Horse Agistment is a term derived from the old English laws of agistment, where a cattle owner pays a land owner to graze cattle on their land. This practice first began way back when the King would charge the people money for grazing their cattle on his land. These days, however, horse agistment is simply when a horse owner pays a land owner to keep the horse on the land and allow it to graze. Having said that, there are also a lot of variations to these agreements.
Many horse agistment properties offer excellent care and services for horse and rider, ranging in services from spelling agistment, riding agistment and small group agistment through to agistment with full care. When looking for somewhere to place your horse, you should be sure to consider the following: are the paddocks large enough to accommodate the number of horses, will your horse be kept on improved pastures that are weed free, regularly rotated, slashed, fertilised and irrigated where required. As an extra, are winter active grasses sown to ensure your horse has feed all year round saving you from expensive feed bills. Does every paddock have horse safe fencing that is either post and rail or post and plain wire fencing only and are all well sheltered with either natural windbreaks and shade trees or quality man made structures.
Quite a few horse agistment land owners will request that your horse be kept worm free prior to and during its stay so you need to also look into having that done on a regular basis. The land owners themselves will often carry this out for you as part of the contract. Likewise for things such as the horses dentistry and the like. So when it comes to horse agistment, factoring in all these things can take a huge burden off the horse owner, and if your lucky enough to find one, some horse agistment operators even offer some fun services to get the most of out of owning a horse. These include things like riding days where you can take your horse out for a ride with others.
By doing your own personal inspection of the horse agistment properties you are considering, you can get a good idea of the kind of staff who will be looking after your horse. You should make sure they are properly trained and have enough experience to provide you with the advice you need and your horse with the care it needs. If they are passionate about their job then you can safely assume that your horse will be looked after correctly. The surrounding ares are a good thing to inspect also. The more places to ride the better. Look for places with plenty of national park or riding trails nearby.
So in conclusion, if you are looking into horse agistment, it does not matter which “side of the fence” you are on, there are plenty of things to discuss when it comes to drawing up the contracts. Unfortunately, these days, contracts are an essential for these kinds of things so make sure both parties are agreed on the responsibilities of each and that all costs, fees and pricing structures are double checked before signing. Not to mention things like contingency plans for natural disasters, like flooding and forest fires, all the way to things like procedures for unexpected illness, diseases and injuries of the animals in question.
Want to find out more about horse agistment? Then visit Michelle Rudge’s site on how to choose the best horse agistment property for your needs.
