Merrick Stud

20/03/2026

Having older horses, and trying to give them a good retirement doesn’t mean you just turn them out and ignore them. It means keeping a close eye on their condition and how they are in themselves.
With no plans to breed any more foals in the near future Hogan, our lovely 24 year old stallion is retired from stud duties (much to his disgust I’m sure 😉) but I had noticed lately that he’s dropped some condition, and has been quidding (dropping food) while eating, so he was booked in with our lovely equine dentist for a dental check.
In common with a lot of horses in their twenties, he had already lost 2 teeth, and another 2 fell out into the dentists hand on just a quick wiggle. There were a few sharp edges that needed a power rasp, and he’s booked in for his next dental in 12 months time (or before if he looks like he’s struggling.)
The 3 “babies”, Reuben, Scarlet and Maisie are also booked in to be done before their schooling and breaking appointments in a few months time (hopefully!)
I always panic if I can see the odd rib (although admittedly I’d be delighted to see my own!🙈🤣) but it was lovely to hear the dentist’s opinion that they are perfect coming out of Winter.
After his dental Hogan needed a cuddle to get over his highly traumatic (NOT) experience, had a drink and walked straight to his hay bale after a couple of treats for being such a dude, and hopefully is a lot more comfortable now.
As he’s minus 4 teeth already, he will need a little additional support from hay replacement feeds next Winter, but looking at the 5 cracking children he’s left us with, he’s worth everything we can do to help him. He owes us nothing-we owe him this. ♥️

13/03/2026

The big yellow ball in the sky is making everyone feel better.
Cleevie Club….from left to right
Lowri
Poppy (twin 2)
Daisy (twin 1)
Lily
Maisie
Once the ground has dried enough to mend the fences, and the grass starts to grow we will be looking at weaning the 3 children (technically now 2 year olds.)
They are quite often in different paddocks to Lowri and Maisie, so hoping our gradual weaning system will work well for them all.
(I hate weaning!)

06/03/2026

This should dry the ground out a bit and get the grass growing!

01/03/2026

I often stop off on my way to or from food shopping to see the seals.

01/03/2026

Non-horsey post time! These beauties are often on our closest beach-on my route to Tesco!

07/02/2026

The current chat gpt craze had to be followed…I just wish I looked this good in real life-and it was still snow and not the endless rain we’ve had for 6 weeks now!
The twinnies look super-cute though!

31/01/2026

OK then….where’s “that” post been stolen and re-posted to?! A sudden influx of followers is always a sure fire giveaway that it’s appeared again……
Anyway, welcome to our newbies, enjoy our photos and posts. The twins are now 19 months old, but here’s a throw back to when they were little, cute and sleek, not like their current opinionated, hairy and muddy state!

18/01/2026

Today’s session of topping up waters….its soooo cold I was amazed the water was actually even running!
One for newbies who having arrived aren’t aware that the twins and now 19 months old and as you can see look more like Yaks than foals! Hairy, happy and healthy…..quite why they all insist on hanging out on the sheet ice instead of in the 2 grass fields they have at their disposal with a large round of bale of hay there is beyond me! I think they just like sliding around on it to stress me out!

18/01/2026

13/01/2026

Christmas pressie rug change for Miss Scarlet…..just in time for the thaw and mud to arrive!
Who else spends their Christmas and birthday money on rugs for their horses? Another 2 on order, a new one for Hogan to keep his old bones warm, and one for Reuben too who is currently looking like he’s about to phone the SSPCA-the only problem is that I can’t get anything in or out at the moment because the track and yard now consists of 4 inch thick compacted ice where we’ve driven over it to get water to the paddocks in containers while the taps were frozen, and all the post has been delayed as the postie couldn’t access our road, so the 48 hr delivery has turned into 3 weeks.
He (like everyone) has ad lib top quality hay in front of him 24/7 so I think the SSPCA would tell him to toughen up and crack on!
Like his late mum Spice, he’s a bit of a diva and was giving me his very best sad Labrador eyes today while I filled his water.
Got to love the big tube.
♥️♥️♥️

12/01/2026

Here we go again…a welcome to those who found themselves here via another spam money making fb page…..which has stolen my content and is earning a lot of money for it.
Yes, the twins are fine. They are now officially 2 year olds, and are still on mum Lowri as I’m still too shell shocked to breed another foal just yet!
🤣🤣🤣
No, I didn’t know she was having twins (she was scanned as empty repeatedly and we’d given up on her breeding us a foal but left her in with Hogan who couldn’t reach anyway (🙈🤣🍆)
Yes, they are all fine. Daisy and Poppy are strong and healthy and both around 14.2hh despite their diminutive stature at birth (both could easily walk under Lowri with a good 6 inches to spare)
So the photo is a little light hearted humour-I’ve only sworn because it’s really quite irritating seeing others profiting from our babies when they weren’t the ones depleting their bank accounts keeping them alive, setting their alarms for 3 hourly checks to make sure they were still alive, peeing, pooing and feeding as they should, and spending the ensuing 18 months saying “really?! Did that actually really happen?”
And through it all, darling Lowri has never missed a beat, feeding 2 babies without ever showing a rib, amazing everyone and earning admiration worldwide.
I hope you all enjoy following all our horses stories, they are our world and we hope that, in a small way, they become part of your world too. Enjoy!

06/01/2026

Well Scotland rarely fails to deliver on the weather front!
Frozen water and ponies demanding hay 24/7 means donning your finest winter attire, and getting out there armed with containers of water filled in the house, big bales of hay, a lot of trudging through 18 inch deep snow, doing the splits when one foot ends up in a snowdrift and a lot of associated bad language along with repeated mutterings of “I’m too old for this sh*t…”
Remind me about that when I’m complaining about the mud when it thaws!
It does make me happy though when they all have a big round bale of hay and have had a drink of rather warm water-there’s a method in my madness, not only does warm water encourage them to drink decreasing the chances of colic, it also melts the ice in their barrels too.
Have to love Scotland ♥️♥️♥️