"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance"

So it would seem that winter is well and truely here.  Wolfie has been holed up in his stable for the last 2 days, eating large amounts of very expensive hay.  The yard is like an ice rink and even if we had managed to walk the horses to the field, the fields themselves and the gateways were treacherous.  I turned the ponies out for a couple of hours yesterday, they have better grip being barefoot, but are also small enough to walk on the tiniest of verges to get some grip.  The field was like concrete and very rutted so they weren't overly impressed and I could hear them shouting as I was mucking out to go back up and get them in.  It was a little warmer yesterday and as the ice began to thaw, huge amounts of grit was put down so fingers crossed the temperature has stayed above freezing and the horses will get out today.  2 days is about the maximum I get away with keeping Wolfie in.  It's not even like I can take him out and walk him.  He is very good but if he's kept in again today, he will start climbing the walls......or the stable door.  It's not easy being a horse owner, every season with it's various weather conditions brings its worries.  Now winter, frozen grass is a concern for laminitics, frozen conditions means you can't turn them out, keeping them in can increase the occurrence of colic, you can get filled legs, the older ones stiffen up, frozen water buckets, can't soak the hay, you keep them in and then when you do turn them out they go for a jolly around the field on rock hard ground.  The list is endless.  Hopefully we will have a few milder days and back to some sort of normality.