Welcome to Valley View Farms 

Our beautiful Valley View Farms have 60 acres of land. We follow sustainable, biodynamic farming and we aim to grow and prepare as much of own organic vegetables and meat. We have horses, cows, sheep, chickens, dogs and a cat. We run a holistic horses rehabilitation livery yard, based on barefoot, bitless, and track system methods. We live on the top of Okaihau Hill in Northland, only 25 minutes from the Bay of Islands.

Holistic Horse Livery​

We provide optimal care for your horses if you don't have your own land to keep them. Our horses only get natural feeding based on their needs and we keep them healthy with a 'Track Grazing System'.

Daily movement is very important for horses to keep their metabolism and hooves healthy. We move our horses around our track system five or six days a week. To mimic the daily exercise of wild horses, they are moving more than 8 to 10 km each day.

Benefits of daily movement:
  • Development of the hoof capsule
  • Maintaining healthy weight and prevention of laminitis/founder and hoof pathology

Track Grazing Systems

We use a 'Track Grazing System' to mimic the environment and feeding habits of wild horses. This gives our horses space for exercise while protecting pasture grasses. Wild horses travel great distances along familiar tracks each day, the system encourages movement even on small acreages. It allows horses to live more closely to the manner nature intended, moving freely 24/7 and eating in a more natural way by having constant access to the right kinds of food placed strategically throughout their track.

Benefits of a Track System:
  • Repeated movement over all-weather surfaces, such as sand and gravel, can greatly improve hoof health
  • Reduced grass availability may be a good solution for metabolic or grass-sensitive horses, to have exercise and freedom whilst restricting access to pasture
  • A good way of increasing movement whilst restricting grazing during the summer months
  • Increase movement on smaller paddocks and massively increase daily exercise while encouraging faster movement (trot and canter)
  • More interesting environment for horses with different surfaces, slopes, trees, watering holes etc.

Rotation Stock Management

To provide our animals with the best care, our farm is divided into a number of paddocks that come off our track. This way it is easy to move all stock (horse, cows, sheep) to their next paddock. A paddock gets grazed for a brief period before moving onto the next paddock in a system so they get leafy pasture when the animals are returned to it. Grazing the horses, cows and sheep one after another helps with paddock maintenance and parasite control. 

Benefits of Rotational Grazing:
  • Pasture is eaten more evenly.
  • Paddocks are given time to freshen.
  • Parasite infestation is reduced, as hatching parasites find no hosts available.

Equine Services we offer

Here at Valley View Farms we offer these equine services. Find out more on our "Other Services" page and feel free to contact us.
  • Hoof Trimming
  • Equine Dental Care
  • Horsemanship and Riding Lessons
  • Horse Starting
  • Horse Livery
  • Faecal Worm Count
  • Hoof Boots Services

​Find out more about:

Horsemanship Internship

We offer an internship, where you can learn to get along with horses and live with the land and farm animals. You will learn how to run a sustainable, biodynamic farm, grow and prepare your own vegetables and meat, the basics of horsemanship and animal care, the basics of trimming hooves, and much more.