Our First Horse

Our Favorite Tack Shop

April 11, 2006 Mikki Comments 1 comment

A great source of information is your local tack shop. Halfway between the town where we live and the closest “big city,” tucked off the highway where you would never know where it is except for a roadside sign, is the best little tack shop around: C&S Western & Tack Shop. They have EVERYTHING there – tack, barn stuff, shoeing supplies, grooming supplies, boots – you name it. And the owner, Charlie, really knows his stuff. He’s been a great source of information and advice for us. He knows just about everyone in the area, too, so he knows who to talk to if you need something he doesn’t have (like hay). There’s a bulletin board full of resources in the shop, too. Charlie is also one of the nicest people we’ve met in a place full of nice people, and he has the best stories. If you’re ever in Greenback, Tennessee, look them up!

That’s My Stud Muffin

April 8, 2006 Mikki Comments 8 comments

Remember NickerMakers? Well, believe it or not, there’s a dumber name than that. I just got Valentine some horse treats called Stud Muffins. No joke. He LOVES them! They smell pretty good to me, but they look an awful lot like what I shovel out of his stall every morning, so I’m not tempted to try them. Yet.

In case you didn’t know, horses love to eat. It’s what they do all day. In fact, they are made that way – they are so big, and their diet is so low in calories, that they pretty much need to eat constantly. Valentine is no exception. For his regular diet, his favorite thing is oats, followed by fresh grass, followed by hay (since the grass started growing again, he’s not too keen on the hay). His favorite treats are apples, carrots, NickerMakers and Stud Muffins. My next experiment, treat-wise, will be homemade horse treats. I’m not making that up. I’ll post recipes here after the results are in.

The Dreaded Thrush

April 5, 2006 Bill Comments 1 comment

The farrier came out this morning, and it’s official: Valentine has thrush. I’m actually relieved, partly because I know for sure now, and partly because the farrier didn’t seem all that concerned. Whew!

If you remember from my earlier post, Valentine had foot issues. He’d been sort of limping, he had stinky feet, and over the last few days, he wouldn’t let me clean his feet. I decided it was time to call in a professional. So Gabe came out and took a look. His diagnosis was that Valentine’s right front hoof has thrush, and that’s why he wouldn’t let me touch his other feet – it hurts him to to put weight on the right when I lift up the left. Gabe suggested we use Kopertox, but approved what we’ve already been using (Hooflex Thrush Remedy). I told him the pasture was pretty muddy, and asked if we should keep Valentine stabled while he’s being treated. He thought that was a good idea. He also suggested that, once the mud has dried, we trot Valentine up and down the road in front of our house to knock the mud loose, since Val won’t let me lift up the feet for cleaning.

So the plan for the next week or so: keep Valentine in the stall to keep the feet dry; treat with thrush medicine at least twice daily; graze him on our lawn (which is desperately in need of mowing anyway); and amuse the neighbors by “walking” my horse up and down the road.

Gabe also told us that thrush is very common here, because it’s such a wet place – it’s a fungal infection, and as you probably know, fungus loves wet. I also may have mentioned that it’s very muddy here. The mud is actually clay (I’m sure I could get a potter’s wheel and a kiln and have a nice pottery business on the side), which means that once it’s up in that concave hoof, it’s there to stay. Along with anything that gets mixed in with it – hay, rocks, the omnipresent poo. So once this thrush is cleared up, we will dose Valentine’s hooves with thrush medicine once a week to prevent a recurrence.
Have I mentioned that I really hate mud?

Barn Shoes…Make That Barn Clothes

April 2, 2006 Bill Comments 0 Comment

When I thought about writing this post, I was planning on discussing the fact that every horse owner who does their own horse management duties is quickly going to learn they need an old pair of shoes for working in the barn. That, of course, is true, though I might add that if you don’t already have a pair of barn shoes, worry not as the barn will claim the first pair you wear. This past Saturday, Mikki, the Kid and I spent time catching up on chores since it was warm and sunny outside. By the end of the evening, we were sore and our clothes were pretty dirty. If you haven’t already done so, plan on setting aside a pair of old shoes, some old T-shirts and yucky jeans. Heck, we’re thinking about buying some overalls, too, since, you know, we live out in the country and all. Dogs will run through the mud and then jump up on you, your horse will take a drink and then slobber buckets of dirty water on your clean shirt, a glob of fresh horsey poo will surely drop off the manure scoop onto your hat (get a hat!) as you’re cleaning a stall and even more glamorous things you’ve never thought of will happen, so trust me on this one. Your barn shoes will be subjected to corrosive ammonia and stinky mud, some of which may never come off. You should also consider investing in a decent pair of mucking boots. On those rainy days, your feet will stay drier and you’ll thank me when that large pile you haven’t cleaned up yet doesn’t ooze onto your socks. Some people opt for steel-toed shoes or boots but I’m not planning on cleaning Valentine’s stall when he’s in there so I’m going to skip those.

Spring Arrives in TN; Flies Rejoice

April 1, 2006 Bill Comments 0 Comment

It has been so nice in East Tennessee this past week. Think 70’s during the day with a few light sprinkles. A week ago today it was SNOWING, for goodness sakes. The forecast for the foreseeable future, according to the local Dopplercast 9005 Weather Watch Storm Center (I made that up), is 70’s during the day and possibly even 80. Yeah! Mikki and I enjoyed Valentine this past week, as well as just being outside in general. As I walked across the yard in slow motion (just like the movies) with some springtime song playing in the background, I noticed the dogwoods in bloom (I don’t know what they are really but let’s call them dogwoods because that sounds nice), pretty purple flowers, bees buzzing about, wasps wasping…around me…get it off, get it off, GET IT OFF!

Just today, this very day (well actually since it’s after midnight, technically yesterday now) Mikki and I noticed a ton of flies bothering our ~~expensive investment~~ large family pet. We knew the flies would come. The flypaper hanging from every beam in the barn warned us of that. Now that the little critters are hatching, it’s time to get serious about a fly control strategy. Up for consideration: better manure control, evil fly-eating but horse-friendly parasites, fly strips (hung outside the barn since they are an attractant), on-feed fly larvae killer (such as Solitude IGR from Pfizer, containing cyromazine) and a solar fly trap (not sure what that is yet). Poor thing (the horse, that is) is being pestered something fierce and it’s only going to get worse. We’ll try a few of these “fly control” systems out and report back what’s working and what’s not working.

Oh, by the way, today is Parenthesis Day (in case you didn’t know). Okay, I made that up too but I did use parentheses 8 times in this post (in case anyone is counting). Oops, 9 times now.

Stinky Feet

March 30, 2006 Mikki Comments 0 Comment

A very important grooming item is hoof care. I have to admit that I have been very lax in this area. It’s supposed to be easy to do, but I tell you, I did it today and I’m beat.

Here’s the deal: You have to convince your 1,000+ lb. (in my case, about 1,200 lbs.) animal to lift his foot for you and then you hold it and pick out the bottom of the hoof. It’s a very strange-looking piece of anatomy. It should be concave, and in the middle is an anatomical structure called a frog. Here’s a pretty good photo of a healthy (and shoeless) hoof:

(credit: www.barefoottrim.com)

All around the frog is the stuff your horse has picked up and packed in there that needs to be picked out, without damaging the frog. Valentine’s hooves, I’m ashamed to say, were quite packed with all kinds of stuff: mud (mostly), manure, straw and even a couple of rocks. There is a pretty good chance, based on the odor emanating from the junk I picked out, that he has thrush. That’s a nasty little fungus that grows in a hoof that isn’t kept clean. Here’s what his hoof looked like while I was cleaning it:

Hoof Cleaning

I’m also sorry to say that Valentine seems to be limping on his right rear leg now. He’s appeared to have a limp on that leg since we got him – that was the hoof that cast a shoe before we got him – but it’s more pronounced now. I think we’ll be calling the farrier out. Updates later.

I no longer associate ammonia with cleanliness

March 29, 2006 Bill Comments 0 Comment

I’ve heard scent is the strongest trigger for memories. Mikki’s been under the weather the past few days so I’ve been cleaning Valentine’s stall. These past few weeks a childhood memory flashes to my mind every time I enter his stall. I don’t know why but I keep thinking of my mom cleaning our house when I was a child. She must have been cleaning glass or something because I don’t think ammonia is used very often in cleaning these days. Apparently equine urine contains a lot (cough cough) of ammonia. As I was laying down some straw to soak up the horse urine I realized I can no longer associate the smell of ammonia vapor with something being clean. Just the opposite!

I’ve read that ammonia vapor is one of the reason you need to be diligent about cleaning your horse stall at least every day, especially if your horse sleeps there. Your horse will lay down in the stall to sleep. If you don’t clean up the urine regularly, he/she breathes the ammonia gas and that can be harmful or in some cases even fatal.

Incidentally, dry straw doesn’t soak up urine very well. I’ve heard about some kind of fluffy wood pellet thingies you can use to soak it up better than straw and I’m thinking we should start experimenting. More on that later.

Bill takes over horse duties for the day

March 24, 2006 Bill Comments 2 comments

Mikki is sick today and it’s cold and wet outside here in East Tennessee. So today I’ll be handling horse duties. All bundled up, I went out to let Valentine out of his stall. I would have preferred to open the barn gate to let him out that way but it’s muddy by the gate so I decided to halter him to let him out by our yard gate. Now Mikki does this every day, something about it being better for training your horse about your leadership role, despite the fact that the barn gate would be far faster and easier. I don’t have a lot of experience with the halter since I usually opt for the lazy, quick way – through the barn gate. So today I grab the halter and spend the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get this stupid thing on Valentine’s face. I was amazed how patient he was even though I bent his ears a couple of times. I lead him out to the pasture and slowly remove the halter and this is when he became impatient and shook it off. That was followed by a push by his nose…head…the long thing at the end of his neck. “Hey!” I’m not afraid of him and I won’t let him push me around without responding but it’s pretty clear to me that we need to spend some time on this leadership role thing. But he’s a fine horse and we’re happy to have him.

On a technical note about the website, I’ll changed the login requirement so you don’t have to register and login to post comments. I personally hate having to login everywhere to make a little comment. We’ll see how this goes. Hopefully we won’t be inundated with spam. If you see spam in the comments, we’ll remove it when we notice it.

Also, we’ll be changing some of the links around a little and probably adding a discussion forum soon for better online discussions. Someday you might see a few tasteful ads around here. We’ll keep them relative to the topic at hand. We’re billed for the web space and all so we’re going to try to recoup some of that expense.

The Big Day!

March 12, 2006 Mikki Comments 4 comments

Okay, I spent several days comparing the picture in the catalog, the pictures we took of Valentine all tacked up when we met him, and every other picture of a horse with bridle on I could find, and decided that today was the day.

I finally rode my horse, by myself.

First, we had to remember how to put the saddle on. It took a long time, but I’m pretty confident we got that right. It stayed on the whole time, so that must be a good sign.

The bridle was another story. I did the best I could, but I’m not confident at all that it was right. Valentine was so good and patient while I tried every combination with those straps that I could think of. I think he was annoyed by all the giggling, though.

Once the bridle was looking as close to right as I could get it, and the bit was adjusted pretty well, we maneuvered Valentine over to the tack room, which has a foot-high step up, so I could get on. Then Bill led us out to the pasture, and it was time.

Was that a wild ride! There are a few factors that came into play here. Valentine’s former owner hadn’t been riding him regularly, and we hadn’t ridden him at all in the month we had him. We were using tack that was all new to him. He is only 5 years old – a “teenager.” And, probably most importantly, I’m a total greenhorn and he knows it. So he spent the whole time I was on him trying to get me off. He ran under trees. He brushed up against the barn. He charged up to the barbed wire fence. He ran to the low point of the fence at the corner of our property, where I thought for a split second that he was going to jump it! He ignored every command but “whoa” and was slow to respond to that one.

The good news is, nothing he tried worked. I managed to stay on the whole time, and didn’t get off until I was ready.

Can’t wait to do that again…

Not Everybody’s An Expert, Okay?

March 9, 2006 Mikki Comments 3 comments

Many times over the last few weeks I have felt that horse ownership is not for beginners. Seriously – I think that people who have horses or supply horse stuff don’t even consider that horse stuff might possibly be used by someone who hasn’t always had horses. This is one of those times. I got the bridle/halter combo today, and it came in a big Ziploc bag. No pictures, no instructions, nothing. Here’s what I have to work with:

Jeez.