A new shop selling animal feeds has opened near Ivychurch on Romney Marsh. Supplying predominately horse feed, Yoakes Court Animal Feeds is the brainchild of Amber Furnival, wife of Douglas Furnival, the third generation of a marsh farming family that also operates the Hoof restaurant in Rye.
The idea was spawned following the pre-Christmas closure of ‘Clip Clop’, the horse feed wholesaler near Ashford who supplied almost all horse owners across the marsh with their regular feed requirements.
“I’m a horse owner myself,” said Amber. “When Clip Clop closed just before Christmas, I was left with nowhere local to buy my feed.” For the many horse owners across the marsh and west of Ashford, there are no large retailers of horse feed and bedding between Chilham near Canterbury, and Westfield, near Hastings.
The owner of four horses and a regular mounted follower of the local Coakham Bloodhounds, Amber, continued: “Yoakes Court will be stocking feed from most of the top brand names: Spillers, Baileys, and leading Kent supplier, Saracen, as well as Heygates, a traditional family-owned milling company whose excellent quality feed is very competitively priced against the household names. And all the hay and straw we sell is supplied from local farms.
“We’re also stocking supplies for smallholders – goat mix, donkey mix, lamb, and chicken feed. The profit margins are small with animal feeds, but we’re a farming family and people need to help each other in their local community. There’s a large horse-owning community across the marsh and it has been getting very difficult to find reliable local suppliers. We’ll be doing our very best to help everyone with whatever feed they need for their horse or other livestock.”
Opening hours at Yoakes Court Animal Feeds: Monday – Friday 10am – 5pm;
Saturday – 8.30am – 1.30pm. Closed Sunday.
Yoakes Court can be contacted here: Yoakescourtanimalfeeds@outlook.com
Image Credits: Chris Lawson .