Broken Foot = No Horse Stuff.

Broken Foot = No Horse Stuff.

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Broken Foot Pink CastSometimes I wonder if I’m meant to have horses.  Given my tendency to clumsiness, maybe not.  Here’s the latest:  On March 26, just as the days were getting warmer and the fields were getting greener, and Bill and I were looking forward to washing all the winter mud off our horses and saddling them up again, I broke my foot.  I wish I had a cool story – maybe something involving a rodeo and finally giving Moonshine her day in the sun – but the sad truth is, I slipped on a used puppy pad.  Yep, that’s it.  We have an old dog in kidney and liver failure who is a bit incontinent, so we keep puppy pads by the back door.  I hadn’t picked one up out of sheer laziness; I stepped outside, over it, to let the littlest dog out, and when I stepped back in, I forgot all about the darn thing and stepped right on it.  Turns out they’re pretty slippery.  We went to the emergency clinic (it was Saturday, of course – all emergencies happen at night or on weekends) and the PA on duty said it was just a sprain. On Monday the radiologist called and said it was definitely more than a sprain.  By Wednesday my foot was in a pretty pink cast and I was on crutches.   (After about a week on crutches I switched to a knee walker – a wheeled walker you put your knee on like a scooter. Much better than crutches!)  I wasn’t allowed to put any weight on that foot until the orthopedic doc gave me the okay on April 27 – now I can stand on it (on both feet, not just that one) but still can’t walk on it.   The doctor says at my next appointment I may get the okay to walk on it.  Two months off the foot all together.  Two months of SPRING.  What bad luck!

And you’ll note it was my right foot…no driving.  I also cannot go anywhere with uneven ground: for instance, to the barn.  I certainly can’t go into the barn with a horse, since I wouldn’t be able to maneuver out of his way if necessary.  Can’t feed them or water them or even pet them!  Poor Bill has had complete responsibility for all the farm chores all this time.  Except when he traveled on business, then my poor dad had to take over.  I never thought I’d miss feeding horses in pouring down rain, or shoveling stalls, or scrubbing buckets…but I sure do now.  I can’t wait to be on two feet again.  Even after I’m allowed to walk again, I suspect I’ll baby my foot for a while and probably won’t be riding for another month to be sure.

If any of you have broken a foot or leg, I’d love to hear your recovery story/advice.

Lucky to be alive

Lucky to be alive

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Storm Radar MapBy now you’ve heard about or experienced first hand the large and unusual storm system that raked through the south last Wednesday (4/27/11). A week ago today, we strolled outside to discover the damage caused by severe thunderstorms that went on and on from around 4 PM through midnight. Yesterday we learned that nine tornadoes were officially recorded in our small east Tennessee county alone, knocking down trees and power lines, destroying homes and barns and in some cases killing people and livestock. I’ve never seen a storm like that. It was one serious thunderstorm after another for almost eight hours straight. At one point the wind blew so ferociously my family and I grabbed blankets and pillows and took cover in the center of our house, away from windows. We’d return to that spot a few times that night, as the wind howled and local radio stations and Twitter updates warned that strong cells were approaching, hail was on the way or apparent tornadoes were on the ground and moving fast. It was scary and exhausting.

Storm Damage
A hickory tree crashed through one of our sheds, crushing our lawn tractor and other things.

It took days for us to assess the full impact of the storm. News reports showed the terrible destruction in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where we camped two weeks prior and in Ringgold, Georgia, not far from where we live and a town we frequent on trips to Atlanta. There was a lot of damage locally, too. In fact in our own back yard we lost our workshop (pictured above) when a large hickory tree succumbed to the wind and saturated ground. 45 degrees to the right of where that tree fell was the room we were in at the time. It most certainly would have crushed us. It may seem dramatic to say it but we feel lucky to be alive today.

I haven’t mentioned our horses yet because they were fine in the barn. Well, fine is a relative term. Our horses don’t seem to mind storms much except for Moonshine. I periodically peeked out the back door and saw her nervously watching and pacing in her stall. We worried about the barn but it’s the age old question in storms: Are horses safer in the barn or on their own, where maybe they could run away, if needed? We prefer them in the barn. Besides avoiding them being pelted with the over five inches of rain that fell that night, they were relatively safe from tree debris and we didn’t have to worry about them escaping through a downed fence due to fallen trees. Four of our neighbors trees fell over our fence and we lost about 20 other trees in other parts of the pasture. But the horses were safe in the barn…this time. In storms like this, horse owners have a lot to worry about.

If you have any trees on your property and don’t already have one, trust me on this – you need a chainsaw. Maybe two. For the next several days, we spent many hours clearing fallen trees with chainsaws. Sometimes one got stuck in a pinched tree, requiring the use of a second chainsaw to free it. It’s not just major storms. Trees die and fall. We may not use it often but a chainsaw is an invaluable tool at our place. You don’t want to be trying to buy one when they’re in demand, such as after a storm like this (none were to be found).

We feel for those who have lost lives, family, animals or property in the storm last week. Did this storm touch you or your family? Have you heard about any horse rescues?

Trapped by sudden storms

Trapped by sudden storms

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There was a slight chance of rain and the sky looked a little darker than usual for 5 PM but as I headed up to the barn to feed the horses I had no idea I was about to be trapped. I poured feed into buckets as the spigot was opened changing the light drizzle to a downpour. Our horses don’t seem to care about being wet but I rushed to get them in so I could remain as dry as possible. Our barn has a metal roof that seems to magnify the sound of rain so it sounds like hail. Soon the rain was followed by hail and the wind whipped through the open center aisle as I took cover in the hayloft. I wasn’t going anywhere. Fortunately, the storm lasted only 10 minutes which gave me time to think about how often this happens to me in east Tennessee. We sure get a lot of rain here. I learned a long time ago to always bring a phone but no one could hear me over that racket so I resorted to texting to let my family know where I was. And then I just sat there and watch the rain and muddy torrent of water rush down our hilled pasture. I need to work on erosion control.

Pasture erosion after storm

Of course, I also needed to put out a few round bales of hay so once the rain stopped, I hopped into our tractor and made my way downhill in the newly slick mud. Interestingly I had almost no control in two-wheel drive going downhill. I know the key is to keep moving (though not too fast) but the front tires acted like snowmobile skids. Going uphill was no possible in 2wd, even with the rear axle locked (so both tires would spin at the same time). If you like in a place with clay soil and some elevation, don’t let anyone try to convince you that you only need a 2wd tractor. We use 4wd in our tractor very often. For more information about that, click the 4wd tag on this post.

Have you been trapped in your barn or shed by storms like this?

Do not feed grass clippings to horses

Do not feed grass clippings to horses

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One of my happy chores in spring is cutting grass. Finally, it greens up, making our yard look alive and cutting it brings memories of summer rushing to my mind. It’s a happy, alive kind of feeling. Our horses feel it too, judging by the audience they give me when I’m cutting grass next to the pasture fence.

It’s tempting to feed cut grass to horses but don’t do it!

A sad lesson

I let the grass grow a little too long this time so I ended up with lots of grass clippings everywhere and I could tell the horses coveted the lush piles of freshly mowed fescue. It would have been so easy for me to scoop armfuls and throw it over the fence but I remembered an article Mikki found years ago that talked about the dangers of feeding horses cut grass. It mentioned the story of a woman who came home one day to find her horse had colicked and died as a result of eating grass a well-intentioned neighbor threw into her pasture. How sad for the neighbor and how devastating for the horse owner.

Why grass clippings are bad

But why is cut grass bad for horses? It doesn’t seem to make sense, since they eat mostly the same grass on the other side of the fence and the hay we feed is just cut and dried grasses. But even though the grass may technically be the same variety, it’s not the same as a fresh mouthful in your pasture or hay that’s been properly cured. The issues:

  • Grass from your lawn may contain fertilizers or anti-weed (herbicide) or anti-insect (pesticide) chemicals that should not be consumed by horses.
  • Recently cut grass doesn’t dry uniformly, leaving wet clumps that can ferment and grow mold and mildew. Microbes introduced this way can cause colic in horses. Unlike lawn clippings, hay grass is tetted and sometimes re-tetted (spread out evenly in a thin layer) and dried/cured in the field before baling.
  • A mouthful of small cuttings may be quickly consumed by a horse. The small, wet clumps can compact and stick in a horse throat. Hay or fresh grass is chewed in manageable amounts.
  • The horse digestive system works best with consistent feeding. It adapts well but not quickly (as in day-to-day). Sudden shifts can lead to digestive problems and laminitis.

There may be more reasons but that list is enough for me. I’ve read several comments from horse owners online who say they feed grass clippings to their horses all the time without negative results but I’ve also read several who experienced colic, laminitis and death. With all of the potential negatives, why risk it?

It wouldn’t hurt to kindly mention to neighbors that feeding anything outside of a horses regular diet could kill them. Some horse owners even put up signs on their fences, which seems like a good idea. Most of us can’t monitor our pastures all of the time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you had a bad experience with grass clippings and horses?

Horse Trailer Near Miss

Horse Trailer Near Miss

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A friend of ours had a scary near-miss with a horse trailer yesterday. Driving down an interstate highway headed back home from a barrel race, she was suddenly shocked to see a car racing towards her truck at a high rate of speed…on the wrong side of the highway. Luckily there wasn’t a car in the next lane.  She was able to swerve out of the way just in time. She said it seemed like the car barely missed hitting her horse trailer. Later it was reported that the highway was shut down to apprehend the driver, who at times was driving at an estimated 90 mph. Unfortunately no further details were available. Can you imagine? Things can happen so fast! For sure, no one was expecting a wrong-way driver on the interstate that day.

I’m not sure what to take away from this as a learning experience other than to try to always pay attention to your surroundings and to always think of a way out, just in case.

Do you have any harrowing horse hauling stories to share?

Snow and horses

Snow and horses

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Cash in SnowI bet many of you experienced some winter snow these past few weeks. In east Tennessee where we’re not accustomed to much snow, we enjoyed a rare white Christmas, with about 5 inches of snow falling and then sticking for a few days. We’ve mentioned before how much our horses love snow (January 2009 horse play) and of course our horses played and rolled in it like a bunch of very big kids. We brought them in at night since they were wet by then and the temps were in the mid 20s and it seemed like a good idea to keep their feet out of snow and ice for part of the day. Of course when we finally let them out the next morning, they bolted from the barn.

The picture above is of Cash. It’s HDR so the colors are blown out a little but it illustrates nicely how dirty he gets. That reddish white you see is supposed to be as white as the snow in the background but if you have white horses, you probably know how that goes.

Did you see any horses playing in the snow?

By the way, happy new year!

How to Poop Like a Horse

How to Poop Like a Horse

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A stick figure cartoon about the different ways our horses poop in their stalls:

How to poop like our horse Valentine
How to poop like our horse Moonshine
How to poop like our horse Cash

As illustrated by the least artistically capable person in my house (me).

Okay, your turn. Tell us how your horses poop.

Mud abatement, Part 3

Mud abatement, Part 3

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MudThird in a series of posts about our efforts to reduce mud around our horse barn and in our pasture. In this post we reveal an inexpensive solution that seems to be working.

It’s late fall and the green grass is now brown.  Soon rain will come frequently and the temperature will drop. Fall has been in the air and my thoughts are turning to winter mud. I’m amazed at how much less mud there is in the summer because the longer, warmer days are more effective at drying and there is a lot more vegetation. But most of this has died off and we’re starting to face inches of the gooey mess. But not so much in front of our barn anymore.

A little background:

Mikki wrote about our barn entrance mud a while back. To get a visual, you need only to view our 2010 Winter Mud video or the one about why we needed a 4×4 tractor. A few years ago we posted on some forums, asked around and although we mostly found pessimism that the problem could not be solved, we did get the following suggestions:

  1. Concrete or asphalt blacktop
  2. Sand
  3. Drain tile
  4. French drain

An idea that worked

The least expensive of those was sand. We had some success with it back in 7/07, but that was a limited test. This time we went bigger. Beach or river sand isn’t very common here but something called manufactured sand is. It’s created by crushing limestone and looks like gray dirt. So we paid $175 to a local dump truck driver to dump 2.5 tons of manufactured sand at the entrance of our barn. This was before our tractor so we spent a weekend spreading this stuff around with shovels and a rake. Boy were we tired the next day! But it worked. That was about a year ago and despite a lot of rain throughout the four seasons since, the area where we spread this manufactured sand doesn’t clog up with water and doesn’t stick to shoes and hooves like the clay beyond it.

Beyond the barn

This solution will only work for us in limited areas where there is high horse traffic. Now that the barn entrance area has less mud, we’ll next spread it on a path up the hill (to keep the tractor from making a muddy mess when driving up the hill) and around the round bale feeders.

I’d like to try some of the other ideas above for the rest of the pasture, particularly the French drain or drain tile. An example of a French drain is below and a drain tile system is similar, but less fancy (no gravel – just bury a perforated pipe in a trench and cover with soil). I’m not sure how well they’ll work with clay. This stuff is so non-porous, I think we could make cups and bowls out of it.

French Drain
French drain system

The most obvious solution for the rest of the pasture is to plant grass. We’ve done this with a seed drill (more on this later) but since the entire pasture is open all of the time, the horses just walk all over it and eat the grass as soon as it sprouts up. What we need to do is create paddocks and practice rotation. A portion of the pasture at a time would be off limits for a year or more while the grass grows roots and thickens. We could feed round bales of hay for a year or longer if needed. Even on our small property, the fencing could get expensive, though. We’re considering using Electrobraid or similar electrified flexible fence that could be installed less expensively than wood.

We’ll let you know as we make more progress in our mud abatement effort. Please drop us a note if you’ve found something that works for you or if you have a question.

The entire mud abatement series:

Mud Abatement, Part 1
Mud Abatement, Part 2
Mud Abatement, Part 3 (this post)

November 30, 2018 update

I can’t believe it’s been 8 years since I wrote about this. A comment on the post reminded me that it’s time for a quick update.

The application of manufactured sand to the barn entrance from the pasture did the trick alright. 8 years later and it’s mostly still in place. We’ve lost a little to erosion (we still need to install a drainage pipe. A small stream runs near this area when it rains hard) but it’s not the muddy mess we had when we started. The horses congregate here because the water trough is located nearby.

Mud abatement test visual
Before and after manufactured sand addition, both shown on rainy days. Still a little muddy but much better!
Fence building – replacing barbed wire part 1

Fence building – replacing barbed wire part 1

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Barbed wire is bad for horses. Today we began replacing it. We’ve spoken of the dangers of barbed wire before. The biggest problem seems to be that horses get tangled in it when no one is looking and can end up seriously wounded. We know people whose horses have died this way.  The property we’re on has a mix of wood fence and barbed wire and was probably used a long time ago for cattle. We plan to replace all of the barbed wire at some point but as you can imagine, the cost would be pretty high on a property this size (7+ acres of pasture). So for the visible areas, we’re continuing with a three board wooden fence, electrified as necessary on the top row. For the rest of the pasture, we’ll probably use something inexpensive but effective like Electrobraid.

Horse Fence WalkthroughSince Pop and Granny moved in on property adjacent to the pasture, it made sense to replace this fence first. So we started by selecting a spot for a walk-through gate. Normally this would be in the shape of a V but we’re building a hybrid version in the shape of a U. Basically it’s wide enough for a human to slide through but not a horse. If built right, you don’t need to open and close anything because the horses won’t fit in. From here, we’ll replace a section at a time until all of the barbed wire between the two properties is gone.

Today was nice and mostly warm, in the upper 60s and dry so there were no concerns about the concrete we’re using on our fence posts setting and drying. We used an auger (post hole digger for a tractor) on the Kubota that saved us a lot of work. Augers don’t seem to work well in clay soil so what might take a minute or two in Missouri takes twenty or more minutes in east Tennessee. But it beats digging by hand!  Taking the advice of someone who build a lot of fences, we covered the part of the pressure treated 4x4s we used as fence posts in roofing tar paper in an attempt to keep moisture and dirt away from the wood. It’s cheap and easy to do and we’re hoping it will add life to the posts.

As with any project, especially one where learning is involved, it’s taking longer than we expected but we’re getting better at it with each post we stick in the ground. By the time we’re done, we’ll be fence installation experts!

I’ll show before and after pictures in an upcoming post.