Anyone who says, "It's summer, just summer!" can have no connection with the countryside and with the source of their food. Cereal crops and grass are producing just one tenth of their usual yield and farmers are already having to supplement their animals' food as if it were winter. Although food prices might rise, farmers will have to compete with imported goods and won't be able to recoup their losses.
Horse owners are now panicking with their fields looking like overworn lawns, trying to secure hay for the autumn and winter. I am pleased that I have kept the same hay supplier for almost twenty years - he hasn't changed much - despite the fact that his hay has been at the top end of the price range at times. It has always been good quality. This time he has gone beyond the call of duty, buying in large bales of hay from Devon where they seem to have avoided the drought. These big bales are equivalent to more than 10 old-fashioned bales of hay, difficult and heavy to manoeuvre, but once cut, the hay can be divided up and distributed in a wheelbarrow. I am very pleased with the texture and quality of it and it is always good for the horses to have vitamin and minerals which are different from their own grass (if they can remember that far back).
I am using this and scatterable hard feed to keep them amused and healthy, but they are still bad-tempered about the lack of roughage in the field. A raindance is required.
