Classical Dressage Art in Motion

This winter has been particularly severe across parts of the U.S. and from our corner of the world in Upstate New York, we can certainly attest to that. Ever since mid-November the snow has covered the fields most days. A few brief breaks from snow cover didn't last long. Additionally the ambient temperatures even without the wind chill factor have been well-below freezing.  Despite horse owners best efforts to stock up for winter with hay and dry forage supplies, many barn owners can already see their supplies diminishing at a faster rate than normal. Horses need hay to keep warm, and grain substitution is simply not a good idea as it increases the risk of colic and does little to help equines stay warm. Though too much grain can make them hot to handle. At Willowview Hill Farm, our organic hay farm in Stamford, New York, we currently have plenty of hay supplies available for sale. In fact, to help horse owners out we've discounted our precious 2nd cut, which will also help u...

Organic Horse Hay Makes A World Of Difference To Horse's Health It's been a busy hay season at our organic hay farm between dodging the rain deluges earlier in the year then the dry weeks late in the season. These elements all combined to provide a very up and down experience.  For horse owners as the summer season ends the season of stocking up on forage supplies is just beginning. Question is, how many horse owners are aware of just what their hay contains and of what negative effects it is having on their horses' health? Bottom line up front - horses do better on small squares of organically grown and produced hay than hay produced by commonplace farming methods that include use of preservatives. And here's the reasoning behind that statement. Working Hard To Do Better Why did we begin this endeavor of hay farming in the first place? And what difference has it made to the health of our horses? I think a LOT. We've been producing our own hay at our farm in the C...

Once you take the leap of faith and move your horses from full-time livery service to keeping them in your own backyard it truly is, hard to go back. Not because the boarding barn owner wouldn't be happy to see you, but because once you've taken your horse care matters into your own hands you quickly learn the nuances of all aspects of horse care matters, and learn they are more important than you ever imagined.   Early Days At WVH North Blessed with my husband being as avid a dressage personage as I am, the notion of keeping horses at home was never far from our minds when we moved from the U.K. to the U.S.A. way back when. With his vast experience training horses and my lesser experience with formal riding education but lots of 'hands-on' experience spent riding and working in foxhunting, elite showjumping and horse breeding yards in England, our combination of experience worked well. Gambol's Georgy Girl - one of our WVH DWB homebreds   As you age toward mileston...

  Hay production is part art and part science. The average hay farmer faces many challenges in regard to the hay production process and not every field of grass or legume is worthy of being baled as horse hay. And why is good horse hay so expensive? What's the difference between cow hay or general hay and horse hay products anyway? A lot! From how the field is seeded to how it is cut to how it is tedded and raked to how it is baled, to how it is stored, - everything matters. For example, most hay products available for purchase at feed stores and agricultural outlets like Tractor Supply Company, come with Round Up type chemicals included in the bag or bale for free. Their suppliers openly post that they use chemicals to cure their hay and to up their hay yields and decrease the time needed on the fields to produce it. Alfalfa seeds come as Round Up Ready seedlings - and regardless of how the pharma industry has changed the name from the well known carcinogen brand name to others, t...

Fields of 2nd cut horse hay at Willowview Hill Farm, Stamford, NY     We have been producing organically grown hay for over 22 years, and 2021 has been by far our busiest ever. The hay has been flying out the door like never before. The expression, 'buy now or cry later' has become a regular post on our social media platform. There is simply an unprecedented demand for 1st cut this year, and like many farmers around, the yield this year was not the best. Our fellow farmers in CT and MA, saw a poor 1st cut due to the damage done to the grasses by last year's drought conditions. Meantime further north, NH, VT and ME saw drought conditions this Spring so yields were down there as well.  On our home turf here in the Catskill Mountains in NY, we check multiple weather forecast daily during hay season to hunt down those blocks of 3 good days of sunshine, that will be sufficient to cure our hay to our required 12-14% moisture by Mother Nature. It can be cured faster using applic...

  Organic Hay at Willowview Hill Farm, NY   It's been twenty years (or thereabouts, as Peter Wright would say in his Yorkshire accent on The Yorkshire Vet, my latest binge watch on Acorn), since we began proudly producing and marketing our organic hay . There have been years before now when supplies of hay were low in our region of the N.E. U.S.A. One year it was the awful slimy army worms that devoured much of the County's hay supply, drought, monsoon summer rains have all played their part in Mother Nature's symphony of the unexpected. A farmer's lot in life. One neighbor even had his second cut horse hayfields trampled and chowed down by a herd of wandering bison that had escaped their keeper for months.  But in 2020, along with everything else that went sideways, the year brought little rain and much drought to the N.E. Connecticut was as dry as the dust bowl, grasslands laid bare in MA, VT and NH. Here in Stamford, New York, in the micro-climate of heaviest rains i...