I’ve often wondered if our horses would play with one of these horse exerciser balls. We’ve tried the giant hanging apple with a treat in it and no one seemed to care about it. But here’s a video of one little horse who seems to like his exercise ball. I bet he was sore after this session.
What toys have you used that your horse(s) seem to enjoy?
If you use Purina feeds, by now you’ve noticed the pink bags. About a month ago we noticed the first batch and ended up coming back from the feed store with a trunk full of pink (we primarily use Purina Strategy and Equine Senior). I was surprised and impressed at how big a commitment they made – all of their livestock feeds at the feed store are pink right now in support of breast cancer awareness and in support of breast cancer research as part of their Pink 50 campaign in September and October this year.
Are the bags pink in your area?
Late summer was very warm here in east Tennessee. With temperatures in the 90s (Fahrenheit) and humidity greater than 70%, I admit I haven’t been very interested in doing much with our horses for a while. Tonight, as we headed out to feed horses, a noticeable change was in the air. If the weather forecast is right, cooler temperatures have returned, at least for the next 10 days, with highs in the 70s and lows in the upper 40s. I’m not a fan of winter, but fall is a nice break from the humidity of summer and now that cooler weather is returning, we’re looking forward to completing some projects around the farm and to riding our horses again.
How about you? Have you been waiting for the return of cooler weather to get out and ride/finish barn projects or are you a hardcore, ride anytime of year kind of of person?
I have a bad habit of holding things in my mouth to free up both my hands. This afternoon I stuck the cap to a tube of Quest Plus dewormer in my mouth – with the inside of the cap facing my tongue. I couldn’t even see a trace of the gel (it’s orange) on the cap, but I sure did taste it. NASTY!! Made my tongue and lips numb too. I did feel bad giving it to Valentine after that – but keeping him parasite-free is more important than saving him from nasty-tasting stuff. So be sure to worm your horses on a regular schedule, preferably under your vet’s advice…just don’t put the cap in your mouth.
Many of you have followed the Our First Horse blog for the more than four years we’ve been around. You’ve read about us starting with our first horse (Valentine), purchasing our second horse (Moonshine) soon after and later our third and fourth horses (Romeo and Cash). We started out as total newbies with a nice horse barn and a decent fenced property and gradually, slowly we gained knowledge and experience. And I’d like to think along that way we gained wisdom, as well. It’s a piece of that wisdom I’d like to share with you today.
Someone once said that hindsight is 20/20 and this we have all proven in our lives. After more than four years of horse ownership, I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve made some poor decisions, especially early on. I love all of our horses and have no interest in selling any of them. We’re emotionally attached to them now. But even though we can ride any ride-able horse and even though we know how to take care of them, we’re in a way still beginners, unskilled and without a lot of time. I had an epiphany recently. For people like us who don’t have much time but love horses enough that they want their own, it’s better to buy a well-trained, excellent horse right in the beginning. What we should have done was spend $5,000-$10,000 each on two already-trained, “good” horses. There, I said it. Our horses are great but they need a lot of training. The trouble is, I need training, too, and I don’t have a lot of time for me to learn, become an expert and then train my horses.
So if I could do it all over again, I’d start out with better trained horses. I’m certainly not giving up on our horses and we will invest time and money into training them. But there are days I wish I could just saddle up any of them and head off on the trails (we can mostly do this with Romeo). So my advice to you if you’re a beginner looking for your first horse – save your money and invest in lessons for you (critical) and a well-trained horse.
For those of you with horses, do you agree/disagree? What would you do differently in hindsight?
In addition to being on Facebook, Our First Horse is now posting updates on Twitter. Both Twitter and Facebook are great tools for getting quick updates. Detailed posts and pictures and videos about our horses will still be shown first right here on OurFirstHorse.com while quick musings and anecdotes about our crazy first time horse owner life will be posted on Facebook and Twitter. We’ll update all sites when something new is posted on the Our First Horse blog, of course.
To follow Our First Horse on Twitter, visit http://twitter.com/OurFirstHorse and choose “Follow.” We’ll see that you’ve done that and if you Tweet about horse things too, we’ll follow you back. That link will live over there on the sidebar so it’ll be easy to find.
Also, we’re working on a new website. Time flies and the other day I realized this design has been up for more than three years. That’s pretty stale in internet terms so behind the scenes we’re working on a new design. When we get past the alpha stage, we’ll open it up for you to see in beta form before making it live. We’d love to hear your comments.
If you’re a member of Facebook, please check out the Our First Horse Facebook page. While much of the same content will end of there, we’ll mostly be making shorter, quicker updates there. Don’t worry, we’ll still keeping this blog format but I often feel like sharing some small tidbit and I don’t like filling the blog up with tiny posts, especially because many of you subscribe by email and get an email notice every time we post something. With Facebook we can make those small posts and communicate back and forth with our “fans”. So please check out our page and become a fan!
2019 edit: please “like” us (they don’t call it “becoming a fan” anymore).
For the past few years, we’ve been passing this junkyard on our way up to the big city for provisions. One day we noticed piles of horse poop so we paid a little more attention next time we went by. Sure enough, there was a horse in there! I have never seen a “junkyard horse”. I wonder if he bites. 🙂
This is an email I received as a member of Back Country Horsemen. I’m posting it as I received it, without doing any research on the situation, because of the very close deadline (Monday, August 3). If you have questions, contact the sender directly, as we here at Our First Horse don’t know a thing about this situation. I hope some of you out there can help:
Subject: URGENT 186 Horses & 30 Mules Need Help in TN
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 7:23 PM
…
—fwd—
If anyone can help, please email Diana ASAP with the number of horses you can house, thanks. Her email is voiceforhorses@ wmconnect. com
Hopefully more of these horses can be saved!
I am forced to get involved in a horrible situation in Gallatin, TN [near Nashville – OFH] involving 186 horses and 30 mules. There is a rescue that has spoken for all the mules, so we are looking at a desperate situation with horses. HSUS says if we ask for their help, they will euthanize the horses, and they will euth any that we can’t get out of there. HSUS willing to take care of prosecuting the owner, but seems to think saving this many horses is not possible. A dog rescuer named Maureen, who knows nothing about horses (her rescue took 70 dogs from the place) has contacted me for help, and she has bravely determined that the horses won’t die. She had no idea from there what to do next, but her dog rescue volunteers have found trailers and drivers to deliver horses, and have recruited horsie friends to care for the horses that can’t travel. Vets are currently getting Coggins Tests on every horse, and are worming every horse. Unfortunately, the ones that would be best to bring here (because of my vet abilities) can’t make the trip for a while. The rescues in TN all together have arranged to save 40 horses, leaving 146. Can you help me save them? I think if we all network like we did last year, we can do this! The horses are all handle-able and sweet.
There are Quarter Horses and TN Walkers. There are many mares in foal. Maureen thinks maybe 20 mares in foal, but she is trying to sort how many of what as we speak. She thinks there are some ponies as well.
Here is my question for all of you:The trip to our facilities will be too much for most of the horses. I have 44 horses at Horse-Angels currently, and we struggle as always with grain, hay, farrier, bedding, and medication costs. We have lots of land, but these horses need shelter and many sound like they need a stall in my barn. I can put most of my recovered and healthy horses outside if I can afford more sheds for our pastures so that stalls can go to the neediest guys, and I can put the stronger arrivals in my paddocks and isolation area. If I can get 30-40 here to get stronger for a couple weeks, can any of your rescues (or others you may know of that are good quality) commit to taking some? Can you each give me a number that you could house, and I will get those, plus what I can handle, transported here? I will get them strong enough to travel (I will keep the weakest ones here and sort stronger ones for your rescues), and hopefully within 2 weeks , they can be picked up to head north. I don’t know if the volunteer transporters that are currently hauling from TN will still be available to help by the time they can travel, so you would have to find transport. My goal is to get as many out as we can through our networking. That would be great if we could save them all. Realistically, I’m thinking maybe we can get 40 out. Can you help do you think? They want a number by Monday so they can start getting them out before HSUS steps in and destroys them.
Oh yes- there are some elk as well if anyone is interested. Elk can have tuberculosis, so you would want them tested before bringing them home! Thanks so much!
…
Diana Murphy
Founder/President
Voice For Horses Rescue Network
PO Box 566
Toledo, Ohio 43697
(419) 247-0025
www.voiceforhorses. org
It’s almost spring and we have some new animals to celebrate around here. Our kittens are getting bigger and are about ready for mousing duties. We caught one eating a small bird. Mikki pointed out that without barn cats we’d probably end up with barn snakes so cats it is.
We acquired a new goat when a goat momma in the area decided she wanted nothing to do with this little furball. The owners were going to kill the poor baby goat so Mikki rescued it and agreed to take on the responsibility of bottle feeding it for many weeks. She is pretty cute (and the goat, too). She doesn’t walk – she hops around, frolicking and prancing like a…well…like a kid.
Moonshine saw Maizy and had a cow (haha). So we let them sniff each other. Neither was impressed.
I don’t know where she gets all of the energy but it sure is fun watching her frolic.
Any new animals around your farm this year?