Our horses don’t lay down very often but when they do it’s usually right where you see Moonshine in this picture. It’s a spot on top of the biggest hill, on the side of the hill that dries the quickest. It’s a little hard to see from this picture but she’s on the edge of the hill. I’ve seen her and our other horses get up from this spot. What makes it unique is that they can roll to one side and then roll hard back toward the downslope and get up easily, thanks to gravity. This is a favorite rolling spot for Romeo, presumably for the same reason. Horses are pretty smart.
Moonshine resting on a hill. Isn’t she beautiful?
Do you see your horse(s) rolling or napping on a hilly spot that makes it easier to get up?
You’re probably wondering why we’re feeding a horse Honey-Nut Cheerios. Well, it’s to mask the taste of the bute. And why are we giving someone bute? Well, let me just tell you.
Monday night, we got home from Chattanooga late, as often happens when we go to the “big city.” And guess what? It was snowing. It was supposed to be well below freezing that night, and not get above freezing the next day. You know what that means, right? That’s right, a sick or injured horse. Since we have four, plus a mule, someone would surely oblige us. Sure enough, when we let the horses in, Romeo was limping. It was dark, late, and he was covered in mud. But, he was just as enthusiastic about his food as ever, so we decided it might as well wait till morning. Shame on us, I know, but there truly wasn’t a darn thing we could have done.
Tuesday morning, we let everyone else out and got him out into the sunshine where we could see. Poor thing was still limping, occasionally holding up that leg, and the muscle in his flank was twitching – he was definitely hurting and we needed to find out why. I did mention he was covered in mud? No problem, we could hose it off. Did I mention it dipped below freezing and wouldn’t get above freezing until sometime on Wednesday? So no hose. Luckily, we have a de-icer in their water trough, so we filled a bucket and I started dumping water on his right rear leg. It wasn’t long before we uncovered the problem – a hole in his leg, just below the hock. At this point we decided that both Romeo and I would be happier if the water we were using to clean him off was more than just above freezing, so Bill went to the house to fill the bucket with warm water. I got out the Dawn and cleaned off all the mud I could. There was a fairly deep hole about the size of a quarter. (I would post a picture, but sadly, my co-author is a tad squeamish.) It was oozing pus and smelled kinda bad. (I do hope Bill isn’t reading this.)
At this point, I would recommend horse owners to call the vet. A wound like that requires a very good cleaning and antibiotics ASAP, not to mention pain meds. So keep that vet on speed dial. I am very fortunate to have spent the last three years working for a vet, so while I am far from qualified to diagnose and treat serious injuries, I felt that I could probably handle this one. I took pictures (the ones you won’t be seeing) and headed over to the office. I described his symptoms and showed around the pictures, and the consensus among professional staff was a burst abscess. He probably got stuck with something several days beforehand, and it got infected. Because of the mud plastering his leg, we didn’t know anything about it until he started limping and by that time, the infected, closed wound had burst. Poor Romeo!
His treatment plan:
Antibiotics. Ten days’ worth. We got a powder that we can mix into his feed. No problem, he likes it fine.
Clean and Wrap. We (well, I) scrubbed the wound with surgical scrub, applied drawing salve to the wound and wrapped it well with cotton and vetwrap. We’ll leave that on for three days total, then start using Wonder Dust plus wrap until it’s good and closed up. No problem, he is so tough! He dances a little bit but mostly lets me do whatever. As you can see, pictures of the wrapped leg are okay.
Tetanus shot. No problem – again, he is one tough horse. (Bill couldn’t watch though.)
Bute. I got tablets to crush and mix into his feed like the antibiotic. The first day, no problem. I didn’t have any oats, so I used – you guessed it – Honey-Nut Cheerios. I added a bunch of molasses and some chunks of apple, and it smelled pretty darn good. I put a little Strategy in for good measure, and he ate it up! Yay! The next morning, same thing (he was supposed to get it twice a day for two days, then once a day for three). After that, he was onto me. He picks at it but never really finishes it off. Luckily, he’s feeling much better, so if he doesn’t get it all down, that’s okay. He’s still getting all the antibiotic, and that’s the important one.
Stall rest. Boy, does he hate that. He just can’t be out sloshing around in that gross mud, though. Sorry! I think we’ll put him out tomorrow (Friday). It’s been dry for a few days and tomorrow is supposed to be warm and sunny. And the hose is working again, so we will be able to clean it well. Oh, and it looks A LOT better now.
Romeo on stall rest with handsome purple wrap.
So that’s what’s going on at our barn. Lessons learned: Horses always get hurt at the least convenient times. Mud sucks. Cold weather sucks. And horses like Honey-Nut Cheerios – at least before you put yucky medicine in them.
Everyone seems to have holiday traditions. While we’re busy baking Christmas hams and pies and eating figgy pudding, our horses are left to eat the same old hay they get all year. Don’t think their super-sensitive nostrils aren’t picking up on all that yummy holiday food. And while they may not crave ham (horses are thankfully herbivores, after all), there’s no reason why we can’t share with them some of our sweet treats.
Here’s a very simple recipe for a horse treat that smells good, tastes good and is actually good for them. It’s very similar to our horse birthday cake recipe. Measurements are approximate; this isn’t science here. No baking involved. It’s pretty much just throwing together a bunch of stuff horses like. The amounts below made enough for four horses (about 1 cup each) and one burro-sized mule (about 1/2 cup).
Christmas Figgy Pudding Horse Cake
2 1/2 cups oats (we had 5 packets of plain instant oatmeal, so we used that) 1 large apple, chopped into small pieces 1 large carrot, peeled and shredded 1/4 cup molasses 6 dried figs, chopped
Mix all the ingredients until well blended. Press into ramekins or other small dishes and freeze until firm. Unmold and serve!
So while we might think buying reindeer antler hats for our horses constitutes a good Christmas present, I’ll bet you an apple they would prefer Christmas Figgy Pudding Horse Cake.
Simple ingredients
The completed cakes, including a small one for Jazzy the mule
Angled aluminum attached to a stall door protects it from wood-chewing horses
Four years ago we had a problem with Moonshine cribbing. Her bad habit was destroying the wood on her stall doors so I got an idea to cover the wood. This worked initially (see part 2) but eventually a tear developed in the thin aluminum and I worried about her cutting her tongue or face on the sharp metal. Other than that, the concept worked. To improve on the aluminum design, I needed something that would cover the affected area and hold up to a horse frequently licking it and occasionally biting it. While scanning the fabrication aisle at Home Depot, I came across a section of thicker, angled aluminum wide enough to cover the inside top of the stall door. I removed the old, thin aluminum section, clamped the new angled piece in place and drilled holes every foot. I then screwed the new section in place and made sure all edges were smooth. I’m a little behind on posting about this but the benefit of that is that I now know if this solution works. I’m happy to report that after a year of Moonshine licking and biting that stall door the new section is still in place, there are no sharp pieces or tears and Moonshine hasn’t suffered any injury. Total investment was about $8 and a half-hour of time. Now that winter has returned and the horses are spending more time in the barn, I plan on adding this protection bar on the other stall door (each outside stall has two doors) and even though our other horses aren’t big wood chewers, I’d like the whole barn to match. The horses that occupied the barn before we moved here wore the stall door tops down so I’ll need to replace those but hopefully this will be the last time.
If you let it go, horses who chew wood can do a lot of damage. Here are a few pictures I took at a historic barn at the Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina showing extensive damage to a stall door top and on the walls.
Do you have a wood chewer/cribber? What works for you?
Okay, so Jazzy is a mule and not a horse but the process and experience was the same when we introduced Cash and Romeo. Well, almost the same. Jazzy only weighs about 500 pounds, half the weight of most of our horses. We knew she was more vulnerable to the bullying that comes with herd introduction. Her body couldn’t take as many kicks and she wouldn’t be able to outrun any of our horses. And she didn’t yet know the pasture.
Jazzy looks to the barn as Moonshine is turned out.
This is the approach we took:
Barn Intro – First we put her in the barn. The horses knew immediately that another equine had just arrived and were waiting by the barn to see what was going on. Jazzy lived with horses so this wasn’t new for her. Through the barn gate everyone met (wish I snapped a picture of this). We kept Jazzy in the barn for a few days so the horses got used to her being there. Normally we would have put a new equine in a round pen in the pasture so everyone could sniff and run around in circles in the early days but we’re using the round pen sections as a temporary fence.
Pasture Intro – Time to switch. We wanted Jazzy to explore her new home beyond the barn. She’d need to know the boundaries, where the natural food supply was and where she could go to get away. We also have a run-in barn for inclement weather. So the horses went into the main barn and the mule went into the pasture. We were surprised that she didn’t leave the barn area. Over the next few weeks we discovered she’s a follower and has no interest in being alone. To this day I don’t think she’s seen all of the pasture.
First Horse (Valentine) – After a few days of keeping them apart, it was time to let them mingle. We started by letting out the lowest ranking horse, which is Valentine. He’s docile, not caring much about his position in the herd. He’s never started a fight. Valentine immediately went to Jazzy to smell her. Although at first she was nervous, it wasn’t long before they were eating near each other.
Second Horse (Romeo) – A few hours later, it was Romeo’s turn. We thought he was our next least aggressive horse but this turned out to not be true. Romeo, an Appaloosa, is our smallest horse. It wasn’t many years ago when he was the new guy and the other horses ran him hard around the pasture. I felt sorry for him at the time but he ended up second in command. I guess he wanted to make sure Jazzy knew this because he immediately bullied her. Horses are smart. He toned it down when we were around but the minute we were out of sight he let her have it. It took Jazzy a little time to figure out she should not run into corners. Eventually Romeo settled down to eat from the hay ring but he wasn’t letting Jazzy near it.
Third Horse (Cash) – A few hours went by and it was time to turn out Cash. I worry about him around other horses. He’s insecure in his position in the herd (second from the bottom) and I was afraid of what that would mean for Jazzy. Cash surprised me and mostly ignored Jazzy.
Last Horse (Moonshine) – When I saw Cash wasn’t going to be trouble, I turned out Moonshine as well. I left her for last because she’s the herd boss and demands the utmost in obedience from her subjects. But she too gave Jazzy little more than a sniff and headed for the hay.
Lessons learned
It seems clear now that Romeo is the herd enforcer. He’s the right hand man for the queen, handling her dirty work. Over the next few days, the horses all ran Jazzy around the pasture briefly and it started with her running from Romeo. With horses, when one runs, they all want to run. But Jazzy’s submissive nature allowed her to integrate quicker. Within three days of sharing a pasture together, Jazzy was grazing near her new herd. They won’t allow her to eat with them when all four are at the hay ring but if one or two are there, she’s allowed to join in. She did have to endure some kicking and biting. In fact, during those first few days, she ended up with several bite marks on her back, one of which needed wound dressing. But things are good now.
Lastly, having two round bale hay feeders (or hay rings) makes a big difference when you have more than two equines or if some of them don’t get a long. We added the second one as an experiment last year. We’re able to keep round bales in two locations, far enough apart that no one horse can dominate both food sources. This has worked out very well at our place and the cost was minimal.
Once a month or so, we hook up our flat trailer and head to our local hay supplier to get a month’s worth of round bales. All summer we’ve been greeted in our supplier’s hay yard by the sweetest little mule we’ve ever met. Jazzy would come and greet us and if our windows were open, would stick her whole head in the truck to say hi. She let us pet her all over, never biting, and if we allowed her, she enjoyed hanging out with the humans while the hay was being loaded and the fat was being chewed. Jazzy, her owner explained, was bottle-fed, raised by humans and made to feel like one of their herd. But Jazzy’s owner didn’t want her anymore and was talking about sending her to the sale barn where she’d probably fetch $25 and end up who knows where. Jazzy’s owner liked her well enough but didn’t really need her. Animals to him are livestock, meant to be bought and sold at will. I respect that, even though to us these animals are pets at worst and members of the family at best. Given the poor market for equines in Tennessee due to oversupply and under demand, we think we knew where Jazzy was headed.
Ever since moving to Tennessee, Pops (Mikki’s dad) has talked about getting his own mule or donkey/burro. After months of scratching her behind the ears and telling her how pretty she is, Pops decided he wanted this mule. A few days ago, she was loaded into our horse trailer for the short trip to our barn. Little 500 pound Jazzy was dwarfed but our seemingly huge trailer, the size of which was selected to fit 1300 pound Valentine. I wasn’t there when it happened but I’m told she didn’t want to get into the trailer. It was a new, scary experience for her but she made it without any serious issues.
Jazzy has been with us for a few days now and things are mostly fine. She’s adapting. Herd introduction was a little challenging and I’ll discuss that in another post.
Jazzy with Valentine
So what are we going to do with a mule? In short, nothing. We don’t plan to ride her or work her. We’ve learned by observing her over the past months that she enjoys eating weeds along with hay. I think we can accommodate that. She won’t eat much and might be effective in keeping the coyotes out of our pasture. But to us, she’s a pet and a member of our family herd.
When you become a horse owner, you quickly learn that one of the hats you’ll be wearing is that of a detective. How did my horse get out of his stall? Where is my horse’s fly mask? How did my horse end up in the next stall over with another horse? And sometimes, where did that gash come from? All of our horses at one point or another came back to the barn with some kind of wound that left us wondering how it happened. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why it’s a good idea to see them at least once a day, at feeding time or bringing them into the barn for the night. Even so, this morning while heading to Romeo’s stall to let him out of the barn for the day, I gasped enough to make him jump. The poor thing is missing a pretty big piece of skin on his forehead and also under his chin. First thing is first – treating the wound. It wasn’t bleeding much but it was dirty, probably from rolling or maybe just from dust. So we gently placed a halter on him and brought him out to the center aisle of the barn where we have cross ties. If you don’t have these in your barn, I strongly suggest adding them. Crossties are simple two long ties (straps or rope) with quick-release latches that meet the horse in the middle in a way that keeps the horse from being able to move from side to side or even back to front very much. More about that in another post. So we cross-tied Romeo and Mikki cleaned the wound with some antibacterial scrub. Romeo was a trooper, though he clearly didn’t care for it much. It probably stung. Then she dressed it with ichthammol, a thick antiseptic salve that does a good job of treating and protecting light wounds from getting dirty and infected. You really need to have a small tub of it around at all times. A few “good boy” treats and off he went to find new trouble.
It looks worse here than it does in person. It’s not a deep wound.
So next up comes the detective work. As responsible horse owners, we must try to figure out what caused this problem. I realize horses seem to spend their lives trying to find new ways to kill themselves; they’re mischievous, it’s true. But we have to keep trying to avert disasters of all sizes. So we run down a list of suspects:
Something in his stall. Nails, gate bungs, etc.
Barbed wire fence. We still have some that needs replacing.
Pine trees. A large one has fallen in the pasture and needs removing.
Horse fight. Not likely, given the length and shape.
Old barn or fence. Sometimes used as a scratching post.
So we start in the barn. Romeo’s stall has a large gate so we checked for sharp bungs or edges and found none. I remembered taking photos of Romeo the day before and discovered this very same wound on him then, though for some reason it didn’t stand out then. So it may not have happened in his stall which leaves 7 acres or so of partially wooded property to review.
I’ll make a long story short by saying that we haven’t yet found out what caused the wound but some quick checking didn’t reveal any standouts. My guess is that he really wanted a piece of grass that was hard to get to and scraped his head on some old barbed wire (which we really have to replace with something more horse-friendly) or around a fallen pine tree that came down in a recent storm. But the fact remains that the case is still open and our detective skills, better with time and experience, are called upon often to solve horse mysteries like this.
What kind of mysteries do you have to solve that require your horse detective hat?
I came across this scene when checking Moonshine’s water recently. It’s so much tail hair that it took me a few seconds to realize what must have happened. Horses this time of year really swish their tails around to keep the flying insects away. Moonshine must have been a little too close to her water bucket this time and when she pulled away, the tail hair got stuck under the hanger. What happened next, I can only guess. Either she panicked and it happened fast or it happened slowly. I’m not sure which would be more painful but I would bet pulling this much hair out of your tail hurts either way. Ouch!
One of the things I neglected to mention about our daily summer routine is leaving the stall doors open. The main reason for doing this is so our free-range chickens can feast on the bugs that lurk beneath all that fertile ground. We’ve had chickens for a few years now and have found them completely compatible with horse life. In all the time we’ve never had problems with them not getting along. For the most part, our chickens and horses don’t spend a lot of time together. Horses have the night shift in the barn and chickens have the day shift. Every once in awhile a chicken will still be in a stall when a horse goes in. This results in either a lot of squawking, followed by a chicken flying out of the stall on its own (they can actually fly a little) or the chicken just hangs out scratching around the stall, peacefully coexisting with a horse until it’s done munching bugs.
They do an amazing job of keeping bugs down all around our place and keep the stalls from getting too compacted by using their large, strong feet and claws to scratch several inches of dirt. They’re especially good at digging around the edges. That must be where the good bugs are. When they start digging too far down around the foundation of a support beam, we just push dirt back with our boots.
Putting out hay takes a little more time. Although our chickens have a regular roosting spot and house (a moveable one we built called a chicken tractor), sometimes one is missing for a few days. When we put hay out we usually find the reason she was missing. Apparently, hay makes a great nest! We just need to be careful we don’t squish any eggs when we’re moving bales.
So if you’re considering chickens, chances are they’ll be compatible with your horses. They’re a lot of fun to have around and it’s nice having a regular supply of fresh eggs. We’ve found ours to be winter-hardy here in east Tennessee as long as we provide a regular source of food and water and ample bedding. And you don’t need a rooster unless you want baby chicks.
Fat horses have motivated us to shift our summertime horse routine. Since Cash foundered last month, we noticed all of our horses were on the heavy side. It’s been very hot and humid so they’re not getting much exercise. We didn’t want to put grazing muzzles on all of them. Our solution has been to put them into the barn at night to reduce access to hay and grass. A nice side benefit is that we’re sure to see them twice a day to check for irregularities.
Bute. I got tablets to crush and mix into his feed like the antibiotic. The first day, no problem. I didn’t have any oats, so I used – you guessed it – Honey-Nut Cheerios. I added a bunch of molasses and some chunks of apple, and it smelled pretty darn good. I put a little Strategy in for good measure, and he ate it up! Yay! The next morning, same thing (he was supposed to get it twice a day for two days, then once a day for three). After that, he was onto me. He picks at it but never really finishes it off. Luckily, he’s feeling much better, so if he doesn’t get it all down, that’s okay. He’s still getting all the antibiotic, and that’s the important one.
