Questions

[rookie]

Like my post title says I have lots of questions? Number 1 shoes, to use or not to use, number 2 I have only owned warmbloods and have read alot about not feeding grain just good hay to coldbloods. Number 3 I am putting in box stalls is 12x 14 big enough? Thanks ahead of time to any answers. I hope no one minds the rookie asking so many questions! I also read a post about young people getting involved, my daughter is really excited to be getting the barn and horses she is 25 and I her mother am 49. This site is fantastic! 😀

[Donn Hewes]

Hello Rookie, and welcome. I think you will find folks more than happy to answer questions. One thing I might suggest for something like the shoe question is try the search button above. Not that folks mind answering – For most farm work most of the time horses with good feet go just fine bare foot. Bu the thing about the search is you can find a lot of old discussions about basic topics that have lots of ideas, views, and info in them. A 12 x 14 stall sounds nice. There are several threads out there about box stalls, versus tie stalls, versus loose housing. Good luck go forward and let us know if we can help. Donn

[rookie]

Thanks Donn always nice to have advice, we are very inexperienced with these big guys… but want to put in the work and hopefully have a great team one day. Will definitely use your advice with the search button!! With the barn going up next week thanks for the stall advice we couldn’t visualize it so needed some input. Won’t have pasture til next spring wanted to make sure they would be comfortable if we can get some before then. Right now just a lot of looking and discussion on what would be a good pick for us… My daughter and I are very short but have always adapted to the situation. 😉 Just trying to find a pair we would be happy with. Thanks again Donn.

[jen judkins]

Hey Rookie and welcome! I will reiterate what Donn said and encourage you to research old threads on these topics. In regard to your stall size, since you are building soon…. I have 12 x 12 stalls at my barn and the horses have free access to them. I frequently find 2 or 3 horses in 1 stall, so big horses don’t need that much room, lol.

[rookie]

Jen thanks for the welcome!! The reason for 14 x 12 is no pasture (not till next spring) and it will be a short walk to get to it!!

[Donn Hewes]

I have worked with several interns shorter than me, some as short as 5′ 2″. They have all figured out how to harness the 17′ horses. That said many folks are looking at the draft ponies to help make it easier. Point being, anything is possible. as to stalls for the winter: If you can make even temporary fencing for the winter I would build a small paddock. Anything bigger than the stalls that they can move around in. Especially when they are not working every day this little bit of room to move around helps them stay calm and relaxed.

[fogish]

Diet can be a tough one. If they aren’t working then they don’t need anything but a maintenance diet, roughly 2% of their body weight in dry matter, if it is a really cold winter they will need more. Use the body condition score to raise or lower feed amount. I am pretty sure there is a lot of info on diets for a working horse typed up directly from working teamsters. If not come back to this thread and I can pull out my NRC Nutrient Requirements of Horses and give you a ton of book information. To expand on the search topic, it’s my understanding that it is perfectly fine and acceptable to post on an old thread and bring it back to life.

[rookie]

Good idea I can use the room i will have behind the barn for a small paddock.

[rookie]

I am so impressed by the friendly people and down to earth advice. Thanks I will do more reading on diets!

[carl ny]

Drafts want a low fat, high carb grain. Also, most of them don’t need a lot unless you are working them.These days a lot of drafts don’t get worked very much,not like the old days when they were worked every day.JMHO

carl ny

PS. there’s a good thread about diet under animal health,then click on diet.HTH

[rookie]

Thanks Carl, there a lot of different ideas on diets, I’m going to read up! Geesh so many different ways to feed a horse, my dad took care of that when I was young, sadly he is no longer here for me to ask. But I called an old horse friend and his advice was to make sure I ask the person I eventually buy a horse from what keeps the horse happy and fit.
Thanks again,
Rookie

[Farnorthfarmer]

Hi Rookie, you might want to look at keeping a journal of how you do things on your farm as you gain the knowledge for future farming generations. I am in the same boat you are in. My great grandfather use to farm with horses, raised pigs etc but he passed away before i was even born if he had kept a journal it would have been a huge help to know how he fed etc in our local conditions. sadly my grandparents who farmed with him have Alzheimers and can’t remember it all, I have managed to get some bits and pieces but the loss of know how is pretty great.

[back-forty]

It was already mentioned earlier in this thread but I would also encourage you to put up a outdoor padock of some sort and let the horses be outside as much as possible. I live in central Minnesota and even witht the winters here my horses are outside the vast majority of the time. They need a good wind break and to be kept dry other than that they do fine and are much more content out of doors. Ventilation or lack there of and resulting humidity in the barn are more detrimental to their health than being outdoors.

[carl ny]

I miss spoke on my last post. You want a LOW carb. diet for draft horses.Don’t know what I was thinking,I guess that was the problem,I wasn’t thinking.

carl ny

[Billy Foster]

Hi Rookie, welcome
I have a warm blood and 2 draft ponies, all weigh between 1100 and 1200lbs. The Warm blood gets more than twice what the draft ponies do for feed. The ponies get a hand full of grain a day, just enough to get them to the barn to pay attention to me :-). I feed coarse first cut timothy/reed canary hay. I am sure others will agree the feed requirements depend on the animal and the work it is doing. I just keep an eye on their weight and feed them accordingly, I have never had a problem keeping weight on the ponies so I have not thought of feeding them much grain, I would if they were getting thin. I keep mineral blocks around for them as well.
They all live together with free access to a good size paddock (temporary rope), I will often find all three in one 12×12 stall.
Billy

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