But why wait? Bill found a really great site and he made the mistake of sending me the link. It’s called Cafe Press and they have a really neat concept. You find a design you like (they have over 23,500 designs for “horse lovers!”) and put it on a choice of items, such as T-shirts, hoodies, coffee cups, tote bags, calendars, journals, clocks, ornaments – dozens of choices that vary with the design you choose. Their prices are reasonable and the designs are just great. Some are beautiful, some are funky, some are witty. I like the witty ones myself, such as “I do my own stunts” with a cartoon silhouette of a rider thrown from his horse (see below). These were also my favorites, although I certainly haven’t viewed all 23,500 – yet:
“All I Need to Know In Life I Learned from My Horse” (you have to read that one)
“If this shirt is clean I haven’t been to the barn yet”
“Horses are only afraid of two things – things that move, and things that don’t.”
“Thank you for flying Air Amateur…” (you have to read that one too!)
“I’m being raised in a barn” (for kids, of course – or not)
And my personal favorite (click for products with this image):
Good advice, there!
And here is Bill’s favorite (click for products with this image):
Bill: “I have been there! It’s funny because it’s true. I’ll write about my stunt incident sometime soon.”
Well, it’s been a few months and I suppose I should introduce my new horse. That’s right, I have my own new horse now. Mikki and I have mentioned her a few times already so it’s about time you know just who I’m talking about. And I’ll explain why I call her Moonshine.
We’ve always intended to have more than one horse. In fact, we’d like to have three – one for each of us. But since we knew nothing about horses when we embarked on this first-horse adventure in February 2006, we thought it wise to become familiar with our first horse before buying our second. Then when our guest horse Blaze left, we noticed that Valentine seemed lonely. Horses after all are herd animals so we began to casually look for a companion horse. While at our favorite tack shop, Mikki and I glanced at the bulletin board and inquired with Charlie if he knew anyone who was selling a good, gentle, inexpensive horse. Charlie put us in touch with a guy who does some work for him on the side and that very afternoon we drove to a small farm like ours to look at a mare for sale. The man selling her said he didn’t want to sell her but he didn’t get to ride her much anymore and he was in need of money to pay a stud fee for his other mare, which was about to foal. The horse stood like a statue out in the pasture as we walked around her, touching and rubbing her. I’m not really sure what we were looking for but I guess we hoped anything that should concern us would stand out, hopefully with a sign that said: “don’t buy me.” She looked good with the exception of her hooves which were in need of trimming and were worn rough since she wasn’t wearing any shoes. The owner said he hadn’t ridden her much (warning flag 1) and that she threw him once and it kind of scared him (warning flag 2). He admitted he wasn’t much of a rider, though. Heh, neither were we! Now, this is the point when we started falling in love with this horse, enough that we were willing to ignore the warning signs (I didn’t listen to any of the advice I dished out in my post about “Should you buy a horse?“). She was gentle and didn’t mind us touching her feet, back, belly and head. She haltered well, too. We went home to think about it and a few days later decided we wanted to buy her.
Mikki and I knew we didn’t know what to look for so we asked our farrier, Gabe, if he’d be willing to come up and take a look at her for us and bring her home if he thought she was a good deal (we don’t have a horse trailer and he does). A few days later my new horse Moonshine was on a trailer headed for our barn and a very curious pasture-mate.
Once we were home, we let Moonshine and Valentine smell each other over the fence and then let her into the pasture to see how they’d react to each other. In equine society, females rule the herd and despite being a whole hand shorter than Valentine, Moonshine quickly took the leadership role and Valentine let her. I think he was just happy to have a friend…a girl-friend at that! I have some video of the moment when they met that shows them running around together. Someday I’ll post that because it’s fun to watch.
As I said, it’s been several months now and these two horses love each other’s company. You never see them very far apart and the pecking order is well-established. They’re beautiful together and at times I wish Valentine was a stallion. Their babies would be beautiful!
And the particulars: Moonshine is 15.2 hands tall, black with a white star on her head and snip on her nose. She weighs about 1,000 pounds. A registered paint, you wouldn’t know it to look at her since she’s all black but she’s registered as breeding stock. She’s also part quarterhorse and Thoroughbred. The Thoroughbred part really shows when she runs, I think. Boy is she fast! It’s interesting to see the two horses together. Valentine runs oddly, as gaited horses do (he’s a Tennessee Walking Horse) while Moonshine runs like a racehorse.
And now about her name. Her official name is moon-something. I can never remember what it is but being near the mountains in east Tennessee it just seemed funny to call her Moonshine. It’s funny but for me, the name also refers to her radiant beauty, like the shining moon. Moon shine. And it rhymes with Valentine. You might see her name as Moonshine or Moon Shine.
So now you know most of the story. You’ll be hearing a lot about her on ourfirsthorse.com. And while technically we have our first horses…the name of our site and horse blog still applies, since Mikki and I each now have our own first horse.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted September 7, 2006, to approve the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. The bill, labeled H.R. 503 for the House and S. 1915 for the Senate, bans the slaughter and transport of horses in the United States for human consumption. It will likely come to vote during the next legislative session in 2007.
I’m a little late with this post but news about this vote wasn’t very widespread so it seems like a good idea to give an update here. A couple of interesting things I learned today:
Apparently, 92,000 horses were slaughtered last year. Wow, that’s a big number. If you read my Willie Nelson Against US Horse Slaughter post, you’ll remember I go back and forth on whether or not horse slaughter for food should be legal. I’m still not sure but after learning of this 92,000 number, I wonder what will happen to these 92,000 horses a year if this bill passes?
The vote was 263 for approval and 146 against approval. That’s a pretty wide margin but closer inspection of who-voted-how raises questions in my mind. For example, in Kentucky, a “horse state”, all representatives voted for the bill. But in Tennessee, where I live and a place I’d also consider a “horse state”, almost all representatives voted against the bill. Political party-wise, there was strong support of the bill with both Democrats and Republicans and although several Democrats voted against the bill, a quick scan indicates it was mostly Republicans voting against the bill. I wonder why. I hear some so-called “poison pill” amendments were added at the last minute so maybe that’s why. Things aren’t always as they seem.
Here’s a neat site that shows how the House voted by state and Representative: http://capwiz.com/compassionindex… (opens in a new window)
We’ve almost come full circle here with the weather and our horses. Bill brought Valentine home in the dead of winter (28 degrees the night of February 13! Brrr!), experienced a gorgeous spring, survived a hot, relatively dry summer, and now it’s fall. Today, however, already feels like winter – we had our first frost last night and it’s supposed to be below freezing again tonight. So I guess it’s time to winterize around here.
What you need to do depends upon where you live. If we still lived in Arizona, we’d be celebrating right now, because it would finally be cool enough to ride! But around here, we’re dreading the cold and even more so, the MUD. We thought we were making progress with the mud pit outside the barn this summer, but as soon as it cooled off again, the mud came back. Yuck.
So here’s what we need to do, and what we probably actually will do:
It doesn’t get so very cold here. It’s often in the twenties and thirties at night but usually warms up to the fifties during the day. Our horses are already doing the most important part of getting themselves ready: they are growing the most gorgeous, thick winter coats. They just look stunning, I have to say. All the sunburned summer hair has fallen out, and thick, velvety new hair has come in. They’re also very fortunate to both be all black, it attracts the heat very nicely. Lucky them! If your horse doesn’t grow a good winter coat, or if it’s really cold where you live, you should purchase a good blanket. I’m not sure why they call it a blanket, because it looks more like a coat, but that’s what it’s called. Good luck with this – I’m told that most horses hate them and do everything they can to get them off, from pulling on them with their teeth to rolling in the mud to having their horse friends help them pull them off. But in some climates, they really should be wearing one. Please, though, try to preserve their dignity by choosing one that doesn’t look too goofy.
For our part, the most important consideration for winter is the food supply. The grass in the pasture actually sticks around all winter, but becomes shorter and scarcer and not a good thing to rely on for winter forage. Our ultimate goal is to seed the entire pasture with cold-weather grass in the winter, but you need a tractor for that and we don’t have one yet. Hay also becomes harder and harder to come by as winter drags on. Last year, we had a panicky moment when we actually could not find any more hay (after paying $4.50 a bale for the hay we had last found). Luckily, we mentioned our dilemma to a friend whose mother had a barn full of “old” hay that she sold to us for $1.00 a bale. This year, we are planning ahead. We built a loft in our barn so we could store more hay, and have begun to fill it up. (A note on hay storage here: the biggest risk with stored hay is that it will develop mold. As you dispense hay to your horses every day, check each flake for signs of mold. The easiest method is with your nose – moldy hay smells bad. Never feed moldy hay. You should be checking hay for other stuff anyway – I’ve heard of everything from plastic bags to dead snakes being found in baled hay. Maybe you should be wearing gloves as you’re checking.)
We have also supplemented the hay supply with a round bale of hay, which is in the pasture for the horses to munch on whenever they want. Since they spend most of their time in the pasture, that’s a good place for a supply of hay. Ideally, any hay in the pasture should be protected from the weather. A “run-in shed” is a good thing for this purpose. It’s a three-sided shed that protects your hay – and your horses – from rain, wind, snow, whatever. We have an old barn in our pasture that we intend to use for this purpose, but it needs some serious maintenance right now. So the hay is parked beneath a large evergreen tree.
Another important note about winter feeding is that your horses will need to eat more to keep their weight up. Keeping a body warm in cold weather takes a lot of energy. We give our horses more oats in the winter – they’re higher in calories than hay.
Although your horse won’t need as much water in the winter as in the summer, a supply of clean, fresh water is still just as important. If you live somewhere where water might freeze, you need to invest in a bucket or trough de-icer. You might consider one even if it doesn’t freeze – horses don’t like to drink icy cold water and may avoid drinking if they don’t find the water to their liking.
As for protection from the elements, most of our horse friends laugh at us because we don’t just leave our horses out in the pasture all the time. They say that horses are just fine out in the cold, and I’m sure they’re at least partly right. But we have a nice barn with lots of room, so every night we bring them in to sleep in their stalls, and if it’s cold and/or windy, we close the exterior windows to keep the drafts out. But that’s up to you.
The biggest winter problem for us, though, is the mud. We battled it with straw this summer, piling it on and mixing it in (in Arizona, we’d have adobe by now). The next step is a large load of sand, to help the clay drain better. The best thing to do would be to shovel out the mud, lay down a layer of stone, then gravel, then sand and put the original soil back, but again we’d need a tractor. So we’ll try out the sand and see if it helps.
You’ll be hearing a lot about mud again this winter, I’m sure.
We recently had a recurrence of a problem with Valentine (see Getting a Room). As you know if you’ve read this blog, we have a mare and a gelding. We have a three-horse barn and their stalls are next to each other. Every once in awhile, Valentine for one reason or another decides that he wants to be in her stall. (As for what that reason might be, well, he is a guy – it’s either food or…well, this is a family show.) Since he’s 16.2 hands high (that’s 64.8 inches in people talk) and weighs about 1200 pounds, and there’s an inch of wood slats and a few nails and screws between him and his destination, it’s not too hard for him to accomplish his goal. So a few days ago, we came up to the barn to find one less plank of wood between their stalls. Again.
So this time, in addition to replacing the nails with screws, we took the simple but effective step of switching their stalls. The wall between their stalls is formed by vertical slats nailed to two horizontal planks, one at the top and one at the bottom. Moonshine’s stall was the smooth side of the wall; the nail heads were on her side. So Valentine could simply push on the boards and presto! Out popped the nails and down went the boards. By putting him in the stall with the smooth side, it made it much harder for him to remove the planks because he would have to actually break the boards. Of course, if he wanted to, he could easily do it, but shhhh…don’t tell him that.
Anyway, Valentine’s now in the middle stall and Moonshine is in the first stall. Unfortunately, after months of it being the other way around, we were bound to forget the new routine, and tonight we did. We opened the gate and let Moonshine into the middle stall. We could have just left her there, I suppose, but we really didn’t want to risk yet another replay of Getting a Room. At the very least, it’s a pain to put those boards back up, and the worst-case scenario is an injury to one or both of our horses.
So we needed to switch her into the other stall. Let me tell you, that was easier said than done. There were OATS in the feed trough. Once her head was in there, she wasn’t letting them go. Since we don’t leave halters on our horses (I’ll have to post the reasons for that someday), I couldn’t just grab her and pull her out of the stall. We tried to get her out of the stall by pushing her around. Normally that would work, because she’s actually very obedient, but have I mentioned that she really likes OATS? She wasn’t budging. I risked life and limb and stood in front of the bucket to keep her away from the oats while Bill tried to lure her out with a handful of oats, but she’s no dummy. Trade 2 cups of oats for about a tablespoon? Come on. Eventually, Bill went for the halter while I tried to keep Moonshine from eating my jacket till he got back. We got the halter on and pulled her out of that stall into the right stall with no problem, and let a very anxious Valentine into his stall to discover if there were any oats left for him. Needless to say, that bucket required a refill.
We like bringing treats to our horses and usually that means an apple or some carrots we buy in bulk. But one treat they’ve been craving is something I just refuse to give them…my fingers. Well actually there is a list: fingers, hands, arms, ears and sometimes feet/shoes. My horse, Moonshine, is very gentle and uses her tongue a lot so it seems like she’s kissing you. “Aw, how sweet…HEY stop that!” I’ve found that keeping my palm open towards her keeps her from being able to vacuum my fingers into her mouth but I keep thinking, horses are herbivores, right? I mean they don’t stalk and eat small animals, that I’ve observed. Come to think of it, I almost never notice any small animals in our pasture. Oh well, I suppose my fingers are so interesting because they just held an apple or carrot. But since when did apples and carrots wiggle and move around so much, huh? So if you end up with your own horse, watch those fingers! Those of you with horses already know this I’m sure.
And as a side note, carrots this time of year can be purchased from Costco for about $5 per 10 pound bag!
A few weeks ago a guy we go to church with dropped by to deliver a roll of hay. We’ve decided to supplement our square bales for the horses (which cost $1 each at a minimum and as much as $4.50 at the end of winter when supply is low and demand is high) with a roll or two of round bale. Round bales are much less expensive ($20 this time) because they are easier to make when the hay is being gathered. But they’re also harder to transport and store. We can move square bales at 30 pounds each but couldn’t move 1,500 pounds of round bale by ourselves. We can stack square bales in the barn and pull off a flake at a time (a flake is a two-inch or so slice of hay precut during baling). Although you could use a round bale for everyday feeding in the barn, you’d have to roll one in and pitch-fork it to the feed bins. We opted for a round bale as a test to see if the horses would eat it in the pasture and if it works out, we’ll buy another one and have it rolled into the old barn to supplement our square bales if we run low towards the end of winter.
This delivery was made into the pasture and I’ve never seen it done before so I thought I’d share some pics. Basically, the baler (or is it bailer?) backed up to a tree and plopped a roll out. The tree is to protect the hay from rain and to stop it from rolling during delivery. So far the horses don’t appear to have touched it but there is still plenty of green grass so I can’t blame them. I’ll update you on the round bale hay experiment over the next several months.
I’m going to try and talk you out of buying a horse. Stay with me…it’s not as bad as it sounds.
If you’re reading our horse blog, you probably fall into one of the categories of either owning your own horse and commiserating with our newbie fumbling or you long to own your own horse someday. Horses aren’t casual recreation purchases for most people. Since there is so much involved in horse ownership, horse owners tend to be pretty fanatical. It’s not like buying an expensive toy, like an RC car or a motorbike. When you don’t want to play with it anymore, you can’t put it away for a few months until you get interested again. So if you REALLY love horses, there is probably nothing I could tell you to convince you that buying a horse isn’t a good idea. On the other hand, if you’re a fence-sitter or are thinking about buying a horse as a gift for someone, maybe this is time for some serious consideration.
Our First Horse should be a real eye-opener for anyone who hasn’t owned a horse before. One of the things we write about the amount of time/work involved. Actually, for one horse, it’s not bad. But you’re going to need to spend at least an hour a day just keeping your horse alive (cleaning a stall, feeding, watering, debugging, medical attention, hugs, etc.). If you want your horse to be more than decoration, you’ll need to occasionally ride it or it will rust (okay, it will get rusty). In my experience, you can’t ignore a horse for a year and then slap a saddle on its back and go for a ride. You have to work the horse and keep it trained, at least with the minimums like giddy-up, whoa and “WHOA!!!”.
Then there is the ongoing expense. If you do the work yourself, it’s not too bad, unless your horse needs medical attention. You’ve probably seen our horse expense list. We spend about $40-$50 a month per horse but one month recently our expenses went up to $173 for one of our horses! Make sure you have some cash tucked away for those months. And keep in mind we have our own barn and pasture. If you don’t live on a property that includes these basic horse accommodations, you’ll either need to either put in horse fencing and plant good pasture grass (if you have the room and are zoned for horses) or board your horse somewhere, which will add significantly to horse ownership expenses.
There are scheduling issues. Although some people leave their horses out in the pasture for days at a time or longer, we bring our horses in daily for some supplemental nutrition via oats and alfalfa pellets and provide fresh water daily. Fresh water is most important and since we don’t own an automatic waterer, we simply must check and refill water containers daily. This means we sometimes do horse work at midnight or later if we go out to see a movie or take a day trip. Anything longer than a day trip means we have to ask someone to mind our horses for us. If you have dogs, you’re probably familiar with this routine. Only you can’t load your horse into the family SUV and take him to a vacation kennel.
Having said all that, I don’t regret for a minute owning a horse, or in our case now, owning horses. However, I do have some pre-purchase suggestions to help make sure buying a horse is the right thing for you:
My best suggestion is to volunteer at a horse barn. Seriously, once you assure the barn owner that you’re not crazy, volunteer to help out daily for a few weeks or a month. Clean out stalls, feed horses, brush them, help with some basic training, but do it every day so you can see how it impacts your schedule. In addition to determining if this hobby is right for you, you’ll also learn valuable lessons on what to do and not to do. You might also make some valuable contacts and learn who to buy from, what are good prices in your area, etc. In fact, some of the best horse deals come from people who haven’t publicized that their horse is for sale.
If you’re not wealthy enough to have an attendant for your horse, volunteer at a veterinary facility or stable where horses are rehabilitated. Your horse might become injured at some point, requiring you to provide rehabilitation services for many months before you can ride it again. Do you have the time, money and patience for this?
Visit your local horse supply stores, such as the feed store, tack shop or farm co-op. Read the bulletin board postings, chat with the employees. You’ll likely walk away with some great information and you’ll need to know these people anyway if you decide to buy a horse.
Consider taking a weekend or longer to volunteer at a horse rescue (we have some listed on our Links page). There are people out there with a passion for rescuing horses from destruction or food slaughter. The horses they work with are often great for casual recreation and are sometimes registered, former racehorses or trail horses. Some are rescued from abuse or neglect. Help out a worthwhile charity, learn about horses and maybe fall in love with a horse.
I probably didn’t talk you out of buying a horse but hopefully, you got some suggestions to help you make a rational decision. Although I don’t recommend it, you could just ignore our advice and go in blind for your own newbie horse ownership adventure. That’s what we did :-).
Also Avoid Being Stepped On By a Horse (especially if you’re a small dog)
It was bound to happen. Our laissez-faire farm dog got a little too close to the horses’ feet. We didn’t actually see it happen, but we know it scared the spots off him. We were all up at the barn, Bill and I were working inside and Jack was out in the pasture with the horses doing his usual thing: sticking as close to the source as possible for his favorite snack, horse poo. The three of them were around the corner when we heard a shrill canine yelp and Jack came streaking into the barn with a big ol’ smear of “mud” down his side. He was shaking like our other dog, Ranger, does when we have a thunderstorm. (That is to say, if you held him, he’d vibrate out of your arms.) He was scared to death, but apparently unhurt. We think he was kind of half-stepped on but slipped out of the way in time to avoid injury. Since he just wanders around their feet, nose to the ground, without paying them much attention, he’s lucky it hasn’t happened before now. Hopefully he’s learned his lesson!
As Mikki mentioned, Moonshine injured her hoof a little while ago and we’ve been treating it several times a day. Each treatment consists of cleaning out the wound, applying an antiseptic spray and then packing it with an antibiotic. The treatment calls for close personal contact with my horse’s left rear hoof, exactly the kind of position that leaves a human vulnerable to serious injury from a kicking horse.
Everytime I’m around a horse, I’m always especially careful around the rear legs, both beside them and behind them. I’ve read that you need to read the horse’s body language and pay attention while you’re walking around them. I’m not scared, mind you, but I am cautious. Part of it is because I’m new to horses, part is because previous injuries have taught me to be cautious around anything dangerous. And part of my nervousness is from the video below. I saw this video before we ever seriously considered buying a horse. And while it seems most people find it funny, it reminds me just how powerful horses are and just how quickly something can go wrong. Now even if you’re not planning on branding your own horses (I’m not), there is still a lesson to be learned here. WARNING: there is some audio, in which is an implied expletive. The video is 3 seconds long so it won’t take long to load:
Did you see how fast that horse was able to kick? We don’t get to see the damage (thankfully) but I’m sure at the very least it hurt alot.
So here are a few simple tips I’ve learned so far for avoiding injury when working horses’ legs and hooves:
Spend a few minutes with the horse before touching its rump or legs. Even if you’ve had the horse for a while, you need to know what kind of mood it’s in, if it’s spooked, nervous or upset.
When walking beside and around the horse gently pat and rub it as you go and notice any apprehension on the part of the horse.
Don’t take your eyes off of the horse when walking closely to the rear end, in particular. Pay attention to its body language and what it’s doing with its feet.
Don’t walk directly behind the horse. Give yourself at least an arm’s length of buffer room.
Be mindful of things that could spook your horse. A barking dog down the road, a car driving by, other horses, you sneezing, an evil plastic bag blowing in the wind, a snake in her stall, etc. If you’re in the wrong spot when your horse is spooked, it takes a fraction of a second for the horse to react and that could mean serious injury or death.
I’m sure there are many more practical tips but these have so far kept us from being kicked.
But why wait? Bill found a really great site and he made the mistake of sending me the link. It’s called Cafe Press and they have a really neat concept. You find a design you like (they have over 23,500 designs for “horse lovers!”) and put it on a choice of items, such as T-shirts, hoodies, coffee cups, tote bags, calendars, journals, clocks, ornaments – dozens of choices that vary with the design you choose. Their prices are reasonable and the designs are just great. Some are beautiful, some are funky, some are witty. I like the witty ones myself, such as “I do my own stunts” with a cartoon silhouette of a rider thrown from his horse (see below). These were also my favorites, although I certainly haven’t viewed all 23,500 – yet:
We like bringing treats to our horses and usually that means an apple or some carrots we buy in bulk. But one treat they’ve been craving is something I just refuse to give them…my fingers. Well actually there is a list: fingers, hands, arms, ears and sometimes feet/shoes. My horse, Moonshine, is very gentle and uses her tongue a lot so it seems like she’s kissing you. “Aw, how sweet…HEY stop that!” I’ve found that keeping my palm open towards her keeps her from being able to vacuum my fingers into her mouth but I keep thinking, horses are herbivores, right? I mean they don’t stalk and eat small animals, that I’ve observed. Come to think of it, I almost never notice any small animals in our pasture. Oh well, I suppose my fingers are so interesting because they just held an apple or carrot. But since when did apples and carrots wiggle and move around so much, huh? So if you end up with your own horse, watch those fingers! Those of you with horses already know this I’m sure.
