Valentine has a very strange habit. Back when we first got him, we noticed that he had a tendency to dump all his food on the ground. He dropped any treats you tried to feed him, he dropped his hay on the ground and he swished his oats out of the feeder onto the dirt. Now that we’ve had him a while, we understand some of these tendencies. He hardly ever drops treats on the ground now; we think it was because he was still getting to know us so he was a bit hesitant taking food from us. Not so now – watch the fingers, or they’ll get sucked in too! The hay ends up on the ground mostly because the flakes stick together. He tries to pull some out, he gets more than he expected and shakes it, so the excess falls onto the floor. (Sometimes it ends up on the wrong side of the stall door because the hay feeder is right next to the door. We’ll come out in the morning to find a veritable haystack outside his door – poor thing!)
But the funniest thing is the oats. When he first came to us, every time we fed him, he would violently swish the oats sideways out of the feeder. The first time we fed him we put on-feed dewormer on the oats, so that was alarming – half the oats with the medication went swishing onto the floor (ahh, the good old days!). There were never any oats on the ground when we came up to the barn the next morning, though, so either he’s half anteater and sucked every last grain up, or the mice took care of it. I always hoped it was mice because horses can colic if they ingest sand (or dirt, in our case) with their food.
As it turns out though, Valentine doesn’t really like to eat his oats off the ground. After a while, we finally figured out that he only swishes his food out if we are bothering him while he eats. Don’t pet him; don’t groom him; don’t stand near him; don’t even talk to him from outside the stall. So now we know – just leave him alone, and he’ll eat like a normal horse.
The weather was beautiful the other day – 70 degrees in the middle of December. I completed horse stall cleaning while it was still light and decided to take a little walk out in the pasture. I don’t do this as often as I should. I have to force myself to even go outside during cold weather. I’m a warm-weather person, really. But today I’m reminded that horse people need to keep an eye on so many things. I discovered this 8 inch wide, 10 inch deep hole next to one of the trails. It almost looked like someone had dug this hole with a post-hole digger. I was aghast. I can just see my horse stepping in this thing and coming up lame. Since the dirt here is as hard as cement right now, I filled the hole with horse manure, packing it nice and tight. I’ll keep an eye on it. The hole didn’t look like a sinkhole and it’s in a place where I can see it from the house. I don’t think anyone dug the hole but it’s a great reminder that we all need to check the pasture occasionally, for obstacles like this. Here’s the hole, with Mikki standing next to it for scale:
Today was the coldest day yet in east Tennessee. Actually, there have been colder days since we’ve lived here but not since we’ve had horses. Lows at night are in the lower 20’s and we’ve had some wind. Although my Arizona butt hasn’t quite acclimated to winters that are actually cold, our horses seem to have adapted nicely. Both Moonshine and Valentine have thick fuzzy winter coats and despite our attempts to shelter them from the cold, they seem to prefer it to being stuck in the barn.
One thing I’m not familiar with is frozen water buckets. Yesterday and today both I’ve gone out to discover all of our animal water buckets had almost an inch of ice on top. I was expecting this but I’m not yet sure what to do about it. Most of the buckets aren’t near any power source so a bucket heater or bucket de-icer doesn’t seem like it would work for us. We could use an extension cord but that increases the possibility of a barn fire. I’m also concerned with our horses nibbling on the wires, though it seems like the heated buckets use steel wire wrapped cords to prevent nibbling. I saw a product called Thermo Bucket that uses a simple insulated float but it looks too thin to drink from. Maybe it’s just a bad picture. So we’re looking for a solution, mostly for in the barn stalls. The ice in the outside bucket I can break up effectively and it sits in the sun most of the day.
Because we baby our horses, the subject of horse blankets has come up, too. Mikki is interested in trying them but I’m skeptical. Besides yet another horse expense, I wonder if the blanket would stay on for very long. I can see Moonshine rolling in the dirt to get it off. Plus I wonder if it’s even needed. Here comes the old “horses in the wild don’t need that” argument. But it’s true. How many horse blankets do you see in those pictures of wild horses running in the Montana snow? None. Of course, horses in the wild probably don’t live as long as our pampered domesticated horses. But even when it was 26 degrees (F) outside, neither horse shivered or showed any signs of wanting to seek shelter. I did see Valentine galloping around more than usual. Maybe it was to warm up, maybe he just felt frisky. But no blankets for now.
In our barn, the outside stall windows are now closed for cold weather, though the ends of the barn remain open as we have no doors. We’re considering adding doors but it won’t be anytime soon.
Let me take a minute to say that I do realize 26 degrees isn’t that cold. Many, if not most of you live somewhere that has harsher winters than we experience in Tennessee. That whole “frozen tundra of the South” thing was a stretch, to be sure. It doesn’t get much colder than this except in the mountains.
Okay, I was going to say “horse farts” but it just seemed uncivilized. Both of our horses have what I would consider a peculiar habit. Each time we let them in the barn they lift their tails and pass gas as they walk by us. What is THAT all about? Is this some kind of horse greeting I’m just supposed to know about or are they trying to insult me? I’m sure “horse gas” is what I’m smelling too because I can hear it escaping as they walk passed me. If you’re offended by horse gas, stop reading now, as it only gets worse. I remember reading something about the ozone layer and how methane from cow gas was causing measurable damage to the atmosphere. I’m not surprised if that’s true because my 1,000-pound horse can almost cause me to lose consciousness. I no longer wonder about the cause of all the barn fires in the olden days. Farmers used lanterns with flames! What were they thinking? It’s a wonder we don’t hear more about EXPLOSIONS in the barns of yesteryear with all that methane floating around.
But seriously, they don’t seem gassy (is that a word?) all the time we’re around them, just when we let them in for oats at night. I suppose it has something to do with the grass they’re eating during the day out in the pasture. Or maybe my neighbors are playing a joke on us by feeding our horses burritos. Haha, funny, I get it. Please stop now.
Note to self – let horses in early when romantic evenings are planned.
Moonshine is a wood chewer. I think she gets bored and enjoys chewing. I often see her licking the stall doors, the fence, and even the steel gates and every once in a while she seems to take a little nibble. She has plenty of salt licks and we’re working on getting her some horse toys to give her tongue something to do when she’s in the barn (I’ll post about that soon) but for now I needed to protect the wooden doors in her stall. Not only is she slowly destroying them, I’m also afraid she might ingest some wood or at the very least get a splinter in her tongue. There are some products out there to help with this problem such as bitter tasting liquids and steel door coverings. But I had an idea about making a stainless steel or aluminum cover myself for the top piece of wood she’s working on the most. So for part one of this experiment, today I spent a few hours shaping aluminum flashing and securing it to one of her doors to see if it helps. If it works I’ll do a more detailed write-up. I did some preliminary testing to make sure the flashing wasn’t easily torn or cut and made sure to smooth edges and corners and secure all edges.
We walked away from the barn the other day and looked back to see my horse with his head all the way over a low part of the pasture fence…eating a rose bush. There are no blooms on this particular bush, so he was just eating the leaves and thorny stems. Why? I don’t know. I did a quick search on the Internet to make sure rosebushes are not poisonous to horses, and it appears that they are not. I’m sure they’re not all that good for them, but apparently won’t hurt them.
Bill’s horse has a thing for wood – she chews on her stall door and the fence – so I told him, my horse thinks he’s a burro and yours thinks she’s a beaver.
That reminds me, we need to discuss bad horse habits. Maybe for the next post!
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.
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.
Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of things about horses that I assumed to be true. Some are just silly, others seem to make sense. As it turns out, a lot of them are bunk.
For instance, the myth that a healthy horse never lays down. You know, like a shark has to keep swimming or it will suffocate? Well, if you believe this, the first time you go by a field of resting and sleeping horses you’ll think a horrible horse massacre has just occurred. Horses not only can lie down to sleep, they need to. Another reason to keep your horse’s stall clean.
Here’s one of my favorites: a horse is just a big dog. Now, in some ways, this is true – they are furry and four-legged, can be very playful and curious, and depend on their owner for their care. However, there are fundamental differences between dogs and horses, all relating to the fact that dogs are genetically predators and horses are genetically prey. The biggest difference here is that a dog can be happy-go-lucky and have a good time – he’s at the top of the food chain! A horse has to be a lot more wary, always on guard for something that might want to eat him (a dog, a tractor, a tree blowing in the wind, a plastic bag blowing in the wind, the wind…). So, unlike your goofy, fun dog, a horse is easily spooked. They’re also not so good at playing fetch. Ha ha.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase healthy as a horse. Where on earth this came from, I have no idea, because – and I don’t want to scare you away from horse ownership here – horses are remarkably fragile. Well, take a look at that very large body on top of those spindly little legs. That’s a recipe for disaster right there! There are a million ways a horse can injure one of those legs. Horses also have a tendency to spook easily, causing them to act in ways that are harmful to themselves and others. They also will eat things that are not good for them and are susceptible to a host of diseases carried by insects, parasites and the inappropriate things they will put in their mouths. A horse owner must be ever vigilant for dangers in their horse’s environment: Keep the pasture free of debris. Don’t ever use barbed wire. Keep the stall as clean as possible. Follow a strict deworming and vaccination schedule. Keep an eye out for signs of injury or illness and treat promptly, consulting your veterinarian sooner rather than later if you’re unsure.
A myth that used to be true but is no longer is that a horse with a broken leg must be put down. Advances in medical technology have made it possible to treat some horse leg fractures with metal rods and other methods. Thank goodness for science.
Another funny little saying is that horses don’t like their ears touched. It’s true that some don’t, but you should be able to touch your horse’s ears – after all, you’re going to be putting halters and bridles and such over those ears. You also may need to clip around the ears, i.e. for a “bridle path” (the part of the mane where the top of the bridle or halter rests), or administer medication. If your horse is sensitive around the ear area, you need to work to help him get over it.
So don’t just assume that things you’ve heard for years are true. Do some research, read some books, watch some Horse TV. Even risk sounding like a newbie by asking an experienced horse person a dumb question. I usually keep that one as a last resort.
As I posted a couple of days ago, Moonshine got an owie. We still don’t know exactly how she did it, but she did a good job of it. We’ve been caring for it for almost a week now, and (knock on wood), it’s going okay. Per our farrier’s instructions, we washed it out, coated it with antibiotic ointment and tried to keep her in her stall for a few days. The last part didn’t go so well – she HATED it and didn’t care who knew. She was inside all day Tuesday and part of the day on Wednesday. We freed her Wednesday afternoon and let her out again on Thursday, since she was caterwauling so loudly and because the pasture seemed just as clean as her stall…maybe cleaner than after she’d been in long enough to refill it with poo. On Thursday afternoon I noted some white goop around the top of the wound and decided maybe she’d better stay in after all. So she was in her stall again on Friday and part of the day on Saturday. By 2:00 p.m. we couldn’t take the ruckus anymore – and were afraid the ASPCA may be called – so we freed her. She shot out of the barn-like a rocket. Poor Valentine, we think she may have given him what-for out on the back 40, for not hanging out at the barn with her.
So here’s what we’ve been doing, per advice from the farrier, our vet-assistant friend and a couple of nice people on Horse City: Every morning and evening, we spray out the wound really well with a hose (boy does she love that – especially since it’s icy-cold well water). We douse it with iodine spray and let it air-dry for a few minutes while we walk her around the lawn. As a bonus, she’s getting really good at obeying lead-rope signals because of this walking time! Then I slather on a wonderful substance called ichthamol (or ichthammol) – it looks and smells like tar, just not as thick. Then she’s free to go out to the pasture for the day or into her stall for the evening, as the case may be. We also observe her carefully for any limping (none; she’s not even favoring it, and actually galloped across the pasture today) and feel the area for heat (a sign of infection) and inspect for pus (ditto). The injury itself looks bad because the hoof is actually separated, but the wound seems to be healing nicely.
We walked away from the barn the other day and looked back to see my horse with his head all the way over a low part of the pasture fence…eating a rose bush. There are no blooms on this particular bush, so he was just eating the leaves and thorny stems. Why? I don’t know. I did a quick search on the Internet to make sure rosebushes are not poisonous to horses, and it appears that they are not. I’m sure they’re not all that good for them, but apparently won’t hurt them.
