The Care and Feeding of Tack

I recently mentioned my emotional pain at having to throw out a bunch of tack that had not been taken care of. since I hadn't ridden or worked the horses much I had neglected my equipment and paid the price for it also. So, here are my tips for taking care of your tack and keeping if for a long time. All leather needs to be cleaned and oiled on a regular basis. Even kept in the barn it will dry rot if not kept from doing so. Dry rotted tack is dangerous as you never know when it will break. So on a regular basis clean your tack to get any sweat and dirt off of it with a good leather cleaner. I like Murphy's oil soap and have used it for years. A mild solution of soap and warm water will clean all the sweat and dirt off of the leather. Sweat and dirt will cause the tack to age and degrade faster. After cleaning run a dry cloth over the leather and then oil, oil oil. I prefer neatsfoot oil, but there are many good products for this. This will condition the leather putting much needed oils back into it to keep it soft and supple. Not oiling your leather will cause it to dry out and crack. Now, how often to do this? Many of the big show and training barns that I worked at over the years required tack to be oiled every time it was used and then thoroughly cleaned and oiled again once a week. The horses got a day off of work and that was always tack cleaning day in which everything was taken apart scrubbed down and oiled and then put back in place. After riding a light swipe of oil was run over the leather before putting away for the day. This kept the tack ready to use, clean and intact for a long time. Good tack is an investment so care should be taken that it last a long time. The plus side is that well cared for tack is much more comfortable for the horse to wear as it is supple and soft. When cleaning and oiling pay careful attention to the buckle areas which tend to wear faster than the rest of the leather. Anything that needs repair or looks worn should be taken to the leather repair guy right away instead of put back where it could accidentally be used. If you take good care of your tack then it will last you many many years. Blessings, Kat

Economical Horse Keeping

So you now have your horse and you want to make sure that this very large animal doesn't break the bank. Horses can be an expensive hobby and an even more expensive livelihood. But we are talking about the general pleasure horse, not a career in horses. Horses can be kept relatively economically. Here are my tips on inexpensive horse keeping. First a horse doesn't need a 5 star barn with all the bells and whistles. Yes, we all want one of those barns but in most climates they aren't really necessary. A three sided run in will do in many climates, but if you have harsh winters you might want to add a fourth side with a doorway to provide more shelter from the wind. Horses tolerate cold very well, but wind will kill a horse. Provide shelter from the winter wind and the horse is good. A three sided shelter will also protect against thunderstorms. Second is food. You will spend more on a good feeding program than you do anything else, but if you spend less then you Then you will spend more in vet, farrier and other costs to compensate for the poor health of your horses. Buy a good quality feed. It doesn't have to be a top of the line feed, but it does have to be a good quality. You feed less of it and your horses receive better nutrition so stay in better shape. I have gone the route of buying the cheapest feed available and believe me you will pay for it in the long run because the health of your horse will decline and you will find yourself with underweight unthrifty horses that need lots of supplements and vet care. Spend some time looking at feed tags. Buy the best quality hay you can find. It doesn't have to be a high protein hay like alfalfa, but a good quality grass hay. If it is real stemmy the horses will waste a lot of it. If it is poor quality or been stored for a long time then they will get nothing from it other than roughage. Many horses can be kept on just good hay and pasture without extra feed if the quality is good. Pastures should be kept and maintained. Spend the money to have it bushhogged a couple times a year (or use your own tractor). Overseed for extra forage. I like to overseed in the late summer with annual rye grass as it will grow most of the winter in our climate providing much needed nutrition. Fertilize your pasture at least once a year preferably twice. We fertilize with compost and it has improved our pastures tremendously. Rotate pastures so that they are not grazed below 3". If you don't have enough room to rotate properly (every couple days depending on the size of the pasture) then consider adding a dry lot around the barn to rotate into and just feed hay in the drylot. Next, learn how to take care of minor vet care yourself. Vaccines are easy to get and to give and will cost you much less in the long run. If I paid my vet to come out and do vaccines it would cost me roughly 120.00. Yet I can do it myself for about 20.00. For the farrier, keep your horses barefoot if at all possible. Learn how to take of minor sprains, scratches, and other issues instead of calling the vet out for every little bump and scrape. A good place to start is to learn what you can from your vet and to ready a good horse health book. Barefoot horses built tougher and better hooves anyway and unless they are working on heavy rocky trails or in heavy work or sport then they there is really no need for shoes. A healthy horse has healthy hooves, poor hooves are a sign that your horse is missing something or has always worn shoes. When I was eventing we would pull shoes for the down season when the horses were allowed to just be horses. At first their hooves were fragile but by the end of the season when it was time to shoe them again the farrier was cussing because their hooves were so hard and strong. A trim job is much cheaper than a shoe job every 8 weeks. And lastly, take care of your equipment. Tack is expensive and not cheap to replace. If you take care of it, it will last for a good long time. I didn't heed my own advice and since I wasn't using it I didn't think about my tack. I recently threw out every girth I had and some other tack that had dry-rotted and weakened by being neglected. It hurt to throw all that away even though most of it I have had for years I still remember how hard it was to pay for it and how much money just went in the garbage. It hurt believe me it hurt. I know there are many things on this list that are causing you to think that you are spending more money than you should, but in the long run believe me it will be worth it. Blessings, Kat

So You Think You Want to Buy a Horse

So you think you want to buy a horse? I have been in and out of the horse world for a long time and there are some serious pitfalls out there for newbies. So here are my tips to make buying a horse a pleasant experience. First, be real about your horse experience. If you don't have any get some. Read everything you can, talk to trainers, spend time at the local boarding stable, volunteer to muck stalls. I gathered some of my most valuable knowledge mucking out stalls just to be around the horses and trainers. Second what do you want to do with your horse? If you just want to trail ride then you don't need that high dollar (and high spirited) thoroughbred or warm blood. You need something that is sane and solid. The next question to ask yourself is if you can handle the financial end of taking care of a horse. They are large and eat 20-22 hours out of every 24 hour day. Some horses are easy keepers who will do just fine on a quality grass pasture, others need grain hay and pasture to keep on weight. They need routine vet care (vaccines and blood tests) and feet trimming. They need equipment which can get expensive especially bought all at once. They need housing even if just a run in shed and they need fencing. Can you manage that? Then there are the emergencies. One thing you can count on is that if you keep horses long enough there will be an emergency no matter how good the care. Having a herd of horses can be like having a herd of toddlers out looking for trouble. Next when you think you have found that horse of your dreams take someone knowledgeable in horses to look at it with you. This is oh so important as I can not emphasize enough that many(most) horse traders are worse than used car salesmen. I have seen it all in that arena. I have seen traders drug horses that were nut cases and sell them as children's mounts and never once blink an eye. I have seen them drug horses so that they are sound on the test ride knowing that horse was lame as the day is long. If it can be done I have seen it done. If someone is pressuring you to buy a horse don't walk away run away. If they have a quality animal then they don't need to pressure you into buying it. The pressure comes when they want to get it off the property before the drugs wear off. Buy your saddle after you buy the horse...not every saddle fits every horse. A bad fitting saddle usually leads to a bad tempered horse as riding is associated with pain. 1000 lbs of bad temper is not pleasant for anyone and those are the horses that wind up at auctions or just standing in a pasture eating money. Find a farrier and a vet as soon as possible. Knowing who to call before you need to call is much nicer than searching around and being stuck with what you can get. The farrier that I used when we first moved here was great, then he decided he didn't want to be a farrier anymore. The next one I got was awful and my horses hated him. I have been through the gamut of farriers that were cruel and abusive, scared of hyper horses, didn't know what they were doing and bad trim and shoeing jobs. I had a vet that killed my daughter's first pony because she was ill after a choking incident and he poured an entire gallon of an electrolyte and glucose solution into her lungs because he was too lazy to check and make sure that the tube was not in her lungs. She drowned as my daughter and I watched and he drove out my driveway. So doing some asking around and finding out the good bad and ugly can help you know who you are calling before you have an emergency. If you have covered all those bases then go get your horse, it's a buyers market out there right now and there are loads of horses looking for just the right home. Of course, there are ways to keep horse cost to a minimum and we will discuss that next time. Blessings, Kat

Where I've been and what I've been up too

Wow, things have been busy and since the mornings are getting started real early around here due to the heat, I haven't posted much. I guess I should get better about that. A few weeks ago a friend of mine got two horses and they didn't settle in very well. Her experience with horses is limited and so this old horse trainer pulled out her dust covered boots and headed down the road every morning after chores to help. The horses have settled in now and we are just working out some kinks with two horses that haven't had much riding or work for several years. So being with her horses has really inspired me to stop procrastinating and putting off my own horses. I have been working on getting BC back into shape and making plans to get Whisper started again. I stated in another post earlier this spring that this is the year of the horse in which much needed repairs and such get done to the horse barn. So I started working on that yesterday. The feed room out there is now nice and tidy, all tack has been gone through and will be cleaned today. The tack area has been cleaned and organized. Today I have plans to make some repairs to BC's stall. I will be taking out the old hay rack that was built way to high up on the back wall to be able to throw hay into and installing a new (to him) hay tub. Why a tub? Because we frequently feed bagged chaff haye and it won't go in a standard hay rack. Then I have the side door to repair, which I was thinking about widening but because of our water problem with that barn I might not. I will be installing a drainage ditch at the door which tends get trampled down to allow the water to flow into the barn. I will put a pipe in there so that doesn't happen and there is still room for the water to flow around the barn instead of through the barn. Then I will be cleaning the outside of that side of the barn where all the junk has accumulated. So busy busy day this morning. Of course the garden is finally in production and we have been getting some good rain the past few days. We just keep planting and will plant straight through fall since the spring was off to such a bad start this is the only way to make up the difference. I don't think I will get much squash this year even though the plants look great. No squash vine borers and no squash bugs, but the squash are not maturing well. Maybe that will get better with time. Harvested most of the onions. Didn't get a whole lot but they are nice looking and I am sure will taste delightful. Sweet potatoes are in the ground and the first crop of corn should be ready soon. We had another snake in the garden so dear hubby got in there and thoroughly cleaned out some areas that I haven't been able to get to with everything else that needed to be done. The weeds and the snakes seem abundant this year. The goats are doing well and still no babies which is driving me nuts even though a couple of my girls look like they are going to explode. I wish they would pop soon because Dolly and Windy are both dropping in milk production. I still don't have a shortage though and have made some cheese and ice cream pretty regularly. Since the heat is getting to be unbearable we spend most of the day inside. The little one and I have been doing some crosstitch and the oldest has had a cold. I have some sewing projects that I likely will be finishing up soon. Other than that we are plugging along doing what we can outside before the heat gets to be too much and then enjoying the quiet time inside for the rest of the day. Hope your summer is going well and your garden is producing. Blessings, Kat

Springtime on the farm

Wow, it is definitely spring even with this cold spell we are having. Yes, I said cold spell. Normally we are hitting mid 80s and a couple weeks ago we were doing just that. Now we are hitting mid 60s. I had to close the windows in the house and am having to put on a jacket for the morning chores! Unbelievable. But if it means that summer will be slightly cooler I will take it. So we are definitely seeing springtime on the farm around here. 3 hens have been sitting on nests and two have hatched out babies. One hatched out at least 6 that I saw, but since she nested in a very bad spot we lost 3 right off the bat. One of the other hens has 3 bitties with her and I have no idea if she hatched out more or how many she was sitting on. She was a total surprise. Another hen is sitting on about 7 eggs so we will see if she hatches out any. So far we have 6 baby chicks on the farm. One of our ducks is sitting on a nest also....right in my new huguelkultur bed in the garden. I don't care she can sit there as long as she needs to if she will hatch out some babies. The wild birds are nesting and we found some Robin eggs in the garden. Not sure if they hatched and the shells were cleaned out of the nest or if something got to them and dropped the shells. However, they were very pretty and made for a nice science lesson for Little Britches. Now, if the goats would just do their part and have some babies of their own so I can get to making cheese. It looks like Sugar and Coffee are beginning to develop udders and a milk line so we will see. The others I simply have no clue. Although milk production with Dolly is up because of all the fresh browse. Even old Thunder is feeling frisky these days and I think I am going to have to separate him from his daughter. He hasn't shown any interest in her in years but the new feeding program for him must be doing some good. I think I might need to back off his Red Cell for a little while. The rabbits are in full production mode and I can't keep up with the litters that are being born. The only problem is that they all seem to like the same nesting box, which is the top of a dog kennel. So thank goodness it is big enough because one will have a nest in one corner of it and another one will have a nest in another corner of it. My chinchilla doe is by far my best producer and she loves to be pregnant and having babies. Thank goodness she does take the summer off because I am afraid that she will wear herself out. I put two of her daughters in the second colony so hopefully I will continue with her great mothering genetics. She produces nice large babies that grow out well also. So far with everyone in full production the buns are getting their full feed ration, along with hay and fresh greens picked daily. When they stop producing for the summer then I will cut back their grain ration. With all the rain everything is really wet around here and I already had to strip the main rabbit colony once after the big spring cleanout. Usually I only have to do that once every other month, but it barely lasted a month with all the rain. We just seem to be getting so much at once and the roof leaks in a couple spots and sometimes if it is heavy enough it will come over the edge of the concrete into the colony soaking the bedding. I don't want babies being born in wet bedding so I had to make sure to get it stripped again. The buns were so excited to have clean fresh bedding. We were worried about colony 2 with all the rain because water does seem to seep under the walls if it rains hard enough, but apparently it is holding up well and the bedding was dry. The conveyor belt that a friend gave us seems to have really helped with that. I guess the water went under the belt and that way the bedding and bunnies stayed dry. I really have to get those bunnies some more toys and hidey holes in there. The garden is coming along well and of course the weeds are flourishing as well as the veggies are. So everyday I spend about 30 minutes or so pulling weeds. If I keep on top of it then it doesn't become such a chores. I need to move some tomato plants today. I even have several volunteers from around the garden coming up so I will move those into the tomato patch as well. Of course, I am still planting in the garden it takes awhile to get it full and I keep coming up with spots to plant more. If everything keeps going though we will have an abundance of food for us and for the livestock. At least that will cut down on the bill some. I am concentrating on protein (peas) and black oil sunflower seeds for the livestock because those are our two most expensive ingredients in our feed. We will see how it goes. This winter I will grow some grains, but I don't expect to be able to grow nearly enough. We have also been getting in wood for this coming winter. It is nice to have the "new" woodshed to stack it in and to work near. We are getting a second wood stove and so will need all the wood we can get for this winter. And of course with all the rain we are fighting fire ants once again. They are popping up all over the place. Where the chickens are we don't have too much of a problem with them but they are everywhere in the garden and all over the pastures. I also have to be watchful of the rabbit colonies because believe it or not they will come over the concrete into the colony. If you have been reading here long you know I don't like poisons, but for fire ants nothing else works. Believe me I have tried every single home remedy there is. I use the minimal amount that I can get away with to kill those suckers but they must be killed! So that is spring around here so far. How is your spring going? Hope it is going well. Blessings, Kat

The Advantage of the Pack

One of my recommendations on a farm with livestock that needs a livestock guardian or guardian type dogs in general is to have a pack. A single dog is great and many times will alert to a problem. However, I have found that a single dog will rarely engage with a large problem. Dakota our great Pyrenees will take care of small predators like opossums, fox and such but she is often even reluctant to engage larger predators even single ones such as other dogs. She will chase and bark but not fully engage. When the neighbors dog came through the fence to attack our pig she chased him off the pig but that was where it ended. As long as he left the pig alone he was left alone. When Cujo was alive the pair of them would have made sure that the dog did not return and went back home with some physical memory of why it shouldn't come over here. Valentine is a sweet dog but she is getting up in age as well and has never been intent on protecting much other than her couch. She will on occasion give some back up confidence to Dakota. The other night the coyote pack was close...real close. Dakota was going mad at the back fence and suddenly Valentine joined in which gave Dakota more confidence in defending that back fence. We grows he too will join in the pack defense mode. He is showing good signs of doing so and Dakota is doing her best to teach and train him. Day before yesterday there was something in the woods behind the back fence. Dakota was going mad again along the fenceline and desperately wanted to get into the goat pasture. So I let her in and Titan went right along right behind her. She raced along the fence barking and growling while he was trying to figure out what was going on. Then he started barking and growling too, following her every footstep. That was when I saw the other neighbors dog. Now we have had problems with his pair of labs chasing our livestock. The one dog by itself won't cross the fence with Dakota, but the pair of them paid her no mind as they easily outnumbered her. Now she has backup and Titan will hopefully continue to grow into that position giving her more confidence to engage should they ever cross the line again. I highly recommend a pack when the safety and security of livestock is concerned against both 4 legged and 2 legged predators. Many predators work as a pack and won't give a single dog a second thought, but a pack against a pack will keep them (predators) at bay and keep your livestock safe. It is an amazing thing to watch the pack work together. When Valentine was younger and Cujo was alive they had their roles. Valentine would alert and Cujo would engage. Because of the nature of his breed and his courage level he had no trouble engaging by himself. After he engaged then Valentine would engage as well. However, they were pretty limited in what they considered an issue which is the reason we got Dakota. I am hoping that Titan will learn well from her. She works hard to keep everyone safe even without having to engage predators. If she hears a dog bark too close she will move the goat herd back up closer to the house and barn and then stand between them and the sound of the bark. I enjoy having my pack and I enjoy seeing them work together even though two of them are not livestock guard dogs. They still have their dynamics and for them it works in keeping our property and livestock safe. Blessings, Kat

The Cost of this Life

Lately on the homesteading type forums there have been loads of questions about the cost of this life vs. the cost of continued consumerism. Many people want to know what they can do for themselves to save money. I am completely amazed at the responses that tell them that they are better off buying their groceries because they will spend more. The average answer is that buying groceries is cheaper, but think of the quality that you get from growing your own. While that is true, I find it hard to believe that I and a handful of others actually truly do save money. If I bought all that we eat I simply couldn't afford it. So how is it that I can save money while it seems that the rest of my homesteading friends spend more than they would at the grocery store. I think the answer can be as simple as KISS...keep it simple stupid. I saw an answer that detailed the list of things needed to have a garden. The list was a paragraph in and of itself. Here is my list...a shovel, a dirt fork, a hoe, a rake, open pollinated seeds, a hose, and a wheelbarrow. With those few things one can grow a tremendous amount of food year after year. If you buy those things used then you save even more money yet. I recently saw a craigslist add for about 60 hand gardening tools for 30.00. Yes, I called and they were already gone. Whoever got them got a great deal! People were also saying that chickens produced expensive eggs and that you can buy eggs much cheaper in the grocery store. Hmmm....maybe for some but my chickens cost me nothing. They free range and get kitchen or garden scraps. Even their housing can be built for free using reclaimed materials or pallets. If they must be confined because of predator issues they can still be fed scraps and garden trimmings/waste. my hens not only produce eggs for me but they raise little ones to replace themselves each year. So while I might have spent 75.00 or so on my initial flock, I have made that back over and over again. There are two ways to approach this life...1. is the willingness to put in the effort of using the resources available and the other is still with the consumer mindset of buying everything you think you need brand new. So this life can cost as much or more than the traditional consumer lifestyle if you want it too or it can cost much less with some effort and ingenuity. It is up to you. I just want to encourage those that don't have a lot of capital that this lifestyle is attainable and no you don't have to go broke maintaining it or even starting up. Blessings from the farm, Kat