[near horse]

Thanks Bess. I couldn’t get the article to open earlier but now it worked. I feel terrible, terrible, terrible for him, his horses and his family. Hang in there Bob.

[near horse]

Highway,

Wow! That is tragic news. Even a couple thousand miles away, it still just stuns me. Is there anything we can do to help? At least an address where one could send a card or something.

Also, since I know most people here by their “list ID”, which Bob are you talking about? Was this an accident while driving his horses or while transporting them?

I hope he will be alright.

[near horse]

I think the key word used here was wastage. That’s why folks have bale feeders – and even then some will keep pulling hay out picking through for “the good stuff”. I did see a pretty cool home made round bale cutter on RFD Prairie Farm Report – cuts them right in half.

[near horse]

Hi Robert,

I did see D. Hamill on RFD introduce the “idea” of having a bit in the mouth to a mule by clipping a “stick” (like a fat dowel) wrapped w/ a piece of cloth that had some molasses on it onto the halter (obviously the stick was loosely in his mouth:D). He just let the mule stand there for awhile mouthing and getting used to having something in there. I think he was just taking a small step trying to make it not a negative thing. I don’t recall what he eventually used for a bit. Again, there are probably a lot of different ways to achieve the end result. Just thought I’d throw one in that I saw work.:)

[near horse]

I did a search on feeding haylage and/or silage to horses and got mixed results. It does appear that folks feed haylage to their horses (particularly where it is hard to get hay to cure – wet) but there are caveats. There can be some bacterial growth if not air tight fermentation that horses can’t handle.

From reading and what I do know about making silage, I would make these comments: IF you’re going to feed haylage or silage, use your senses. If it smells “bad” (like diarrhea or vomit) don’t feed it. It can smell strong (more of a vinegar odor) but that’s normal fermentation. Obviously, if there’s visible mold, chuck it. Introduce in small amounts and try keeping it to 1/3 or less of diet. Another issue comes up once you “open up” the bale or stack. You have now allowed air into the stack or at least to the surface and that can start to go bad. So, you also need to look at “feed out rate” – how fast are you feeding it? Example- a 5′ dia round haylage bale fed to 2 horses is likely to be fed too slow and thus some (or a lot) of it will be junk.

Good luck w/ the feed situation we’re all in. Sorry I couldn’t give more specific advice. Here’s a link to some papers on the subject:

http://www.dow.com/silage/tools/experts/horses.htm

[near horse]

Hi Dave,

Glad to hear that there is visible land under the snow somewhere in Idaho:( It will still be awhile before that happens up here.

With regard to feeding your animals:

1) it’s hard to believe that they are under fed if you have a 40 yr old mule that’s still alive and doing alright. You must be doing something right
2) if animals are leaving feed and walking away. Again, hard to believe that they’re starving.
3) Rule of Thumb – in cattle, maintenance (not growth) is estimated to be 2% of BW on a dry basis. Example- 1000# animal needs 20# of dry matter. Hay is about 90% dry matter so about 22# of hay for this animal. This gets much more complicated when you talk about feed quality (enough protein/energy) and even more so when you start looking at pasture (what’s their intake AND what’s the dry matter content).

While there are people that suffer from some behavioral anomaly in which they “collect” animals w/o taking care of them (think cat lady but it can be horse person), and those animals and people need help, the less people are around animals the more they seem to think they know about taking care of them:mad: Look at the level of human obesity – many folks don’t even know how to feed themselves let alone horses and mules.

The fact that you are concerned about your animals welfare is pretty good evidence that you’re looking after them just fine.

Good luck.

[near horse]

Several studies prove that a large number of horses kept in a tie stall will develop abnormal behavior.

I don’t see a problem with tie stalls any more than box stalls IF you are using and working with your horses. I have seen plenty of animals exhibiting abnormal behavior from standing in box stalls day after day. It seems to be the lack of interaction w/ others (human, horse, goat or whatever) that triggers this. Solitary confinement whether in a tie stall or box stall is still solitary confinement and extended periods under these conditions can not be good for the horse . Use them and interact with them or get rid of them – for their sake.

[near horse]

Below is an exerpt from the natural horse website. I thought it might help some.

There was an excellent post on the rec.equestrian newsgroup based on Dr. Deb Bennett’s July 1993 EQUUS article on bit fitting and severity. This page has been sourced from REC.EQUESTRIAN, the body of the text has been unaltered as far as possible. The information is for use at your own risk.

Using a bit incorrectly or using the wrong type of bit can create problems. Some of the most common are:

Avoidance of the bit.
Running through the bit.
Carriage behind the bit.
Dryness of mouth.
Overactive mouthing/chewing of the bit.

For training the green horse we use a sweet iron bit with copper inlays which has 3 inch D rings. We recommend starting with D-ring snaffle bits as opposed to loose ring snaffles because the loose ring snaffles may pinch or cut the mouth of a young horse. We want to make sure that everything we do when handling a young horse is set up for a positive experience. These bits also have enough room in the D ring for the slobber straps and headstall. Sweet iron rusts which causes the horse to salivate, the copper causes salivation too. For some reason, horses really like the taste of the rust. You may see this as ugly rust, but the horse will love it. The snaffle bit is broken or jointed in the middle, which means that it is intended to be used with both hands on the reins as opposed to a curb bit which can be used in one hand.

[near horse]

Just an interesting comment regarding horned vs. dehorned animals. I think that some of the earlier comments may ring true – particularly, cattle have dealt with it for a long time.

It can be an unfair match in muskox that have almost a helmet style horn arrangement. Those w/ horns removed can really take a beating when banging head to head – they don’t seem to realize they don’t have horns anymore.

Problems may arise if you have mixed group of species that don’t recognize threatening postures from the other groups. The example I have is back when I was a graduate student in wildlife biology, the university had some mountain goats and some mule deer together in a 10 acre pen. The goats, even w/ buttons on their horns, spar or fight standing parallel but facing opposite directions and clobber each other in the flank area. So usually when another goat would move even close to this position, the other one would move off. Deer, as you’re probably aware, don’t do this and certainly didn’t recognize the posture when it happened. The result was some surprised deer with swollen flanks until we figured out what was happening. They were then separated.

Anyway, a couple of interesting horn stories.

[near horse]

have a problem with both my horses when stopped. They are constantly throwing their heads around and rubbing them against each other. The broken snaffle bits I an using came with the horses and I wonder if what you describe might be the problem?

I have this same problem w/ my team and I kept checking and rechecking the bit adjustment (was it too tight:confused:) but can’t really notice anything. I do use overcheck reins but don’t really know how to evaluate whether that’s the problem. To confound things, one of the horses always hangs his tongue out while we’re working. Previous owner said, “oh he just does that.” They still get about their work fine but I certainly want to make it as comfortable as possible to do what I’m asking of them. Does this seem like a cheap bit problem?

[near horse]

Hey Pirate,

I don’t know anything about St. Paul saddlery but, if you and I make it to SFJ in April, there are some harness makers there w/ samples of their wares. If I recall, last time I went there was Midwest Leather and Big Sky (I might have fouled this up but there were certainly harness shops there w/ knowledgeable people on hand. Not sure if you can wait that long but just a thought.

[near horse]

I think it’s hard to correctly interperet tone of voice on a bulletin board where you can only assume the inflection used by the writer.

“Manes”
I too felt your tone to be abrasive so Carl wasn’t the only one. Regardless of your intention and possible valuable contributions, they were buried in what came across as a lot of attitude. Tone of voice is not just the noises that your throat makes – it is your choice of words and how you string them together.

I agree with a few of the previous posters – Horses have been used by man for a long time. I am pretty sure that there were some folks trying about every conceivable method of training during that time. Some gentle. Some brutal. So I would imagine, as the old saying goes, “there is truly nothing new under the sun.” It just gets recycled and repackaged and presented as new. There’s probably some ancient Mongolian horseman looking down at the Earth saying “Horse Whisperer? That was my name – Khan the horse whisperer! Kill the infidel!”

I have to ask what does this statement mean?

I have a 27yo Percheron mare in my pasture right now that will run from you in fear if you show upm enter her range of vision, in a pair of overalls

You have a 27 yr old fashion diva in your pasture? The devil wears Oshkosh.:eek:

Last, while there have been many valuable contributions to this thread I really like what Mark Cowdrey had to say (it was a long post but very practical). His pragmatism has helped put my mind at ease. Thanks Mark.:)

[near horse]

Hi Carl and others,

I remind you that education is a 2-way street – the “teacher” teaches via words, example, demonstration …. BUT the “student” must be willing to accept or at least be open to the lesson being taught. Unfortunately, the second part is not under the control of the “teacher”. So then do we just say “Screw it. They aren’t taking what I’m teaching so forget it.” No. We don’t do that with the horses and, based on your development of this site and valuable input, you don’t do that to us “greenbroke” teamsters.

As I was feeding this morning, I thought of how I feel somewhat like Donn’s new horse Connie:confused:

[Today was Connie’s first day in the woods, she started to wade off the trail, soon she was up to her waist in snow, she lay down, she looked at me as I moved a little from behind her, I gave her a second to compose herself, then she got up when I encouraged her. She stayed in the traces and was calm the whole time. I think these are the small occurrences that you are talking about Carl, that strength the trust between the animal and the person. Hopefully my steps would help get someone there who might not have all the experience to know exactly when a horse is ready for what. /QUOTE]

Sometimes us new folks can “wade off the trail” and get “up to our waist” in it. It is much easier to compose oneself, get up and calmly move forward and “stay in the traces” when we have competent, confident support that we trust. That’s what (I) we are looking for and although distance may limit the “hands on” part of the education, don’t discount how important your words of support and encouragement can be.

If we can get enough farms together who can/will offer apprenticeship/training in combination with an incubator model, then folks can come away not only with experience and knowledge but possibly a team and some infrastructure to support their future endeavor. (I acknowledge that Jason (as well as others I am not aware of) has already put many years into just such a model)

As I mentioned earlier, there was a nice piece about apprenticeships in Rural Heritage (w/ some of our DAF members in it). I’m a little confused about the “Incubator” part of your message, Carl. Can you elaborate?

Because so much of what I do is based on instinct that it is very personal. I was guided by people who learned to trust their instincts, and “taught” me to find the same thing for myself.

Carl, Instinct is how the skunk named “OUT” found his brother named “IN”. In stinked:(

More seriously, I know what you’re trying to say but humans aren’t born understanding horse behavior. Instinct would say – “Horse. Bigger, faster, stronger than me. Run away! Run away!”. You also learned from observation and experience – of horse behavior, teamsters, other animals …. and from there you had a base to build on that is now what seems to be instinctual. Just want to emphasize the importance of observation. Albeit, some folks are better at recognizing and observing than others. “Others” are often called clueless.:)

[near horse]

I agree that elephants can be dangerous – at zoos and wild animal parks, the elephant handler/keeper is considered THE most dangerous position.

[They don’t fool around, and if they mean you harm, you’re done. /QUOTE]

At least they are straight with you about their feelings.:eek:

[near horse]

I spent a bunch of time early on, visiting a few highly respected teamsters, and watched them work with their horses. This was not as important in watching what they were doing, but what they were getting out of their horses by what they were doing. I also learned a lot by watching knuckleheads, seeing what I didn’t want.

I’d gladly spend some time w/ highly respected teamsters but (not making excuses here) in this neck of the woods there seem to be more people to learn about what not to do. They can be very nice and even well intentioned but I’ve seen and heard some things that I would find intolerable in my horses. I guess it makes me feel that my horses’ issues, while still needing work, are not nearly as serious.

Kudos to many of you that I notice are in the recent issue of Rural Heritage in an article about horse logging/farming apprenticeships.

In other words playing is more fun when you have friends around than when you are by yourself. The events that we hold as a group also help excite others to keep on going, network to share info and look forward to the next gathering.

So true plowboy. The best times I have had w/ my horses are when working them with other teamsters. I guess this is true for lots of people in their endeavors – snowmobilers, campers, fishing …. all seem to come together to share the experience.

If I came back and kept repeating the same skit day after day because I didn’t know what to do next, horses will quickly realize I don’t know what I am doing.

Donn – this statement smacked me right in the head w/ a big “wakeup”! I have taught science in Jr high and HS and one of THE key factors in getting through to kids is whether they believe you know what you’re talking about. Credibility. Kids are quite good at recognizing who’s “blowing smoke”. It shouldn’t surprise me (although it did:o) that horses would be able to do it as well. I guess that’s why I come to this site – there’s plenty here to open my eyes, test my beliefs, and comfort my soul.

Thanks!

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