Horse Sense

Horse Sense

Horse Sense

Horse Sense

TCJpart 11 Blogging

BLOGGING:
...it's lots of fun sharing x

When I began blogging this year, it was clear to me that lots of bloggers exist to share pictures of their hobbies, rather like facebook but with horses.  Of course I want to share Tom & Henry tales with everyone not least funny stories of apple bobbing but photos of their bottoms too. Even the good blogs with some valuable advice are mostly predictable or a little preachy and for me lacked any real use as a horse-keeper. What I wanted was great helpful advice, delivered in a calm and thoughtful way, with some amusing stories along the way.  Some ways of working I could actually implement in my own yard and make the lives of my boys better therefore.

I am watching my boys, contemplating a cuppa (this is not unusual in our house).

I wanted some advice about the things all horse-keeping people have to do, and not just those training for prelim.  Tips on paddock maintenance and ragwort identification, keeping your horse happy, teaching him white flowers and sheep aren't scary, feeding and how to select the best hay, tack cleaning, rug mending, the best mounting block for tall horses (one that has a compartment for treats of course), selecting and keeping the best farrier for you, but you know the kind of things.  There are 12million horses in Britain so I hear, you can't tell me we all want a lesson with Carl Hester?   Some of us just want to amble about, be safe and enjoy being with our horses, and our horses be happy to be with us of course.

Happy xx

I was writing a book originally: documenting the bringing up of my 2 feisty youngsters: Biggleswade bred Trakehners of extreme gorgeousness:  Tom & Henry.  A document I could read years later and remember how hard some things were, when I felt alone with some of my problems, and how some seemed so insurmountable at the time.

But then I learned to look at things in a different way.......the definition of insanity:

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results: Albert Einstein.

...wise words

Otherwise some of these problems would be very difficult to get through. You might start hearing or reading phrases like: 'take some professional advice', and no one wants to hear that, because no one should know your horse as well as you do. Now of course I’m very happy with how things turned out. My boys are great, and I hardly ever fall off...hardly ever!

Without any pressure from other horse keepers, I don't feel it necessary to fit in with other ways of thinking.  I rug when I want to (which is only in extreme weather) yet my buddy gets frowned on if she doesn't rug her pony when everyone else in her yard does.

I am very lucky though, I keep them at home and have no one judging me or disapproving of what I do, no unsolicited advise, but this can also be a downside if you really need some help.  I am so lucky to have a very supportive husband John, a brilliant friend Jenny who looks after Tom & Henry when I'm away for work....

This is Tom meeting Amber: Jenny's pony,  you will note how Jenny and I 'rock' the hi-viz, we don't go out without it.

....and *‘Boob-Tube’ Lisa: a dressage champ who lives just across the lane, she’s just a hop skip and a jump away and is always there for me, good horsey friends like this are amazing, because although they don’t realise it at the time, they just are our safety net, and having them around means you feel you could move out of your comfort zone a little more each time – and that’s how we all learn. She passes on wisdom to me in a way that doesn't make me feel stupid and she taught me to do a shoulder-in!

Here Henry and I are returning from a ride with Boob-Tube Lisa riding Moose.  Moose is more than 20 years old, but certainly doesn't look it or behave like it, and at the push of a button (a totally invisible ask from Lisa)  will travers (haunches in), renvers (haunches out so she tells me) or passage (a movement in trot with an extended moment of suspension).  - he has not forgotten!

*I have 2 friends called Lisa (hence the nicknames): Boob-Tube: my dressage friend neighbour, always wears a boob-tube, even while riding (well her Prix St. Georges seat is so fantastic she can do a sitting trot in a strapless bra!!), she has older boys who have ‘taught’ my 2 a lot while we have ridden together.  Her family own half the land round our village and Lisa and her husband Lee have given me exclusive access to ride on the land, and this is my favorite ride – thank you xx

So I decided to approach things in my own sweet way,  training horses has been well documented and implemented more or less unchanged for centuries, but some of those ways of working didn’t gel with how I am with my boys.

I prefer to ‘ask’ instead of tell, I am of the opinion that teamwork is better than dictatorship, things just get resolved rather than ignored under an umbrella of fear, and that’s how I operate.  Some of my more ‘traditonaly’ trained friends have adopted some of my techniques and this it a great feeling since I just do things the way I’d want to be treated if I were a horse – nice & simple, and lots of treats, though obviously for me it would be a curry.

So this blog is about new solutions to some common problems, you might find some useful information there to teach your own horse things, I have tried to approach it in a ‘this is how I did it’ way, ultimately I just want all horses to be treated better and kinder.

Keep riding safe and relaxed.  I don't ever tie mine up, they just stand still in the yard and wait patiently for me to groom, tack, untack, hoof pick, leg hose....everything (unless it's windy - then nothing gets done, I chuck their dinners at them and beat a hasty retreat (for my own personal safety)).

If you have a horse that won't stand still when you get on, read how I did it with my big boy Tom: at over 17hh I needed a strategy to mount.  I remember my pony Brandy (I loved him so much).....



Brandy and John: this is Brandy's best try at standing still, he wasn't called 'Ginger Nut' for nothing!  he could jump anything, with no run-up, from a standstill.  John was later to win a rosette on Brandy in dressage: a prize given to the 'the fastest and most interesting test'

....because he was 14.1 and three quarters, I could leap on him while he wandered off (he had no patience), and it was fine. But with Tom, I need a substantial mounting base for successful foot-in-stirrup action, so standing still had to be a priority.   

And Henry with his separation anxiety, it sounds like a syndrome but horses really do miss each other as you’d expect from a creature designed and evolved with every bone in his body to be part of a group – never, ever alone.  So give your horse a break, and help him.

The boys xx

When I read letters in magazines I also makes me want to blog more, because some of the advice is a little weak:  ‘I have just moved yards and my pony can't go out because there’s no grazing in the winter and it’s driving him crazy, or: he has terrible sweet itch for the first time in my new yard, his tail is raw and bleeding...what can I do?”  well the expert answer was advice on sweet itch potions and stable toys:  mine would have been “if the new yard doesn’t work for your horse – MOVE HIM. Simple’. We all have a sacred duty to our beloved horses, to do the right thing for them, always, just because a new schedule might suit you more, you MUST always think of him, he’s stuck with whatever regime you have put him in, please, don’t be selfish.

Keep it simple: horses want very few things to be happy: grass, freedom to move, water, shelter, companionship of their own kind and above all safety.

No matter what people tell you, or how much they believe because they’ve convinced themselves it’s true: no horse would rather be in a stable than outdoors with his mates munching grass and relaxing. We stable horses because of our own agenda, not theirs. The exceptions to this of course are if they’re sick or injured and there for safety, but these are necessary tactics to healing and not a way of life. All horses are better off mentally and physically outdoors.  So find a place for your horse to live as naturally as possible.  Move yards if necessary.  You will need to do more brushing, but that’s a small price to pay for your friend being happier and healthier, and the money you’ll save on bedding....new jeans or a handbag (or both)??! Easy.

They are very interested in chickens, and in this photo they are making their way to the fence between us and next door to have a stare.

So, this is a quick update from me, and where this journey has taken me:

Tomorrow I have the photographer from HORSE magazine coming to take photos of me riding my boys around my village, as part of a safety piece I have been working with them on.  How did that happen? I got involved, for the sake of my boys.  I want everyone non-horsey to understand about road safety where passing horses is concerned, and I have written a blog dedicated to it: horseandcycle.blogspot.com  it’s all about surviving out there, so lets all be safe.

TCJpart 10 Worming

WORMING:
...or not?

I used to worm every 13 weeks regardless (like everyone did), whether my boys needed it or not, because this was the way it was always done.  I hated doing it too, because it was a bit stressful to do (those syringes should be fatter and shorter so they can fit better in your hand) But in the last 4 years, I have done wormcounts with Westgate Laboratories:

I poo-pick twice a day.  I have a full-time job in London, so I figured doing it more often and taking only a few minutes each time was the best way for me.  Little did I consider this was actually a brilliant way of keeping the worms at bay! Because since I now have a window into the gut health of both my boys, where worms are concerned, I haven’t needed to worm them at all in that time.

Poo-picking gives you time to spend with your horse, when there's no agenda to perform from either side.  Just you and your horse, time to scratch his itchy bits or just have a cuddle.

Both Tom & Henry have, at different times, had a less than 50 egg count in their sample (which naturally I’m mortified about), now this means very, very low, and as these have happened in Autumn each time, I have taken the opportunity to worm them both (always do them at the same time, just in case), to cover tapeworm too.  Tapeworm eggs rarely show up in a worm count, this needs to be done by your vet via a blood test. Not surprisingly I decided this was just as costly and stressful as worming them…so that’s what I do.

I collect small amounts of their droppings; I actually hover about after dinner to catch them fresh from each horse, put them into the little boxes provided in the pack Westgate send me. And post it straightaway (it has to be fresh).

Within 2/3 days an email with the results comes in. Voila!

  And if you need your results translated, you can call the helpline for advice: it really couldn’t be simpler.

www.westgatelabs.co.uk

Go onto their website, and see if can suit you too.

Horse Sense

Horse Sense

Horse Sense

TRAKEHNERS CAN JUMP part 9

FEEDING:
...it's a minefield, here I'll try to make it simple, that's how it should be.

What to feed your horse can be a very tricky affair.  There are so many new feeds about all claiming to be the thing that’s been missing from your horse’s diet. But I believe in keeping feeding as easy as I can.

Tom enjoying ad lib haylage

I thought hard and researched long before finally coming up with a plan for Tom & Henry.  I considered very carefully many factors: size, age – they were still growing and developing, warmbloods (like mine) are slow developers, often they don’t finish growing until they are 8! 

Super safe rubber buckets made from recycled car tyres

Breeding, level of work and fitness and – this is something the magazines sometimes leave out…what would my horse choose to eat or what types of forage would they want to eat in the wild?

 

My boys are fit and healthy and in very good condition and get all the ‘stuff’ they need from a very simple bowl of dinner:  firstly they get ad lib HorseHage HIGH FIBRE – and I really mean they get as much as they can eat, fresh every day, they never run out.  

Weighing hay nets is all very well (and messy and boring), but if you think about how much time your horse would spend munching in the wild – about 18hours a day (that’s more than a Rand even!), they need enough nosh to give them this stimulation – while they are eating they are happy and content, and being a horse.  Some people might worry about this strategy, especially if their horse is overweight or prone to Laminitis, but if you cut down on all the cereals you have been using for years without much thought to change, you can plan a much larger percentage of you horses diet to be forage - it's so much better for them (and their tummies). So plan to feed your horse hay or haylage for the time it will last rather than how much it weighs. And soaking your hay will decrease the sugar level too, so ask a nutritionist to help you plan a forage heavy diet.

They even eat the old stuff out of the bin!!! So embarassing.

Even in the summer, when there are 3 acres of very nice grass for them to eat, they come into their stables for a couple of hours a day and eat hay. 

The ultimate length for grass for horses is 2.5cm tall, horses often graze on pasture sewn for cattle, this is longer and may not have some of the herbs a horse pasture mix of grass seed would have.

So I leave hay out for them all year round – this would also explain why my grass is never eaten right down to the ground – they wander, munch, wander, munch, wander to the yard, munch some more – the more variety the better.  And HorseHage comes in a couple of flavours too – depending on the type of horse etc, there are 4 different types, some higher in fibre (that’s the one I use - blue), some higher in sugar, a timothy grass etc – so occasionally I buy a couple of bags of green or purple just for a change – and they love this.

Then they get more hay – in the form of chop – Dengie Hifi light, again you can feed loads of this to make his dinner last for ages if you use the ‘light’ version, as it has a very low sugar level, then a balancer for all the other stuff (Dodson & Horrell):

 

A hoof supplement (Equine America Hoof Power Plus: because I am obsessed with good feet, but I won’t tell my farrier because he wouldn’t approve, farriers don’t believe in hoof supplements):

 

Lots of carrots al la julienne. And in the winter they get ‘mush’: Fibre-Beet (from the Speedy- Beet people)!

 

Horses in the wild would not eat grains (they probably wouldn’t be able to get their hoofs on Dr Johnsons treat cubes either – but that’s not the point); I don’t believe horses can cope with this type of feed.  Of course in the wild they probably wouldn’t bounce about on the spot and fancy fancy side step around or jump some fences either – so we have to make some compromises – I just think the closest you can get, to as natural as you can get the better.

Henry gives grass the hoofs up!

There is lots of advice about how much food to give your horse, I’d recommend one of the help lines from a feed company like Dodson & Horrell, they helped me plan the menu here at chez Rand.  And it works a treat, my 2 are always healthy and they never run out of energy.

Apple Bobbing!

Food can be a nice game too, in the summer when it's very hot, I put a large bucket of water in their yard, they drink from it happily (I wonder whether it's because they can drink together), Henry will often stick his feet in for a paddle...but the funniest thing happened once upon a hot day.....

...and you may not know, that pears dont float, so Henry had to reach down to the bottom to get them out!

i threw some apples in thinking they'd push them about in the water and play, I did not expect what happened next...Henry of course!

Up to his eyes in it!

he bobbed for the apples! plunging his head deep into the water, up to his eyes to get all the fruit out!!!!  so funny.

Tom was amused by the whole thing and was happy sharing Henry's catch x

Don't you just love your horse?

part 10 worming...or not!