Newer baby!

I was talking to my friend this morning, the one that has the Canadien horses, and here's what she found in her pasture this morning!

It's a boy! light chestnut with flaxen mane and tail. He is only minutes old on the picture. We had expected the mare to foal any day for about 3 days and she really made us hold our breath! She has a lot of milk, she could've raised two babies easily, but I know the risks of that!

This is the 6 yo mare that I have trained to saddle. Unfortunately, she is suffering from moon blindness and has nearly completely lost her vision and probably will be completely blind one day. :( (What is it with blindness in horses!!???)

He will be registered under the letter "X" since this is breed requirements for this year. His name will be Xanthe which means blond or fawn in latin. It also is an asteroïd, which is following in the outerspace theme since his mom's name is Lune (Moon) and his sister is Stella (Star) and Xanthe was also Achilles horse in Greek Mythology following his dad's theme whose name is Paygaze (Pegasus, who is Poseidon's horse in Greek Mythology)... so this name is perfect for him! I don't know why all of this is linked to one name, but it has so much meaning for this little guy!

I can't wait to see this new little face! He was born at 4:30 am on April 30, 2010. He should be just like his dad... who looks like this... he is green broke to ride and is very calm.

Plans for the weekend

I don't really know what I'll do this weekend. I would really like to take Dandy for a ride and I would really like to start Misty (the new gal) on her lead training. You'll say... well, work Dandy on Saturday and train on Sunday. But they are calling for rain pretty much all weekend. Last time I checked, there was a slight chance that it'd be sunny on Saturday. I don't want to over train Misty, but I don't know how long it'll take before she understands the pressure thing.

I might have time to slip in a ride too... we'll have to wait and see. I also want to take pictures of the new girl and the calf and all the horses and cows, since I usually take pictures every month and that my last ones date from winter. I also have Dandy's back feet to trim, but they are maintaining good shape, so I'm in no hurry. While I trim them, I might as well touch up the fronts.

Misty would also have to get trimmed, but she is in no state of mind to do so... I might as well go stand in traffic and hope not to get hit... my chances of survival would be pretty near the same.

Her feet aren't cracked and seem tolerable for her, she has nice movement and a trot to die for! I will try to take video of her moving as well.

I hope it won't rain. We also have a ton of things to do on our fields and to maintain the farm in general. I'll try to split the tasks between my SO and I, so I can have time to work the horses and he can work on the fields. Oh yeah, and Peg's shoes need to be pulled... well, I think, they were in very good shape last week so I decided to leave them on. I hope she remains sound without them. She has one bad leg, the other one has changed dramatically since the shoes are on. I will check her feet regularly when the shoes are pulled.

I can't wait until most of the work to seed our fields is done... but then it's going to be hay cuttin' time and baling... we might get some weekends off in between... I want to break the filly to saddle and get as much work done on her before winter... and she'll probably get a few rides in winter too! I hope all that training goes well... I was never worried like that for any other horses that I've trained or worked with... she's aggressive!

We'll start with one thing, and that's the lead rope, then I want to touch her all over, probably with the aid of a stick or whip to extend my arm as to not get kicked. Why did I get myself an unbroke filly!?!?!?!??! The price was right and it's a really well bred and nice horse, but is it worth it?!? I'll have to tell you in a few months...

New Baby!

We have a brand new white calf at the farm! Nabisco finally gave birth last night. We don't know yet if it's a boy or a girl, we haven't been able to get close enough and I don't want to get hit by those horns! We'll probably handle the new baby more this weekend to tag and check him. I hope it's a heifer!

I am happy that it is white because here, in Ontario and Quebec, Canada, white cows or bulls are worth much much more than red, brown or black cattle. I can't explain why exactly, but it's just the way it is. When we bought our steer for butchering purposes... we paid much more for the beige / white one than for the red one and they only had about 100 lbs difference in weight, but we paid about 0.10 $ a pound less for the red! Plus the white one turned out to be the nastiest, most aggressive thing on four legs! I've seen calmer bulls!

If it's a heifer, we'll keep her and she can give us more white babies down the line. If it's a bull, we'll castrate him and probably keep him for meat. It's the whole life of a cow, but home raised beef is probably the best thing ever! You know what they eat, what they have eaten, if they were sick and how you finished them before sending them for meat.

It's a buy/sell business. I think all farmers love their cows (except for the few bad seeds, just like in the horse world), I haven't seen one farmer not care for a cow that was in difficulty or sick. We go out of our way to help them and treat them as best we can. I really love my cows and Nabisco is my favorite, she was my first one, is of really good lineage and is friendly, she'll eat out of your hand! I don't know how she is when she has a new baby at her side, but we'll see. I love them and often bring them a pale of oats and grain as a treat.

I will post pictures of the new baby soon too! I'll have to spend a whole day taking pictures!!! LOL! We have limestone to spread on our fields this weekend, but I'll try to escape from it to take pictures of all these new arrivals.

I hope the mare won't be too much to handle, but I plan on having help around when I'll put that lead on her halter. I'll have someone with the lunge whip to correct her when she shoots backwards. I am not yet sure how I'm going to go about it. I am not taking any crap from her as is but she is now keeping her distance and getting even more b**chy as we go along.

What I think happened with her is that, as a foal, her owners tryed to halter break her, halter went on ok, then the lead came in and all hell broke loose. I'm thinking she kept pulling back and they kept giving her back her head, then they just gave up on her and parked her in a field. The only thing she knows is to pull as hard as she can against pressure. But she is 3 now and much bigger, so this will be somewhat of a challenge. I will not take rearing, bolting, kicking or shooting backwards. She will get a smack on the butt for shooting backwards until she can understand that walking with me is a good thing and much less hard. I will not take crap and I really need to step it up... except that I don't want to scare her so bad and lose the little trust I have... but I will not be able to build trust until I can work with her... get it... it's a vicious circle! I certainly have my work cut out for me and I might need advice, but the only thing I am aiming for is to get her walking forward with me without pulling back or rearing up... I think I'll need to get tough with this one and I only got tough briefly when training Dandy at first, when she was kicking... it's not my thing, but I tried being gentle, calm, focussed, patient and nothing worked!

I think I'll need as much advice as I can get! This reminds me of Mugwump's Cupcake story... I might ask her for advice... the situation is pretty similar, except that I don't think that my new girl is mad, just scared and confused. I need to make it clear to her that she needs to follow me; I just don't know how to go about since she is so explosive!

She's home!

What a weekend... I am absolutely exhausted... I had zero time to rest. Finally, I didn't remove Peg's shoes since they were still hanging on pretty darn hard! I will probably remove them next weekend since it will have been 4 weeks. Her hooves seem to have changed shape a whole lot... except for her bad foot that didn't show as much improvement as the other one... :(

Saturday morning... we had to bring the horses to the vet to get little Wakan gelded and to give Dandy her shots. For the trailering part... I think it went okay. The colt didn't want to get int he trailer so I had to use my lunge whip to block him and guide him in the trailer. Since he was such a kicker lately, I didn't take a chance to get close behind. Once he understood that he had to get in, he went like a champ!

Then we got Dandy, who trailered without asking questions, except that I forgot that I was standing on her blind side and when my sister came to shut the door, I got crushed between Dandy and the wall... plus she stepped on my foot briefly, something she never does... no harm done, not even a bruise. Once at the vet, Wakan wouldn't go down for his gelding. After four shots, he finaly went down and the surgery was a breeze. He recovered quickly and was back home in less than an hour. Right after we dropped the horses off, we were off to get the new mare.

The place where I got her from is 2.5 hours from my place, one way. So we got there around 3:00 pm. The mare is in the barn, so I go check her out... first thing I notice is the she is NOT 15.3hh, but I already knew that was a lie. She might be in the taller 14.3 hh but no more. She is stocky and has a huge hindquarter. So she comes up to the gate and I'm thinking she's friendly. So we separate the other mare that's with her and back the trailer up. The mare wouldn't go in the trailer, so we herded her in (we had a stock trailer). She reared up, she can't lead at all! Once in, she was quiet for the whole ride home.

I put her in with Dandy after they met over the fence and they bonded pretty good. They are now eating on the same patch of grass, nose to nose. the new girl keeps trotting around... I think she was cooped in for a while. She has AWESOME movement and her feet aren't in such bad shape... I'm happy about that since I won't be able to trim them in a good while.

Yesterday, I fed her apples and she was really friendly, I touched her pretty much all over, except legs, but I did the neck, face, ears, cheeks, wither, back (even tapped on it!) and rump, without going too far back behind the leg and she took it all in stride. Then I stepped it up and I probably should've left her alone. I took her halter and moved her head, she responded pretty well but wouldn't move forward, so I applyed more pressure and she kept exploding backwards, so I moved her sideways as much as I could and called it quits, but each time I went to make her move, she would freeze, shoot backwards or pin her ears and threaten to bite me.

Later that day, I was petting her and she turned, pinned her ears and threatened to kick, I immediatly chased her a bit. The thing is, I don't know if I ever had a horse this callenging to train. I plan on starting work on her this weekend, and I have a goal to have her leading (at least walking forward without struggle) by the end of the weekend. I don't want to scare her and turn her against humans and I don't want to have her walking all over me either! I will have to gauge my reactions. If she is not working out for me, I will have to sell her as this purchase was intended to get me another riding horse, not another pasture ornament... I already have enough of those!!!

I am not sure where I am going to start, but one of the things I usually do to foals in training is put a leadline on them and let them figure it out. Usually, they are terrified by that snake stuck to their faces and just keep wanting to get away so there is no use trying to hold the line, I just let them run under supervision. If they step on their line, they learn that to undo the tension on the face and head, they need to release the pressure from either the hoof or lower the head... therefore, they learn to give to pressure, but most times, they don't even step on it. The next step is to take the lead line and apply forward pressure, by then the horse might be tired and might even respond immediatly instead of fighting. If they do, reward them, do it again and reward if they answer correctly, then, you may do it again and let them go after they answered correctly. I need to teach her to trust me, at least to touch her all over, I might isolate her to do that. I don't know how much of a project this will be, but I am ready to stick it out and try as much as I can to turn her around.

I am sorry but I had zero time to take pictures. On Sunday, we had the beef slaughtered and taken to the butcher shop which took most of the day. In 2 weeks, we'll have the best tasting beef in the area! We've already sold all of it. We are not making much profit on our beef at all... only about 400$ and I have not deducted the transport fees and probably not all of the feed... so we aren't making much money at all on them. Oh well, at least we'll have good meat to eat! We are planning on having a few more for the same purpose.

I had my heart in a bind when I knew they were gone, but once I saw them afterwards, they didn't feel like the same animals... I found that about myself... I think I pretty much only see the soul of a person or animal. Once the soul is gone, they don't look like the same people to me so I have very little attachment to them after their death. I saw my grandfather dead in his hospital bed and to me, I was only looking at him to confirm that he was in fact gone but the body on the bed wasn't my grandfather... it was just a body. It's hard to explain, but once something has died, I disconnect completely from it.

After he died, I heard him speak to me and I plan on trying my best to respect what he told me.

Anyways, sorry for not having pictures, my feet were so sore after the day, that I didn't feel like walking the whole way back to the field to take pictures. I will definatly have some next weekend! Hopefully of training!

Too excited!!!

It's only Thursday... I can barely hold myself in my chair... I can't wait to see what I will look like on Saturday!?!? Counting the sleep I will probably lack.

Since I have such a busy weekend dangling at the end of my leash, I will put you in perspective of what I am supposed to do, starting tommorow after work... here goes:

1. Shoot home as fast as I legally can! lol (I'll probably get there around 4:00 pm
2. I want to remove Peg's shoes
3. I have to get the trailer from my friend (by the way, he's the bestest friend EVER!)
4. Prepare trailer for next morning's trip to the vet
5. Prepare colt's rest area after surgery and prepare colt...

Saturday:

1. Call vet to see if we're still good (she's on call this weekend for emergencies)
2. Drive up to my parent's place to help load the colt
3. Drive back to my farm to get Dandy on the way to the vet
4. Drive to vet (I'm assuming it'll take 45 minutes to 1 hour, very curvy and narrow road!)
5. Get shots for Dandy
6. Get colt gelded
7. Wait appropriate amount of time to allow colt to get into trailer
8. Load horses and go back home
9. Unload horses and go back to my farm
10. Call friend
11. Leave with friend to go get the new gal! (2:15 hours away, one way)
12. Don't know how she'll load
13. Probably eat a bite somewhere during the trip
14. Get home, unload new gal in small pasture with Dandy (have them meet over fence first!)
15. I have limestone to spread on the fields
16. Disk
17. Probably no more time left in day
18... Before I leave, I have to make sure that my SO is well aligned for the task of taking the bulls to the slaughterhouse. I want the weight for each one recorded for payment purposes...

Sunday
1. I want to spend time with the new gal
2. Make friends with her as much as I can
3. Probably take Dandy for a ride given that the weather is nice
4. Probably disk again...

So, that's my weekend plans... I probably left something out... Saturday will be a killer. I will spend over 6 hours on the road, needless to say that there is stuff to do in between the roadtrips... UHG! I will try and fit in taking pictures of the new horse and of all the cattle. No new baby calf yet... this is a true patience game!

Wish me luck!

New Project!!!!!

I am very excited to announce that I have just (litteraly 2 minutes ago) aquired a new project horse. She is a 3 year old bay tobiano filly. She hasn't been handled since she was young, so this should be an interesting project.

I must say, she is a beautiful mare and I am not talking about colour here. She has good conformation and should be fast! I can use her for my projects that I had... barrels, poles, small jumps! I am very happy. We are getting her Saturday and I am sure that I will be a nervous wreck! I need to make plans to go get her... since we are taking our horses to the vet on Saturday morning... I will probably only get her in the afternoon. Yikes... lots of money spent there! That's okay, the project girl didn't cost an arm. The guy needed to get rid of her since his gelding is going off to training and there is no time for her, plus he didn't want to leave her alone. I made a ridiculously low offer and got the mare. She is untrained, but I can work on that over time... I'm sure I'll have her under saddle by mid-summer if I dedicate enough time. I will post pictures as soon as I have some! I am so excited! She will meet Dandy first as I will try to get them to bond, since Dandy has no real friends. The new gal needs to brace herself to meet Peg and Pearl because they are as unfriendly as any horse can get! Of course, they will meet over the fence first!

Can't wait! Also, no new calf yet... and our steer are going to the meat factory this weekend... so it sounds like a pretty busy weekend for me... I'll try to get my SO on some tasks and take other tasks for me... i.e.: he takes care of the steer and I take care of the horses... I also want to remove Peg's shoes... YIKES! too much stuff for 2 days!

I'll try to get the shoes off Friday evening, since I am supposed to be off of work early. Then I will get the trailer ready for the next morning's vet appointment. Next day will be off to the vet early, bringing the horses back home then taking off again to get the new gal and taking her home... I'm hoping to get all of that done before dinner time. I would like to spend some time getting used to the new gal, maybe Sunday would be a good day... just spend a lot of time with her, petting her and giving cookies. Since her daddy's name is Tantoo Eagle Bell... I want to change her name from Freya to Belle, I just don't like how I would say that out loud! lol

So if you have better name ideas, I am open to all of them... if it's something that has meaning, I am even more open!

RANT, RANT, RANT!

Well... no calf for us this weekend, we had great hopes of finding one Sunday morning, but Mother Nature has played another trick on us, I'm sure she is laughing hard at us now! We are expecting it anytime, mom's udder is filled with milk and the passage way seems to have dialated fully... but still no calf! GGGRRRRRRR!!!! Ohh well, it'll be born this week for sure!

I was just reading something quite controvertial about hoof trimming and I would like to share my thoughts and perhaps hear yours. I will explain the concept first, then give you my opinion on everything. Here goes... (below is Dandy's Left Hinf foot after a barefoot performance trim)

I was reading about the Natural method to maintain your horse's feet. They suggest that shoes, barefoot trims, etc. are no good for our domestic horses. Wild horse trims are unrealistic for our horses since mustangs live in dry rocky areas, therefore have very short and hard feet and some other wild horses live in wet sandy conditions, therefore have long broken up feet. He says his method is Natural and suggests these steps to maintain our domestic horse's feet:

1. Remove all shoes and put horse in pasture where there is a lot of ground variance, hard ground AND soft ground.

2. Do not touch hooves for 6 to 9 MONTHS and take notes of changes that occur every month during that period (wideness, chips, cracks, etc).

3. Even though he doesn't suggest trimming the feet at all, he says you can trim your horse's feet after nine months... leave flare and lenght.

At first, I was very open to try his method, but after reading all of it, I thought it was ludicrous! First, he says not to base trimming on wild horses, then all he does, when suggesting light trimming, is compare to wild horses. So, if there is a better model out there as to what hooves should look like than the wild horse hoof, then TELL ME!!!!!! (Below is Peg's Left Hind foot after a barefoot performance trim).

Second of all, Wild horses travel mainly in the same sort of land, therefore, their hooves will certainly have adapted to wet or very dry conditions. Our domestic horses are most of the time in a softer environment (pasture, grass, dirt) and are forced to work on even softer or harder ground (arena, pavement, gravel, etc). Therefore, to maximize comfort, there will be work to do on domestic hooves. Also, since wild horses HAVE to travel over 25 miles per day to find food and water and a safe place away from predators, their hooves naturally wear the right way... yes, even horses that live on beaches and wet areas. Therefore, since our horses encounter all kinds of different terrain AND have to carry about 200 pounds on their back when working or hacking, we need to pay attention to hoof care.

We need to understand that our horses are confined, eating richer foods than what they could probably find in the wild and getting much, much less exercise than they would if left wild. To me, this means that, since they eat richer foods, greater attention should be paid to their feet, since the first signs of dietary changes show in the hoof. Then, we need to have our horses walking as much as possible between their food and water (even if this will never equal 25 miles or even close to, it is a good start to get the hooves working). We also need to incorporate different kinds of terrain in the pasture, make sure your horse HAS to cross a rocky area (please use round rocks, not crushed stone!), usually around water throughs or feeders. Pea gravel works best, they might even use it as a bean bag lounge area!

My horses pretty much live in a natural state, they are outside 24/7 all year round, they have access to a shelter that they rarely use, they have a huge pasture with muddy areas and rocky-er areas, free choice food and water, but the one thing I will not skip on, is farrier work. I have a friend who doesn't trim her horses every 8 weeks (8 weeks is a lot for me, I trim mine everytime they need it, even if only two weeks have passed), she feeds a rich mix of alfalfa (probably 90%) and timothy and her horses live in a mud pit for half of the year. She has 8 horses (ninth one on the way). Let me tell you that at least one of her horses as foundered, many more are prone to foundering, their white lines are not connected, which means the pedal bone is pressin gon the sole and crushing the digital cushiont causing them to be flat footed, lame and sore, these horses are rough to ride and will not willingly canter or even trot, they cannot work in a round pen or in any kind of circle. They have long toes, cracks that just keep getting further up the wall and regularly abcess (at least twice a year for big abcesses, all the time for small ones). These horses could not be left 9 months without a trim, they would've all foundered and died. It already breaks my heart to see the miserable state they are in after only 3 months without a trim.

I find that there is no harm done by nipping and rasping a foot. This mimicks the natural abrasion process that the hoof would endure if it could wear itself like a wild horse's, given the amount of daily mileage required to obtain a self maintaining hoof. In my opinion, a trimmed hoof also spreads the load much more evenly and alows the horse to walk, trot and canter comfortably. Leaving a hoof long is like pulling your finger nail off slowly by repeatedly hammering it against a hard surface.

I've bought Dandy as a two year old, never trimmed in her life. She had two big chunks of hoof missing from the inside of her fronts, where the hooves had self trimmed, but on the outside, long wall (about 6-9 inches) was left curling upwards and would've never broke off. I proceeded to start trimming her in the Barefoot performance trim and it worked very well. The fact that she was left two years with long wall on the outside of her fronts ad short on the inside has left her front feet tipping inwards, I guess the bone columns fused that way when she was growing. I am trying to get it back to level, but this will take time and patience until the bone column can adapt and realign. I don't think that leaving her feet grow out for 9 months would get rid of the problem, I have a feeling it would make it worst.

Anyways, this is the perfect example why you should always do your research before trying out something. I am a true advocate for Barefoot Performance simply because I have rehabilitated a founder case, my own horse (Dandy) and am seeing good changes in my rescues (wider heels, better frog, etc.) I am constantly trying to improve myself, but I will not stop trimming my horses for the reasons listed above, it just sounds like a poor excuse for horse expenses or hard work. You need to assess every horse and trim accordingly. I can trim Dandy's feet really short, where she pretty much walks on the edge of her sole and she never bats an eye, as for my rescues, I need to be careful to leave a bit of hoof for them to walk on and trim dead sole that could cause interference with the ground and solar bruising. I only remove part of the dead sole, I always leave some as a cushion! My horses have been comfortable (except for Peg I am exploring new ways to make her more comfortable) 100% of the way and can walk on asphalt, gravel, mud, sand and grass confidently and comfortably. They also have unrestricted movement. As for Peg, I am exploring new ideas to make her more comfortable during her rehabilitation. Peg was probably shod before she was two, maybe before her 1.5 year, so her hoof growth was stunted as of that day, her heels are very contracted and her hoof tends to grow lenghty, I need to assess the toe, but if I trim it the way I should to help solve the problem, she gets a little sore. She has been great since the Easywalker shoes are on, but they are constantly coming loose, since she walks in such a crooked way, so I plan on taking them off and giving her a few weeks of pasture rest, while I order those boots I wanted for her! I hope they work out, otherwise, she will be going to retirement for sure. She is already in pre-retirement, since we only use her about once every 3-4 weeks and rarely two weeks in a row for a trail ride that never exeeds 2 hours.

Anyways, tell me what you think about the "Natural" hoof care method. Until someone can prove it tried and true, I will not believe it! There is no way a horse can work comfortably with long hooves.