I am someone who rarely watches the news as I just don’t need that level of negativity in my life, but I did happen to be in the room while BBC breakfast were talking about the Be Ready campaign.
We have spoken about this in EquiTeam Connected recently too – quite a number of our members live in quite remote areas including Scottish Islands so are well used to ensuring they have a good stock of the essentials.
I am definitely not one for scaremongering and encouraging panic buying but there is definitely sense in having a plan in place for both your own house and your horses. Imagine – if a certain EquiTeam coach had no electric and couldn’t have a cup of tea…!!!
There are definitely two types of horse owners – the ones who know exactly how many days of feed and hay they have in stock at all times, and those who end up running to the feed store to collect their horse’s dinner for that day. Those who live a long way from suppliers are probably more in the organised camp, but this might be the time for the unorganised sector to start forward planning a little more, to make sure the day they run out of feed doesn’t coincide with a three day storm.
Another thing to consider is having an emergency plan written down in case you are unable to get to your horses if they are on livery. Do they need medication? Do they have certain quirks that someone else might need to be aware of? If everything is written down before you need it, you are less likely to forget something in an emergency.
If you are on a yard – does the yard have a protocol in place with the information about the horses on site? If not, it would be worth a conversation with the yard owner so that you know that your horse is in safe hands – or if you are the person who can get to the yard, you know what everyone else’s horses need.
What about your own household?
I have read a few social media posts chatting about what kind of food we should have in – with some talk about having things in that you don’t need to cook in case you have no power. This surprised me – as I had taken for granted that everyone owns a camping stove – I think we own three between us in our house, but perhaps we are not normal!
As lots of you know I avoid ultra processed food as much as possible, but there are some things that are less ultra and more just processed like tinned tomatoes, tinned fruit and, kidney beans, baked beans, tinned tuna (I can’t stand tuna but Gav and Chloe can eat that) that are always in our house, plus a few packs of mixed grains or rice. So I think we would be fine – assuming we haven’t ran out of any of the above!
In an actual emergency I don’t think any of us will be too concerned about hitting our protein or fibre targets, as long as we are fed and warm. I won’t be stocking up particularly, but I will try to be a bit more organised and actually know what is in the cupboards so we don’t run out of anything.
Cupboard checklist
- Bottled water
- Baked beans
- Kidney beans
- Tinned tomatoes
- Tinned fruit
- Tinned soup
- Dried fruit
- Tinned tuna
- Teabags/coffee
- Cocoa powder/hot chocolate
- Long life milk
- Cous cous
- Rice
- Stock cubes
- Oats
- Sugar/honey
- Biscuits/crackers/cereal bars
- Chocolate
I would always have bread flour, yeast and salt in too – but I guess if we have no power I will only be making flatbreads on the camping stove!
I grew up in a house with sketchy electrics so I have been conditioned to always have candles available and know where there is a lighter or pack of matches. We also own multiple head torches – both rechargeable and battery powered as well as a wind up torch which lives in my car.
The governement recommendation includes a wind up or battery FM radio, since their announcement there were rumours that people have been panic buying and there was limited stock, but amazon do seem to have a good range of varying prices (and potentially quality). My car does have FM radio as well as the DAB and I assume most cars are the same.
A luxury item – but one which has been so useful is a Jackery portable charger which we use for camping/ fishing trips which has been brilliant for several days away to charge phones, power a light etc – it is powerful enough to boil a kettle but I don’t think the power would last long if you were relying on it for things like that.
I think the government for once might have got their wording right – Be Ready – it’s a bit like being a scout – always be prepared, but don’t be a selfish person and panic buy all of the toilet rolls!
If there is anything else you would add to our list we would love you to share in EquiTeam Connected!
