Our First Horse

Wasp nest in tack

April 28, 2009 Bill Comments 3 comments

Wasp nest Let this be a lesson to us all. Yesterday I was stung by a wasp who unbeknown to me was busy building a nest under one of our saddle blankets. Around here, wasps are everywhere right now! At times we are afraid to go into our tackroom, which is open to the barn on the top. Someone was coming over to exercise Romeo for us and I dashed into the barn to grab the saddle blanket. I don’t recall ever being stung by a wasp but I can tell you it felt like someone had stabbed my finger. I thought I had left something sharp under there and I had cut myself on it and fully expected to see blood. Although the pain eventually dissipated, boy did it throb for a while!

A quick search of the internet revealed a way to relieve the pain. Apparently alcohol is good for bee stings and vinegar is good for wasp stings (think a-b and v-w) but not vice-versa. This seems to have worked and today I had forgotten all about it.

So just a quick note to suggest safety when pulling out tack you haven’t used in a while.

Romeo gets his head stuck

April 24, 2009 Bill Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday I went to the barn to let the horses out and to my surprise Romeo greeted me with his head through the gate we use for his stall. He’s always the one who has his head through a fence eating grass so it wasn’t unusual but after a few minutes it became apparent that he couldn’t figure out how to get his head out of the gate. It’s funny now but I started worrying about his panicking and me trying to manipulate his head to freedom. Of course I expected he wouldn’t know what I was doing and would fight me. I briefly thought I might even had to get out a saw of some kind.

Now let me say right now that of all the animals I’ve worked with over the years, horses are probably the smartest I’ve come across. You can tell how much more intelligent they are from the way they learn and make decisions. Still, in situations like this I wonder.

Since I always seem to have a camera nearby, I grabbed one and pushed record as I tried an idea. If I could just get Romeo to move to the side a little and then incent him to turn his head sideways to fetch a carrot, maybe I could encourage him to fix this problem himself. And it worked. Below is a short (25 second) video.

So this has taught me a few things:

1) It’s important to check on the horses, even if they’re “safe” in the barn. If there is something to get scratched on or tangled in, they’ll find it. Romeo even scalped an inch square piece of fur from his head the day before on a little rough piece of metal on the fence (you can see it wrapped in twine in the video).

2) Perhaps gates aren’t the best wall substitutes. We intended on building a real wall with a wooden gate like the other stalls but just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. This reminds me of the importance to get that project done.

3) Try the simple first. Romeo clearly wasn’t panicked when I found him so it was a good idea to not freak out and look for some complicated solution. A few carrots did the trick in this case.

Have you had anything like this happen with your horse(s)? Please share your story.

The grass is greener on the other side

April 19, 2009 Bill Comments 1 comment

Broken fence In the past couple of weeks we’ve been traveling quite a bit. At one point there was no one home for about 7 days. During that time our horse friend Shari kept an eye on the place and fed our outside animals (the dogs were at a kennel). Several days into our vacation, we got a voice message from an older neighbor saying our horses were out and were roaming the neighborhood and highway and they didn’t know what to do since they weren’t horse people. In fact I think they thought we were still home because we often arrange to have cars in our driveway so it doesn’t appear as though the house is empty. We immediately began dialing through our list of horse rescue contacts to ask for help. We were about 2,000 miles away from home at this point. Unfortunately, almost all of our horse contacts were off doing weekend things, far from home. We finally reached a vet friend and the girl we bought Romeo from (thanks guys!) and they quickly led the horses back into the pasture. The fence was down in one section. To make a long story short, although the fence was repaired each time, this has happened a total of four times in the past two weeks. Our horses have learned two lessons:

There is an abundance of yummy green grass on the other side of our fence.
It doesn’t take much for a 1,000+ pound horse to knock down a wooden fence.

As soon as we got home, I bought a bunch of new fence boards and have been replacing weak boards. Each time, they find a new section to push on. Often it’s Cash, scratching his bottom on the fence. Sometimes it’s Valentine, giraffing over the top to get to the grass just beyond. Whoever the culprit, it needs to stop! The most recent time was last night and fortunately we were home to resolve it. When you see headlights in your driveway at 11:30 PM, you have to know something is wrong. It was feeding time so rounding them up was easy but these escaping episodes are at best annoying and at worst dangerous. We spoke about the need for an electric fence last year but when the grass stopped growing, the horses stopped pushing the fence down. This time we’re going to do it. We’ve got some rough measurements and I’m calling Electrobraid to place my order. We spent hours today (60 holes drilled, 60 screws) adding inside boards to the top row so each section has two rails on top. We’ll run a strand of electric fence along the top to keep them off of the fence. Unfortunately it looks like it takes 10 days or so for shipping. We’re paranoid every time we hear a car nearby and are afraid to leave the house for fear they’ll get out while we gone!

I need to verify this with Electrobraid but the price for the rope and accessories, plus shipping, comes to a reasonable $900 or so (1,200 foot section). With this system, not only will we be able to help fix this wooden fence issue, we’ll also have a system we can use to replace our barbed wire sections, something we’ve been meaning to do since we got here. It looks like this project doesn’t want to wait anymore.

Any of you had trouble keeping your horses on the right side of the fence?

The round bale hay experiment – Part 4

April 1, 2009 Bill Comments 0 Comment

Been a little while since we talked about this but I have an update. Since we last wrote about our round bale experiment in February 2007 (yikes – over two years ago!), we bought a round bale feeder with cutouts for horses. We were told we could just buy the cow version but we liked how the horse version seemed to do a better job of keeping the horses separated and that’s important when four horses are eating off of the same bale. Whoever suggested to us that the round bale feeder would save us money in hay was absolutely right. After about a year I can honestly say this thing has probably paid for itself. The old method was to drop a round bale out in the pasture to let the horses feed freely on it. But they ended up walking and pooping all over the hay and of course they wanted nothing to do with it then. We’d lose about 20% of every bale this way. With the round bale feeder we lose almost nothing. I believe we paid about $100 for the galvanized version which came in three pieces we needed to bolt together. It’s surprisingly light, though it’s size makes it a little hard to maneuver. We usually flip it on it’s side and roll it to the next location (it’s muddy in the photo above because we rolled it through the mud) and then flop it down onto it’s legs over a round bale. I can do it myself but prefer having the help of another person.

As you know, we don’t have a tractor so moving round bales has been a challenge. What seems to be working for us it to load up our flat car-hauler trailer with four round bales and then as needed we back the trailer into the pasture and roll one off by hand. Surprisingly I can move one myself but I don’t have complete control because there is a bit of elevation where we feed hay. What’s worse, though, is when we need to drop a new round bale after it’s been raining. Our clay is slippery when wet. Backing a heavy car hauler and a heavy truck over wet clay is a great way to get stuck. And that’s just what happened last week. Understand that our truck is four wheel drive and supercharged but there was no moving that trailer once it was stuck in the mud. Fortunately for us, there were no more bales on the trailer so we just disconnected and left it there. I barely got out of there in the truck. So that’s our big challenge right now with this method of round bale delivery. What we really need is a 4×4 tractor. I’ve had lots of people tell me I don’t need 4 wheel drive on a tractor but a tractor I can only use when it hasn’t rained in the past 3 days is of little use. We get 70 or so inches of rain a year here.

Trailer stuck in mud

In summary, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND a round bale feeder!

Horse Houdini Chronicles, Chapter 2

March 31, 2009 Bill Comments 5 comments

That would be a good book name, huh? Last January, Mikki wrote about Valentine’s escape from his stall, which fortunately was an escape to the center aisle of our barn and not to the outside world. We have another Houdini and I bet you can guess which horse it is. You’ve probably read about Cash’s karate demonstration back in September, where he literally kicked a stall door from its hinges as we watched. Now he did this accidentally while rolling but he’s the one horse standing at gates and fences with a look on his face that says “I sure would rather be over there”. I went up to the barn to let the horses out one morning and found Cash rubbing his face on one of the stall gates. It’s shedding season so everyone is itchy. Well he continued to rub his face on the latch and while I was standing there, it flipped up. Another couple of rubs and I could see how it would unlock and open the gate. Fortunately (again) I was standing right there to see this or he might have had another run of the neighborhood.

When we moved here, the outside doors of the stalls were all nailed shut and I think I can see why now. Still, in an emergency, I want to be able to free the horses in a hurry without trying to find a hammer, which is why we loosened those nails. But it is clear I need to secure the latch on Cash’s stall door better. Poking around my workshop, I found a spring-loaded keeper I must have bought at the local horse tack auction last year. At the time I didn’t know how I’d use it but now I’m glad I bought it anyway. Ladies, this is a guy thing and although I probably collect a lot of junk, too, this time it worked out. You can see from the picture how we have it attached. The spring is pretty strong but not so strong I can’t open the door latch with a strong pull. It did, however, add a lot of resistance to the latch where Cash like to rub his face. You can see two holes to the left of the horseshoe part. That turned out to be a bad spot, as there wasn’t enough leverage for the spring-loaded keeper to hold the handle down.

Do you have a Houdini and if so, how do you cope?

Caught in the act – part 1

March 14, 2009 Bill Comments 6 comments

Photographic proof of one of my fence vandals is below. This is Moonshine checking out the grass on the wrong side of the fence. Valentine and Cash do it too, though Valentine is such a giraffe, he goes over the top of the fence instead of through it. The fence posts are starting to loosen from all of that horse weight pushing against them. Electrifying is in our future, I think.

New Farm Animals

March 12, 2009 Bill Comments 5 comments

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?

Shedding Season Begins

March 11, 2009 Bill Comments 7 comments

We’ve had some unseasonably warm temperatures here in east Tennessee lately and it seems to have kicked off the shedding season. Cash is the shaggiest horse we have and the poor thing is itching all over because of it. He’s scratching on trees, fence posts, stall doors and even humans. We spent some time brushing him the other day and practically made another horse! I will have to take some pictures of what he does when being scratched. There are a few spots that turn him to butter. You have to watch him because it looks like he’s about to fall over on you while in his scratching trance. I brushed him gently and then watched as he bit himself and tugged at his hide to take care of an itch. I don’t think I’m brushing too hard. What seems to work well is this glove brush we bought at a tack auction last year. It’s rubber with little nubs on it and it’s just perfect for brushing a shedding horse. It’s not too tough to rub the face, neck and belly with, too.

The other horses got a brushing but they are no where near as shaggy as poor Cash. Has the shedding season started at your place?

Stray Horses!

February 8, 2009 Mikki Comments 5 comments

We went to get hay on Saturday from our favorite hay supplier, Grammy. We were down to about 6 square bales – yikes! – so it was past time. Grammy’s farm is down some winding country roads back in the boonies. We were heading home down one of those meandering, narrow roads when we saw a mare and foal in the front yard of a house. I often see horses and think, “Dang! Those horses are loose!” – only to realize that there’s a barbed wire fence around them. But this time, they actually were loose.

Stray Horses

Luckily, they were just grazing in the yard and didn’t seem inclined to wander…but we know from experience (twice!) that there will most likely be some wandering to come, and probably some road-crossing too. So we pulled into the driveway and knocked on the door. No answer. Bill tried to get close to the mama but she wasn’t having it. I went into the barn behind the house and tried to find a lead rope. I saw a couple but they were tied to the barn, obviously being used as cross-ties, but given the situation I decided since I’d already trespassed I might as well untie a lead rope too. So I did. I also noticed that one stall in the barn was empty with the door wide open.

I headed back out to the front yard with my lead rope and filled Bill in on the barn situation. Mama saw the lead rope and shied away. We decided we’d try to herd them toward the barn, so Bill got behind them on one side of the house and I went around the other side to keep them from just rounding around it instead of going into the barn, which was behind the house. They unfortunately ended up cornered against a barbed-wire fence. This was a little scary, since up to this point Mama had avoided anyone coming toward her. But she started grazing quietly and didn’t seem afraid, so I decided to just take it really slow and see if I could get closer to her, making it clear to her that I was aiming for her and not her baby. So I talked to her for a bit, then walked up slowly until I got a hand on her flank. She was okay with that, so I petted her side, then her back, then her neck, then her head…then got my hand on her halter. She very obediently lifted her head and let me put the lead rope on her. Then we led her and baby up to the barn and into the stall without incident.

We left a note at the front door telling the residents what we had found and what we had done, noting that we hoped the horses were actually theirs, and left our number. We haven’t heard anything yet. There was a sign in the barn with a name, the title “farrier,” and a phone number, which we wrote down. We have called the number a couple of times with no answer.

This incident, combined with the previous ones, has reminded us that we need to make sure that if our horses get out, whoever finds them will know where they belong. The sign in the barn was a good idea, and we’re thinking about putting one in our barn with our names and phone numbers on it. (We’ve considered halters with name tags, but we don’t leave halters on our horses so that wouldn’t be very effective.) It also reminded us that we need to step up our plans for an electric fence!

Snow! – Part 2 – Horse Play

January 21, 2009 Bill Comments 0 Comment

Cash frolicking in the snow The video I posted yesterday was just a little display of the snow with some scenes from our barn and pasture. Yesterday, Mikki and I brought cameras with us up to the barn to see how our horses reacted to the white stuff. After being cooped up all day the day before (we didn’t want them wet and cold), our horses were ready to leave the barn. I’m so glad we had cameras because Cash and Valentine in particular really seemed to enjoy the snow.

This video is also high definition and runs about 4 minutes. In it you’ll see just how dirty Cash looks against the pure white snow. Turns out his patches aren’t white, they’re tan! You’ll see Cash roll several times including once right in front of us. He romps and throws his head around. I loved seeing his beautiful long mane flowing and his “horn” snorts are pretty cute. Maybe we should have called him “Horatio”. That’s a common sound with him. At the end of the video I added a few slow motion sequences of him prancing around. Valentine got into the rolling and romping, too but he’s hard to see. The white of the snow blew out the exposure on the camera so much of Valentine’s fur detail is lost unless he’s right in front of the camera. Moonshine makes her authority known a few times and Romeo mostly stands around and eats.

Once again, you can view this video full size and I recommend it.

Didn’t that look fun!?