm this month, forage being central heating for horses. 

It's hailing now, great big lumps of ice falling from the sky - more "central heating" required! 

About Eggsy:

Eggsy is a rescue pony he was abandoned and left to starve by his owners as a foal. His care is funded by donations.

Would you like to help Eggsy? 

Eggsy has a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for his care, we'd be really grateful if you'd go take a look, share it far and wide via your social media and of course if you can spare some money please donate.

Help Raise Abandoned Foal Eggsy ~ GoFundMe

Thank you, Eggsy and I really appreciate it x 

Eggsy's Thank You Letters

Dear Bronwyn, Elizabeth, Christine, Helen, Philomena, Tina, Nancy, Diane, Pernille and Anonymous friends,

Thank you ever so much for my Christmas and Birthday monies which have been spent wisely on lots of lovely forage, hard feed, carrots and mints.

I've had a lovely time eating all my goodies.

Sending you all best wishes for a wonderful 2018.

Love from 
Eggsy Pony x

Also thank you to everyone who has bought something from my shop, your purchase has helped to feed me and enabled us to send 10% of proceeds to Bodmin Moorland Pony Rehabilitation to help with their vet bills. 

About Eggsy:

Eggsy is a rescue pony he was abandoned and left to starve by his owners as a foal. His care is funded by donations.

Would you like to help Eggsy? 

Eggsy has a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for his care, we'd be really grateful if you'd go take a look, share it far and wide via your social media and of course if you can spare some money please donate.

Help Raise Abandoned Foal Eggsy ~ GoFundMe

Thank you, Eggsy and I really appreciate it x 

Happy 3rd Birthday Eggsy Pony

January 1st and as we don't actually know Eggsy's real date of birth he shares the "official" Thoroughbred birthday of his field mate Boo.

3 today!

It's going to be a busy year Eggsy, lots more lessons on how to conduct oneself in public and when the weather improves there's the little matter of  castration to arrange. But for now enjoy the sunshine & the birthday carrots x 

About Eggsy:

Eggsy is a rescue pony he was abandoned and left to starve by his owners as a foal. His care is funded by donations.

Would you like to help Eggsy? 

Eggsy has a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for his care, we'd be really grateful if you'd go take a look, share it far and wide via your social media and of course if you can spare some money please donate.

Help Raise Abandoned Foal Eggsy ~ GoFundMe

Thank you, Eggsy and I really appreciate it x 

A look at Eggsy's year ~ 2017

2017 kicked off with Eggsy's 2nd (official) birthday, we don't actually know his real date of birth so he gets to celebrate with the Thoroughbreds on 1st January 

In February we made long term plans for educating Eggsy

March and time to sort out those encysted small redworm an essential part of horse care   

Easter 2017 was in April 

May & we took a look at a day in the life of a rescue pony 

Eggsy had a visitor in June 

July was a difficult month what with Houdini Eggsy & the theft of our vehicle which was thankfully recovered 

August saw the adventures of destructor pony!

Incredibly September passed without a single photograph of Eggsy being taken we made up for it in October though when we managed to get some adorable pics of him literally lying in his breakfast! 

November saw the launch of Eggsy's fundraising blog shop 

and then it was Christmas !

31st December,

Old Year's Night, 

New Year's Eve 

and we present a random selection of Eggsy photographs grabbed from each month without thinking too much about the choice ~ so nice to look back on 2017.

We do something similar each year so if you'd like you can see Eggsy's 

2016 by clicking here

and

2015 by clicking here

About Eggsy:

Eggsy is a rescue pony he was abandoned and left to starve by his owners as a foal. His care is funded by donations.

Would you like to help Eggsy? 

Eggsy has a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for his care, we'd be really grateful if you'd go take a look, share it far and wide via your social media and of course if you can spare some money please donate.

Help Raise Abandoned Foal Eggsy ~ GoFundMe

Thank you, Eggsy and I really appreciate it x