Tag: horse

New pasture for the horses.

About Michele, My Horses, On The Farm, Paradise

The neighbor behind us used to have sheep in this pasture. Unfortunately the sheep were killed by coyotes and the pasture has been farrow for a few years. I finally got a hold of our neighbor and he said I could use the pasture for our horses.

I built a little gate and let them out into the long grass. They wandered around a while looking bewildered but now they are grazing up close to our back fence. I guess they don’t want to get too far away from home.

I can’t say I blame them. I love being here myself.

Hay Thief Caught In The Act! Or maybe just a lonely horsey?

Mustang rescue project, My Horses, Uncategorized

Cheryl heard some bumping around in the barn and looked over her loft edge to see what was going on.  Honey and BaeBee were where they belonged in their stalls, but Cheryl couldn’t see Mairsiedotes anywhere.

Upon further investigation, this is what Cheryl saw:

mairsie-goofball-1

Mairsiedotes had managed to lay down with her head under the stall wall.  We can only guess she was looking to sneak some of Honey’s hay . . . or was she just lonely???

getsies-upsies

Once Cheryl caught her in the act of . . . whatever she was doing, Mairsiedotes scrambled back to her own side of the wall.

i-wasnt-doin-nothin

“Who me?  I wasn’t doin’ nothin’,” one could almost hear Mairsiedotes say.

I guess I’m going to have to add another board to the bottom of that wall before someone gets themselves stuck again!

Horsey emergency at 3am!

Mustang rescue project, My Horses

Cheryl came into my room at 3am this morning saying something was wrong with Mairsiedotes.  She was stuck under the stall wall between her stall and Honey’s and couldn’t get out.

I knew there was a gap there of about a foot high but I didn’t think any of the horses would get stuck there considering so many of the horse stalls I have seen are made of bars which do not go all the way to the floor.

I pulled on my robe and warm jacket over my thin pj’s and pulled on my boots and followed Cheryl out into the night.

Mairsiedotes was laying calmly there, belly toward Honey’s stall, all legs under the bottom wall board between the stalls, her front legs almost all the way under.  Cheryl went to her head and continued calming her while I went into Honey’s stall and attempted to bend Mairsiedots’ front legs and get them on her side of the wall.

That wasn’t going to work.  Next, I got a long 2×10 and placed the flat part under her front feet, thinking she might be able to push herself back and out from under the wall.

That didn’t work either.  Then I got the cinch from a saddle to put under her front girth just behind her front legs.  My robe and bulky jacket were getting in the way so I peeled them off and dropped them out of the way.  I had a couple lead ropes to clip onto the ends of the cinch for when we were ready to pull.  Then I squatted down and began working that cinch under her front legs.

I felt Mairsiedotes mouth on my backside as I was kneeling and bending to reach under her legs with the cinch.  “Don’t let her bite me, Cheryl!” I said quickly, coming upright, remembering her old habit of nipping when we first started messing with cleaning her feet.

“Oh, OK!” Cheryl said as she held Mairsiedotes head securely.

I don’t know if Mairsiedotes was intending any harm or not.  Most likely she was just curious about what I was doing, but I was not taking any chances.

I got the cinch under her front legs near her belly, clipped the lead ropes to the ends of the cinch, and Cheryl and I backed up and pulled.  “HEAVE!  HEAVE!  HEAVE!”  Mairsiedotes was out from under the wall.

She sprang to her feet and moved nervously around, as if she were still a bit panicky.  We gave all the horses some alfalfa treats because, after all, they all went through quite a trauma!

This morning when Cheryl got up, Mairsiedotes was all loves and hugs and kisses to her.  She was obviously giving Cheryl big horsey thank you’s in the best way she knew how.

 

I've Been Such a Hypocrite!

About Michele, Emotional Health, My Horses

This morning as Cheryl was mucking out the stalls, Bae escaped and was gorging on the lush green grass in the yard.  Cheryl was attempting to get her back in the corral but Bae was not having it.  Every time Cheryl got close, Bae’s body language was clear as she turned and moved quickly away.  She was not about to get caught and put back.

Cheryl came and got me from the house and I followed her to the back yard to see if I could catch the seemingly ravenous horse.  Bae was eating grass as fast as she could, probably swallowing some of the leaves whole so she could stuff more into her chewing mouth.  I hid the lead rope behind my back, held out an alfalfa treat, and approached her.  Surprisingly she let me pet her and put the rope around her neck.  Fashioning a make shift halter on her head, I quickly had her under control.  I pulled her head up and she pulled back.  I forced her head up. I felt like I was taking candy from a baby.  ‘Poor girl,’ I thought, ‘she is not supposed to ever have what she loves so much.’ —  Green grass is too sugary for Bae and Honey, they are both on the brink of laminitis.  Green grass to a horse in this condition is like pure sugar to a diabetic.

As I insisted, and pulled her away from her treat, I realized what a hypocrite I am.  I am not supposed to have sugar, or chocolate, or gluten, or dairy, but for the past couple weeks as I have been pushing myself to exhaustion working on the barn among other things, I have been eating whatever I wanted, especially chocolate candy bars, to rev my body up to do my bidding.  I know this is not good for me, or for my nerves, yet I continue to self destruct by binging on work and chocolate and cereal and milk and bread!

Pulling Bae away from that green grass, and seeing myself in her, greedily destroying her health, shifted something in me.  I decided if my horses have to be on a strict diet for their health, I can take care of my health too and be on a strict diet with them.  I have been on strict diets before.  I know the benefits, but slipping into binge eating for energy, and by so doing self destruct mode, is also a pattern I recognize in myself.  Today I  begin again, in earnest, to take care of my body as I take care of my horses bodies.

My daughters have been promoting the Wahls Protocol to me, which is a type of Paleo diet, so I will focus my eating attention on following this protocol.  I wrote a short book review about the Wahls Protocal earlier in my blog.  Click here to read it.

I’ve Been Such a Hypocrite!

About Michele, Emotional Health, My Horses

This morning as Cheryl was mucking out the stalls, Bae escaped and was gorging on the lush green grass in the yard.  Cheryl was attempting to get her back in the corral but Bae was not having it.  Every time Cheryl got close, Bae’s body language was clear as she turned and moved quickly away.  She was not about to get caught and put back.

Cheryl came and got me from the house and I followed her to the back yard to see if I could catch the seemingly ravenous horse.  Bae was eating grass as fast as she could, probably swallowing some of the leaves whole so she could stuff more into her chewing mouth.  I hid the lead rope behind my back, held out an alfalfa treat, and approached her.  Surprisingly she let me pet her and put the rope around her neck.  Fashioning a make shift halter on her head, I quickly had her under control.  I pulled her head up and she pulled back.  I forced her head up. I felt like I was taking candy from a baby.  ‘Poor girl,’ I thought, ‘she is not supposed to ever have what she loves so much.’ —  Green grass is too sugary for Bae and Honey, they are both on the brink of laminitis.  Green grass to a horse in this condition is like pure sugar to a diabetic.

As I insisted, and pulled her away from her treat, I realized what a hypocrite I am.  I am not supposed to have sugar, or chocolate, or gluten, or dairy, but for the past couple weeks as I have been pushing myself to exhaustion working on the barn among other things, I have been eating whatever I wanted, especially chocolate candy bars, to rev my body up to do my bidding.  I know this is not good for me, or for my nerves, yet I continue to self destruct by binging on work and chocolate and cereal and milk and bread!

Pulling Bae away from that green grass, and seeing myself in her, greedily destroying her health, shifted something in me.  I decided if my horses have to be on a strict diet for their health, I can take care of my health too and be on a strict diet with them.  I have been on strict diets before.  I know the benefits, but slipping into binge eating for energy, and by so doing self destruct mode, is also a pattern I recognize in myself.  Today I  begin again, in earnest, to take care of my body as I take care of my horses bodies.

My daughters have been promoting the Wahls Protocol to me, which is a type of Paleo diet, so I will focus my eating attention on following this protocol.  I wrote a short book review about the Wahls Protocal earlier in my blog.  Click here to read it.

Mairsiedotes Gets Some Much Needed Rest

Mustang rescue project, My Horses

When we brought Honey and Bae home, we kept them separate from Mairsiedotes because we were not sure how well they would get along, and Mairsiedotes, being only a year old, is much smaller than the older horses.  So we alternated which horses stayed in the corral and which stayed in the pasture.  This allowed them to interact through the fence without the risk of fighting.  After a while we saw the horses would prefer to stand by each other by the fence in the hot summer sun than stand in the shade away from each other, so we put them together and watched them all move to the shade.

Thepecking order was established, of course, with Honey as top mare, Mairsiedotes as second, and Bae on the bottom.  Things were all right though, until we stopped letting them into the pasture due to rain and mud.  We kept the horses in the corral because the corral has a base of hog fuel and fir shavings to keep their feet out of the mud. And we want to keep them out of the small pasture to keep the small pasture from becoming a mud pit.  Unfortunately, the small corral was not big enough for the three of them to abide peaceably together and Mairsiedotes was getting the brunt of Honey’s nips and kicks.

Knowing this problem cannot continue, Cheryl and I finished Mairsiedotes stall today so she could rest without fear tonight.

Cheryl said Mairsiedotes laid down (in her stall) for the first time since the pasture became off limits.  Then when she was done resting, she stood up and went near the other horses who were both standing near her stall wall.  They wanted to be near each other, and could interact over the short wall, but Mairsiedotes could feel safe from Honey’s picking on her.

Hog Fuel . . . What's That?!

My Horses

Hog fuel is ground or shredded cedar or fir bark.  It can be used as fuel, but is often used in turn outs for horses and other livestock in wet areas, to keep the areas from becoming mud holes.

I had six units delivered to my house yesterday morning so we could spread it in the horse turn out area.  The corral got smaller as we built the barn so I decided the little pasture, which does not have much grass in it anymore, was going to be included in the turn out area.

What is a unit?  A unit is seven and a half yards.  What is a yard?  A yard is one scoop of the shovel on a tractor, or more precisely, it is one cubic yard.

My new friend Eileen, who raised Bashkir Curlys for many years, said she used hog fuel in the turn out area for her horses.  She put the shredded bark into the designated area a foot or more deep, and it has lasted 10 years without needing to be added to.  I’m going to try it.

I would have been smart to make larger gates so the trucks could have driven into the areas and dumped the hog fuel right where I wanted it.  Instead I had them dump the hog fuel just outside the fenced area and I will have to move it.  Not too inteligente!  I hope to get some help spreading the mounds of hog fuel!

Hog Fuel . . . What’s That?!

My Horses

Hog fuel is ground or shredded cedar or fir bark.  It can be used as fuel, but is often used in turn outs for horses and other livestock in wet areas, to keep the areas from becoming mud holes.

I had six units delivered to my house yesterday morning so we could spread it in the horse turn out area.  The corral got smaller as we built the barn so I decided the little pasture, which does not have much grass in it anymore, was going to be included in the turn out area.

What is a unit?  A unit is seven and a half yards.  What is a yard?  A yard is one scoop of the shovel on a tractor, or more precisely, it is one cubic yard.

My new friend Eileen, who raised Bashkir Curlys for many years, said she used hog fuel in the turn out area for her horses.  She put the shredded bark into the designated area a foot or more deep, and it has lasted 10 years without needing to be added to.  I’m going to try it.

I would have been smart to make larger gates so the trucks could have driven into the areas and dumped the hog fuel right where I wanted it.  Instead I had them dump the hog fuel just outside the fenced area and I will have to move it.  Not too inteligente!  I hope to get some help spreading the mounds of hog fuel!