October 19, 2021
Late October and there hasn’t been a hard frost yet. What does that mean to a horsekeeper? It messes up my parasite program. I have never seen so many flies this late in the year. And that means Bot flies are still doing their evil work. My rule of thumb is to deworm twice a year, WTNION (whether they need it or not) The fall treatment is for the bots. I don’t want big fat larva sitting in their guts eating my hard earned feed. So the dilemma right now; it is almost 6 months since the last treatment, most of them (17) are rubbing their tails, coats are getting coarse, just a couple signs of parasites. Do I deworm now for strongyles, pinworms etc. and deworm later for Bots? It is also an economical problem. It is costly treating 17 equines and 1 Llama. Dogs and cats should be treated as well. What to do what to do??.
I have not supplemented the pastures with round bales yet. There appears to be enough grass for them. Warm weather has helped. They insist on grazing the top pasture, which has the shortest sweetest grasses. Maxine and I have spotted and removed a fair amount of Tansy Ragwort (next years crop) it is a continuing problem when neighbouring pastures are not managed, the dang seeds seem to hit my land. It is not eaten when green, but is tastier after a frost, so go the liver.
An important thing to remember, this is COLIC season. As we transition the herd from pasture to dry feed and cooler temperatures. We make sure they are getting enough water, do whatever we can to get them to increase their intake of H2O. Extra salt and mineral is a good start.
At the Sanctuary, there is only three horses sound of wind and limb. All the others have chronic ills. This is no different from a performance barn. Very few working/racing horses are completely sound. We are always checking for heat in the legs, massaging the large muscles, I give them comforting herbs. Seldom do they carry anyone longer than 2 hours when they are working as therapy animals.
We do not ask them to do more than they do in the pasture, it has been recorded that they walk 10 miles a day. And we have hills, I attribute the hills to be the reason they have strong muscles. Maxine camps in the picnic place and has reported that they move all night long. Moving is a good thing, when they stop is the time to assess that time in their life.
An important part of our Trailblazer program is farm management. Sometimes it is fencing. sometimes it is cleaning Tony Llama’s shelters. He has two. I can tell that a good job was done. Tony was resting in his wonderful clean place. Funny about Llamas, especially Tony, he likes to be clean. If his shelters are not, he will not sleep in the shelter. Good job Trailblazers!! The second job, involved tarping the hay inside. I have a leaky roof and it has been a problem for a couple of years. My roofer tarped the outside last fall. But tarps only last so long with the wind on the hill. I am on his list and the steel is ordered. The envelope is ready, I have been putting $$’s aside for two years. This has been a big worry, I cannot afford to lose hay, and if I could, is square baled hay available? We have to take care of what we have.
A new program: Wednesday evenng has been declared “Ladies Night”. A fun evening to work with the ponies, and remove some stress. We plan on starting at 6.30 before it gets too dark to find the horses in the field. There is no charge, the directors say we do accept donations. Check out our web page and the Facebook page, Maxine is always posting our activities.
Be a blessing, be kind. Love and hugs from Yogi and the herd.