Horse Health – Page 6 – Our First Horse

Stall door protection concept – 6 months later

May 14, 2007 Bill Comments 0 Comment

About 6 months ago I posted a note discussing the wood-chewing habits of my dear Moonshine (Protecting Wooden Stall Doors – Part 1). We thought she was bored while in her stall overnight figuring that would explain why she like munching on her main stall door. So in November I went about fabricating an aluminum door cover to make it harder for her to destroy the door with her teeth. I was initially concerned she might bite through the aluminum, causing sharp edges that might cut her tongue or mouth. Six months later, that still hasn’t happened. The aluminum trim is pretty attractive still and hasn’t been damaged by my horse at all. Although at first she liked to lick it after eating her oats, she doesn’t seem to do that anymore. In fact, she doesn’t seem to chew on wood anymore. I mentioned this recently in the post titled Wood chewing habit update. It seems that since we changed to a different feed – Purina Strategy – Moonshine stopped chewing wood. From what people have been telling me, it seems like the feed store sweet oats we had been feeding her were lacking something she wanted/needed. Strategy provides it. Prior to Strategy we tried Purina Omolene 100 and that seemed to work, too.

I don’t plan on removing the aluminum shield I made but at this point I don’t think I’ll be making one for the other door. If you have a chewer and changing feed doesn’t work for you, in addition to trying some horse stall toys, a stall door cover/shield might help protect your barn and your horse until you have the problem licked.

Part 1 – Protecting Wooden Stall Doors
Part 2 – Stall door protection concept – 6 months later (this post)

Should I rename her Mary Jane?

May 4, 2007 Bill Comments 0 Comment

But today…I detected the scent of something smoky.

I love the smell of my horse. If you don’t have a horse, that must be a weird thing to hear someone say but it’s true. She smells horsey and I like it. But today for some strange reason as I kissed her long face and breathed in, I detected the scent of something smoky. In fact, it smelled like…marijuana. Why does my horse smell like marijuana? I wish I knew. We don’t smoke it and don’t know anyone around who does. I really don’t think our neighbors do. Are there plants in the wild that smell like burning marijuana cigarettes or should I be on the lookout for hippies in my pasture? This was an isolated incident but worth noting, nonetheless.

The horse owner’s garden – Part 1

May 3, 2007 Bill Comments 6 comments

We spent a good part of this past weekend setting up a garden. Now the significance of this for us is that we’re previously desert people and are not used to gardening. I haven’t had a garden in almost 20 years and Mikki, an Arizona native, has never had a garden. Horses and the ability to garden were two of the top reasons for us deciding to move to Tennessee. So this weekend we put up some fencing, tilled the soil and began planting. As a horse owner, the thought occurred to me that we really ought to devote a portion of our garden to vegetables our horses like. I’m not sure we’ll save much money…a five pound bag of carrots at Costco and Sams Club runs around $2.50. But if we stagger our carrot planting, for example, at least we won’t have to make a trip to the store to buy them this summer. And we’ll know they were grown without any pesticides, except maybe some sevin dust, if needed.

The only trouble with this plan is, I don’t know what else to plant but carrots. I gave Valentine and Moonshine a radish the other day. She like it, he didn’t. I like radishes too but I could give Moonshine the ones I don’t want. I’ll call them horse radishes (haha). I suppose celery is an option. I’ll have to do some experimenting. Our garden is about 25 foot by 20 foot so we’ve got ample room to grow tomatoes, beans, some corn, strawberries, melons, etc.
As a horse-owner, having a garden is great. Now I know what to do with all that composted manure from the past year. I walked right past the fertilizer section of the Home Depot garden center and laughed.

So this horse owners garden right now consists of only carrots. Any suggestions on other veggies I should try, specifically for horses?

Wood chewing habit update

April 27, 2007 Bill Comments 14 comments

As I’ve mentioned before, Moonshine has a wood-chewing habit. She’ll nibble on our fence, especially after a meal or a snack and then she’d latch on and suck in air. Weird. One theory on why she was doing this was that maybe she was bored. Our horses spend several hours a day in a stall in the barn, after all. So we got her some horse toys, which she entirely ignored. We cut down on how much time she was in the barn and nothing changed. Eventually I had to protect her stall door with some stainless steel just to keep her from chewing on it. That worked really well (I’ll post an update about that soon) but she was still chewing on our wood fence. Another reason horses chew wood is because they’re lacking in minerals. Some horses will even eat dirt, though I haven’t ever seen her doing that. But I think we may have found the cause for Moonshine’s bad habit. For about a month now we’ve been feeding our horses Purina Strategy. For about $12 per 50 pound bag, it’s more expensive than the local feed store’s sweet oat blend but we had a coupon from the last Purina Horse Owner’s Workshop and decided to give it a try. Purina doesn’t pay us anything (we’re not connected with them in any way) so this is our honest observation. Since we started Moonshine on Strategy, I haven’t noticed her chewing wood. She’ll still lick it some but I don’t see her chewing or sucking air anymore. Purina claims Strategy provides all the necessary nutrients pleasure horses need and maybe our local feed store’s blend was missing some things. There have been some other benefits but I’ll cover those in another post.

I’ll keep an eye on her but at the moment, it seems we’ve mostly licked (haha!) this bad horse habit. If your horse has a similar habit, I suggest trying some changes to its feed mix to make sure it’s consuming a good blend of minerals.

Au naturel, hairy legs and all

April 24, 2007 Bill Comments 6 comments

I recently read that horse fetlock hair shouldn’t be trimmed. It seems the fetlock hair we think looks untidy actually serves the purpose of channeling rain water away from the horse’s hooves. Think of it as a tassel. I’m told those frilly tassels cowboys wore on coats back in the cowboy days served the same purpose.

I’m noticing a trend towards letting horses go au naturel; skipping all the aesthetic trimming to allow the natural features of our horses to serve the purpose intended by nature. Another example of this is whiskers. Our horses aren’t show horses so I didn’t know this was happening but “horse whisperer” and special events speaker for Purina, Sam Powell, said that some horse owners trim their horses’ whiskers for shows. The trouble is, Sam explains, whiskers serve the purpose of keeping horse faces out of trouble. When a horse gets its face too close to something, the whiskers alert the horse. Think of them as “curb feelers.” Of course, many animals have them, including cats and dogs. Some horse owners trim their ear hair but Mikki pointed out today that all that ear hair probably helps keep the flies out of their ears. In addition to serving as a fly swatter, I’m told horse tails also provide a wind break when it’s cold. Sam said that in cold wind, horses will often turn their backs to the wind and the tail keeps the cool air from blowing into their nether regions and belly.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t give your horse a trim. Unless someone gives us a good reason not to do it, we plan on trimming some of the beard Valentine is growing. He looks like Abe Lincoln! Well, a horse Abe Lincoln. We’re also planning on trimming the bridle path to make it easier to put on a bridle and more comfortable for the horses. The bridle laying across a clump of hair looks uncomfortable.

So if you see our horses with ear hair, untrimmed fetlocks, long eye lashes, whiskers and hairy legs and armpits, you’ll know why. They’re just going au naturel.

Spring horse showers

March 26, 2007 Bill Comments 5 comments

It’s been rather toasty in east Tennessee this past week. We hit almost 90 degrees Sunday. I notice our horses are shedding like a polar bear in Miami so we decided to give them a good brushing, followed by a cool shower.

Now we brush our horses in the winter but I have to admit, we haven’t showered them since the weather turned cold. We don’t have the luxury of a shower stall, I didn’t think the horses would stand still for a 30 degree soaking and we simply didn’t want to get wet ourselves when it was that cold outside. But yesterday was warm (hot?) so one at a time, we harnessed both horses and led them onto our grassy green lawn. Let me tell you, they were more than willing to come along. Poor things. They stare at our beautiful green lawn, full of yummy fescue and clover while standing in the dry dirt of our still-desolate pasture, eating old hay. Any chance to get to that yummy green grass is taken. Moonshine is patient with me as I put on her halter. I let her eat a couple of mouthfuls of grass before introducing the hose. What I do is use a nozzle with lots of holes in it so the water comes out in a gentle rain-like pattern, instead of a full-force, high pressure pattern. I turn the hose on slowly, let her get used to the sound, let her smell the nozzle and then gently introduce the water to her legs and then back. After a few minutes, she seems to forget about it and I’m free to soak her good. Months of dirt came running off. She sure looks purdy now. Mikki even combed her mane and tail. I then took her for a drying walk, brushed her again and let her back into the pasture where later she rolled in dirt to get rid of that yucky clean feeling. 🙂 Valentine was next. He also didn’t seem to mind and also later rolled in dirt. Oh well, at least they were clean for a few minutes!

By the way, some people call it a “horse bath” but to me “bath” refers to dunking in a tub. Our horses are too big for a tub.

What’s your horse shower/bath routine like?

Purina Horse Owners Workshop

March 13, 2007 Bill Comments 6 comments

Last week we attended a Purina Horse Owners Workshop presentation at one of our local feed stores here in east Tennessee. Purina seems to put these on annually and we attended a similar presentation last year at a different feed store. The objective for Purina is obvious: convince us to buy Purina brand horse feed. Even though we expected part of the event to be a sales presentation, we were interested in the opportunity to listen in on a question-and-answer session by cowboy and “horse whisperer” Sam Powell.

Sam has been the speaker for both presentations we’ve been to so far and I’m always impressed with his common-sense approach to horses. He advocates observing how horses deal with leadership in nature as an effective means of communicating to your horse that you are the herd leader. His most important point is that with horses, there is always a leader. Every time you meet, a leader is decided. If it’s just you and your horse, and you don’t take the leadership role, he will. There are many ways to subtly show him you’re in charge. For example, Sam suggests that you never just let your horses in and out of the barn – as we do (he says “they’re not cows”). He says to halter your horse each time and lead him in and out. When you’re letting him out, lead him out, remove the halter, then walk away. Your horse should not walk away until you do. When you let him in, lead him to the stall, stop at the door and allow him to walk in while still holding the lead rope. He will turn around to face you; then you can remove the halter and lead rope. (An added benefit to this method is that it makes it much easier to trailer a horse if he’s used to entering a space alone after you’ve stopped in the doorway.)

Sam offers lots of good advice every year. If you have the opportunity to hear him speak, we highly advise it. Check out his schedule at www.asksampowell.com (2019 EDIT: that website is dead so I removed the link. Here is a nice Sam Powell biography, though.).

Oh, and an excellent barbecue dinner was provided at no charge to participants but you have to RSVP. This year supper included barbecued chicken and all the fixings, as well as a delicious desert. Tasty and filling (thanks Purina, Critter Country and other sponsors!). Product samples and literature were available and enough door prizes were given out that it seems almost everyone won something. Purina handed out special buy-two-get-one-free coupons and other discounts to entice us to buy their brand of feed. So when next year rolls around, if we get news of another Horse Owners Workshop, we’ll definitely be signing up again. It was time well spent.

We’ll write later about how we’ve been using Omolene 100, Purina’s sweet oat blend for “active pleasure horses”. For now, I’ll say we’ve been very pleased with it, even though it is a tad more expensive than the feed store mix. More about all that later.

Have you been to one of these presentations yet? What was your impression?

By the way, we have no connection with Purina or Critter Country and were not paid anything to say nice things about them.

For more information and to see if they have a Horse Owners Workshop near you, visit the Purina website.

Why Our Horses Are Naked

February 5, 2007 Mikki Comments 2 comments

We’ve mentioned in several earlier posts that we don’t keep halters on our horses while they’re out in the pasture and promised to explain why. Well, now we finally will.

We often see horses in pastures wearing a halter, and many of our friends keep their horses haltered all the time. In the movies, certainly, the horses are always wearing something or another. We loved the fancy halters in “Racing Stripes,” for instance – they were dark leather with a brass nameplate on the side. And it makes sense, don’t you think, to have a halter on your horse? That way, if you need to catch a horse in a hurry, all you do is grab it and snap on a lead rope. So why don’t we leave halters on our horses?

Well, we leave them bare for safety reasons. There’s our paranoia about theft, of course – why make it easier for a horse thief to nab your horse? But that’s a very minor consideration, really. The biggest thing is that the halter is so easy to catch on things. Our pasture is very woodsy, and the horses love to wander through the trails between the trees. It would only be a matter of time before one of them snagged a branch with the halter, panicked and injured him- or herself.

Another scenario we’ve read about is horses getting a hoof caught in the halter when scratching themselves. I’ve seen my horse rubbing his chin with a rear hoof, believe it or not, and halters are pretty loose in that area. It seems like a remote possibility that he could get his hoof caught, but a possibility nonetheless.

And, last but not least, there’s the fact that our horses cannot leave anything on themselves or each other alone. When we got their fancy new personalized halters and went out into the pasture to try them on the horses, Moonshine did her best to pull Valentine’s off. (Yet another reason why blankets wouldn’t work out for our horses.)

So they’ll just go around in the buff. Better safe than sorry – which pretty much sums up our horsekeeping doctrine.

Horse Life Expectancy

January 2, 2007 Mikki Comments 0 Comment

Leafless tree When we first started talking about buying a horse, we sought out advice on the internet and from people we knew with horses. It was universally suggested that we should purchase an older horse, 15-20 years old, especially if we we’re mostly interested in pleasure riding. It is reasoned that older horses are generally more gentle and usually have more riding experience. This made perfect sense to us, even though we ignored it to buy the horse (now horses) we have now. As regular readers will know, we have two horses, 6 and 8 years old. That’s pretty young even in “horse years”. One benefit to their youth, however, is that we probably have many years to look forward to, if we keep them (and we plan on keeping them). Just how long could that be? In my quest to answer that question, here’s what I discovered:

Although some sources indicate the average horse life expectancy to be between 20-30 years, I found accounts of horses living much longer.
The Guinness Book of Records shows a record of 62 years old. The horse was named “Old Billy”, born in 1760. This, however, is not the norm.
One of the Champion horses lived to be 41! See Just Like Gene and Roy.
Some locals here in Tennessee report horses normally live into their 30’s.
We’ve been told that a “Horse year” is equal to 3 human years. This is the “dog years” approach, where we compare horse life expectancy to human life expectancy. The average American is living to be around 78 these days. In “horse years” that’s 26.

To be honest with you, some quick internet research shows “horse life expectancy” estimates all over the place. I’ve seen 20 years old and I’ve seen 46. My non-technical way of making sense of the wild variation is to average it out. My uneducated guess is that, barring unforeseen circumstances, our horses should live to be up to 30 years old. For me, that means when Moonshine is a senior citizen, I will be able to sympathize, as I will almost be one myself.

What have you heard or experienced?

Spooked on the 4th of July

January 1, 2007 Bill Comments 3 comments

This may seem like an odd post when clearly the 4th of July is both a long time ago and a long time coming, but we have this new tradition of setting off fireworks to celebrate the new year, so this post seems relevant.

One of the neatest things about living in Tennessee is the ability of anyone (18 and older) to buy and light off fireworks. Our horses, however, vehemently disagree.

On the days leading up to the 4th, we started stockpiling fireworks for the big night. Of course, we couldn’t just wait until July 4th, so we set off a few small ones within sight of the barn. This location was chosen because there was a lot of non-flammable space up there and the horses were still in the pasture. Boom, crackle, whirrrrr…followed by the sound of hooves pounding the ground as our two horses galloped quickly to the rear of the pasture. Later that night I ventured out in the dark with carrots to lure them back in. Both horses reluctantly agreed and came the rest of the way to our barn without further incident.

Fast-forward to last night, New Year’s. We have some fireworks left over from July 4th and last year we discovered that some of our neighbors shoot fireworks at midnight. So after cleaning stalls, I bring a small battery of fireworks down to the paved road next to our house in preparation for midnight. Knowing the horses might not come in if we waited until after shooting off fireworks, we brought them into the barn first and fed them oats. I went through my usual “do I close the stall windows or leave them open?” wondering and decided to leave the windows open. I figured they’d want to see what was going on and they could hear us talking, which might help them to know everything is okay. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….Happy New Year – BOOM! I glanced up at the barn and both horses were moving around nervously. Our fireworks display was short and afterwards, we went up to offer Valentine and Moonshine some carrots and lovey-dovey talk. They didn’t seem panicked, just a little concerned. We’ll have to work up to the much larger fireworks display we’d like to fire off for the next 4th of July celebration.

This reminds me of a story I’ll share sometime about Civil War re-enactment horses and how they train them to stand calmly next to firing cannons. Let’s just say the training involved fireworks.

Happy new year from ourfirsthorse.com! Here’s hoping 2007 will be the best year yet for you and (if you have any) your horse(s)!

Our First Horse

A family's experience with first-time horse ownership, since 2006.

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