Horse Sense

Worming

WORM CONTROL:
and why we shouldn't panic!

There's a minefield of information regarding the worming regime of horses, and how you choose your own strategy depends entirely on your horse and how he is kept.

 

  

A large yard, for example is likely to have it's own shedule which you'll likely follow, and how that treatment manifests depends on the enlightenment of the yard manager and how much 'work' is required, because regular poo-picking acres of land grazed by twenty horses or more, takes an agonisingly long time.

 

People, like me, who keep their horses at home have other problems, with no organised plan to follow we must develop our own strategy.

 

Of course your vet will help, my own vet practise will send you a detailed year planer with exactly what worm to target at a given season and the precise chemical needed to treat it, they'll even send you the wormers in a timely fashion to deliver their strategy.

 

 

BUT, this may not suit everyone's own philosophy or horse, and if like me you prefer a less invasive approach then worm counting is for you.

I poo-pick twice every day regardless of the weather. 




This keeps my pasture in brilliant condition, thats aproximately 20 poos every day for Tom & Henry,. 

I send T&H manure samples to a lab periodically without fail, and the lab I use: Westgate even email me a reminder, which is brilliant.

 

Now obviously there are things wormcounts don't tell you about, and repeated 'no eggs seen' can only give you a partial window of your horses gut health.
 

 

And though always happy with these results, I am also aware of the parasites it can't tell you about:   like encysted small redworm larvae or tapeworm, so every few years I worm them with an oral gel paste in Winter and Spring containing moxidectin and praziquantel.  as I have just done this week (3rd week November), and the next Spring dose will be 13 weeks from that date.
 

 

The boys don't much like being wormed, and they sulk once it's done it puts them off their food for 5 minutes, and generally they have loose droppings the next day too, then they are back to normal again.

 

another job done.

 

 

 

a Forage Based Diet

HAYLAGE & A LITTLE CUNNING:

... with a little thought, you can turn your horses hay or haylage supply into the other  'real' meaning of forage: to seek for food.

 

...and you know: Tom & Henry just love to munch.

 

Here Tom & Henry are enjoying the new layout of their forage, they are foraging, and strangely I have noticed they prefer the nets on their right side, how strange?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I had to buy more nets of course, I dont like them so only had 2, but as long as safety is guaranteed, I support thier use here, because I can see how handy they can be.  But I wont ever tie one up where it can get loose, or they can get caught up in it.


It's always worth remembering all horses arent the same: Henry can jump clean over his stable door, so geting caught in a net is childs play for him, so be careful with your own horse, even if he's not as 'athletic' as mine!

 

 

As you know, Tom & Henry eat their ad-lib haylage from Haybars: there's 2 in their yard, brilliantly customised by John to fit on a straight edge, (Haybars are a corner unit), and the other 2, one in each stable. 


These are filled twice daily with fresh haylage and the boys are just crazy about this arrangement, because they can wander between the grass and 4 separate hay sources.

 

 As you will also know, Tom & Henry have been brought in at night already because of the saturated ground here in Essex and my serious aversion to any more mudfever, so they are forced to spend time indoors, and I can only imagine how boring that must be once you've wandered around a few times and had a nap.

Horses need to eat, they eat for about 18 hours a day (almost the same amount of time cats need to sleep!). 

They eat to stay healthy both physically and mentally, to generate warmth and keep their guts in tip top condition,  of course the idea is they wander in equal measure too, which is why you'll rarely catch a wild horse overweight, he has to work for his living.  But it doesn't have to be a bore.

So I decided to hang some nets outside their stables, and they are crazy for this plan.  They now have three places to choose from to 'forage' for their forage, horses love this, plus it's safe because the nets are outside and less messy too (which the butler likes).

 

I came home early today from work so I was able to take photos in the daylight, normally it's dark when I put them indoors.

 

Try this with your horse, he'll love it!



T&H recommended x


 

Tom

WHEN SHELLEY MET TOM:
22ndJuly2006.
He took my breath away, of course I was already in love with Holme Grove Constable.

 

 

 

Tom was born 14th April 2002, 3.50am bay colt: here he is as a foal, with his Mum HGCopelia.

 



Henry

WHEN SHELLEY MET HENRY:
22thJuly2006.
Love at first sight.  Holme Grove Gwygion was five years old.

A character already.

 

Henry was born 16th March 2001, 7.30pm bay colt: here he is two.

 

 



Horses don't Nest

...it all started with Brandy: 'Ginger Nut'. In his twenties in this picture, I loved him so much.  The same age as me, he died when I was 26.

WINTER:
HAYLAGE&BEDDING

In the old days, we used bales of soft golden straw to bed our ponies down for the night, teenagers in love with their shaggy show jumpers, we'd have done anything for them wouldn't we?  Their beds were very deep and had banks, pony-club style all round the edges, and we never really knew why, it was either something to do with getting stuck in the stable, or was it to stop draughts!? We just did it because that's just what everyone did, no question.

  

Of course many of our ponies developed coughs, depending on how much turn-out time our DIY  livery yard would allow, and mine was in for 7 months and out during the day, in at night only the rest of the year.  We didn't know better, we all just did what everyone else did. 

 

Luckily, at the time my pony Brandy (here being 'ridden' by John) had a cough, HorseHage was available, and I was the first on my yard to buy it, now everyone I know uses a haylage from one source or another, and you don't hear yards of coughing horses anymore do you? 
 

And we're all getting much better at feeding off the floor or using Haybars instead for a more natural feeding position.  because it lets fluid containing nasties drain away. Thank goodness we are so much better advised, thanks to horse magazines, our knowledge isn't simply passed on wrong advice from yardees or people who think they know it all, magazines are here to help, written by people who DO know stuff.

 

 

Then we all changed to wood chips because straw was thought of as bad, we got them wherever we could, there weren't many places to buy speciality horse&pony type wood chips, but if you travelled around, you could find some.

 

So  then we had a new dilemma, how do we make a soft snugly bed fit for our best friends: our ponies,  so they'd have the cleanest, tallest, snugliest bed on the yard?  The answer was, we couldn't treat our stables the same way ever again, and our ponies really didn't mind...why?

 

 

Because Horses don't nest.

 

By and large, if a surface is quite dry and safe a horse can sleep on it.  We make our beds because all the while we're sprinkling the 14 times dust-extracted, dust-free, lemon scented wood chip down we're thinking, would I like to sleep on this aren't we?  Well horses don't need hypo-allergenic togg20, orthopaedic bedding! they are horses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time of year, Tom & Henry are usually still out, and actually last year they didn't come in at all at night even, but then we got mud-fever, and we're NOT going through that again!
 

 

Its very very wet here, so to keep my boys feet in tip-top condition, and not standing soaking wet for 24 hours a day, I have just brought them in at night.  thus I have been thinking about bedding and haylage.

   

When they come in I bring their beds all the way forward to the doorstep of their stables, so they don't stand all night with their arses in the air! 



It's about 5cm deep with a clean sprinkling of BedDownExcel shavings.  Its smells nice, but again, this is just for me since I'm certain the boys are only interested in what goes in their buckets and haybars!

 

They don't have a deep bed at all, just a couple of inches beneath the clean sweet smelling surface is the rubber matting John installed before they got here, I wish I'd have had this when Brandy was alive.









Then John installed anti-cast strips all round their walls, about a metre from the floor (depending on the height of your horse), 10cm wide strips of rubber (John used off-cuts from doing the floor), screwed to the wall, and skid marks ending at these strips mean they really work too, it just gives their hooves something to grip on.

 

Tom & Henry are eating 1-2 bales of HorseHage daily and at night I hang a net outside their stables too.

(I hate haynets, they're not only dangerous, but all that reaching and pulling with his nose in the air isn't natural, and probably bad for your horse too, not to mention he probably gets quite frustrated getting the hay out, especially if this is his only source of feed), but with a small amount local haylage in a net: HaySoft in it just for variety, I think it's ok. 

They love this haylage, and it now comes in 3 easy to use chunks per bale. and they love this arrangement too, they can look out, chat and eat, what could be better?  I swap the sides each night too so they don't get bored or use only one side of their necks.
 

  

Tom&Henry have never had a cough, our new modern ways of working have made certain of that, and they don't have to wade through a deep bed full of dust spores either, it's all very simple and as natural as possible, except being in the stable, but until my vet can give them an injection against mud-fever, I'm taking precautions!

 

 happy winter xx

 

 

 

who's picture is this then?

NOVEMBER 'HORSE' MAGAZINE:
...and look who we found inside!!!

...just incase you don't recognise the models: it's me riding Henry and John on his bike!

TCJpart100 Natural Insulation

HEALTHY COATS:

...and why it's very important to make certain it's not just your horses' internal health and fitness that are functioning well going into the cold weather, his coat needs to be in prime condition too.  






For thousands of years before humans 'persuaded' horses to work alongside them, long before horses got stored indoors (for our benefit not theirs), or had blankets and rugs on, horses managed to survive extreme weathers with just their natural hair insulation to keep them warm or cool.

This is an observation I made watching Henry during the very hot few days we had in August, his coat was standing you can see in the photos John has taken.  It is  exactly as it's does when he is cold and needs to trap the warm air from his body for insulation.  

This time he was protecting his body from the heat and cooling himself down.  

I noticed it because Henry's Trakehner brand was visible, and you can hardly ever see it, Tom's yes, but never Henry's.  So I wondered why, and that's when I noticed his hair all standing to attention, releasing the warm air and keeping his body at a comfortable temperature. Fascinating.

Special December Horse Edition

FAMOUS:
Tom & Henry, Essex based Trakenhers of extreme gorgeousness :
Tom:Holme Grove Constable
Henry: Holme Grove Gwygion
Bred in Biggleswade.
Kept in the lap of luxury.

TCJpart99 Voyeurism

VOYEURISM:

...and how, watching Tom & Henry is addictive, entertaining, amusing, terrifying, hilarious, stressful, calming, beautiful and above all lovely...xxx

...I can watch them from our cottage and from my laptop at work, it's a great set-up, and for that I thank John...he does a lot more than take all the photos!!