Fencing

A week or two ago Linda Lu asked about the fence I use.  I have had several other inquiries as well so this is for all of you who have wondered about my fencing.  I am a firm believer that electric fence is the only way to go.  Wooden or wire mesh fencing is expensive, high maintenance and has to be reinforced with electric anyway or else the horses rub and chew on it.  I have also seen horses impale themselves on broken fence boards and get tangled in wire. 

The two types of fencing that I will never use are barbed wire and high tensile.  I know many people use high tensile and think it is safe for horses, but it is not.  The stuff will cut a horse to ribbons if they run into it.  I have seen it happen and I know personally of several horses who were either gravely injured or killed by high tensile. 

The fencing you see in many of my photos is designed for rotational grazing.  It is a light weight poly twine with tiny stainless-steel filaments running through it.  The posts are fiberglass.  It is the only fencing that I have used for a number of years.  I would like to build a more substantial perimeter fence around my property using wide poly tape and wooden posts at some point, but due to expense, that is far off.  While the fence does not look very substantial, to the animals it is.  Electric fence is more of a psychological barrier then a physical one and I have found this fencing to be highly effective and very safe. 

The main thing to remember about all fencing, no matter what it is, is that animals will challenge it if they are crowded, discontented, panicked or overly hungry.  This fencing works well for me because my animals are none of those things, they have enough space that even in a panic they don't go through the fence.  This is not good fencing to use if animals are crowded or in populated areas where keeping people out is just as important as keeping the critters in. 

Farm Buddy also uses this same fencing for her cattle and has done so for at least twenty years.  This field is separated into two large rectangles (you can just see the divider fence on the right side of the picture going up the hill).  You can't quite see it, but there is another fence about 100 feet behind the cows.  Every day Farm Buddy moves that fence a little ways up the hill giving the cows fresh grass.  When they reach the top, they start down the other side.  By the time they get back to the starting point, the grass is ready to graze again.

All of the fence that we are currently using came from Kencove.  If any of you decide to try this fencing, I would recommend getting your supplies from either Kencove or Premier Fencing.  Their posts and wire  have a special coating on them that prevents them degrading in the sun and getting horribly splintery.  As much as I like TSC, I won't buy their posts.  A week in the sun and they feel like grabbing a cactus.  I hope this is helpful.  Happy fence building.

Sunday Stills - A Single Tree

This challenge was a little harder then it first appears because around here, it is hard to find a shot of a single tree all by itself.  The extreme greyness of the weather lately hasn't helped.  What I came up with is one of my little pine trees seen from above...

and for some reason, this single downed tree amongst its fellows struck me somehow.  Kinda sums up winter for me.

It wasn't as grey a day as it may seem though because Riding Buddy came up and we did this...

 Lord, but it was nice to get out for a bit. 

If anyone would like to join in on Sunday stills just go to www.sundaystills.wordpress.com, check out the next challenge, take some pictures, put 'em in a blog post and post a link to your post in the comments sections of Sunday Stills.  It's easy, no pressure and it has helped me look at photography in a different way.  

Hay, Hooves and Things

Yesterday, I mustered some troops and we refilled my hay shed.  We moved 114 bales.  We probably could have crammed in another 30 bales, but it wasn't wort another trip.  I'll probably need one more truck load to make it to Spring.  I am thinking about ways to change things around so I can store more hay.  I HATE having to haul hay in the winter.  It is so difficult keeping a path cleared to the barn, the truck always gets stuck, the weather doesn't cooperate....Yup, gotta store more hay or have fewer mouths to feed. 

The donkeys at least thought it was nice of us to provide some entertainment and they very kindly offered to help out with cleanup.

After taking Tanner for his walk and finishing all the normal chores, I went down to Riding Buddy's place to trim feet.  Remember Hawkeye and his sky-blue feet?

We saw immediate, good results with the Equisock casts, unfortunately, they only lasted 2 weeks instead of four.  They didn't fall off, he wore through them.  However, even in just two weeks there was a lot of improvement.  We have another version made by a different company and I would like to know how they would compare, but as the snow is quite deep, we have decided to hold off reapplying them for a bit and see if the improvements will continue with the help of the snow. 

 Meanwhile, I started work on this pair of feet...

These belong to a 14 year old paint horse named Lakota who is related to Gabe.  Lakota's mother was Gabe's grandmother - I think.  I have no idea what such a relationship is called, my knowledge of genealogical terms doesn't stretch that far.  Regardless, these feet are going to be another real challenge.  They suffer from severely under-run heels, thin soles and hoof wall separation.  While all of these things seem like separate problems they aren't really.   The under-run heels push the foot forward causing the sole to thin and the walls to stretch.  The more the walls stretch, the more the heels grow under.  The problems all end up feeding into one another and the whole thing turns into a vicious feedback loop. 

I have no idea if I will be able to help him or not, but I'm gonna try.  A barefoot trimmer worked on him last year and I think she was on the right track and may have ultimately helped.  However, she did too much too fast and made him so lame he could barely walk.  He wound up wearing shoes all summer just to keep him comfortable.   The shoes made him comfortable, but did nothing to help the underlying problem.  There are farriers in the world who can help solve this problem with shoeing, but that is a hard beast to find in this area. 

I trimmed Lakota's feet for the first time yesterday and, rather then try to address all the problems at once, I worked just on the heels and did just enough to the toes to stabilize them.  The goal is to get the heels going in the right direction, if that happens, the toe will follow naturally in future trims.  If the toe follows, the stretching will disappear from the wall and the sole will gain some concavity and thicken.  I used this method on Hawkeye and we have seen dramatic improvement in the past few months without any lameness.  I hope it works here.

Returning home, cold, tired and hungry, I decided to indulge myself.  After a scrumptious dinner of tuna fish (OK, maybe scrumptious isn't quite the right word, but it was quick and easy, which is often the same thing in my book:) I took a long, hot bath; made a pot of tea and read an old book having absolutely nothing to do with horses, donkeys, hooves or hay.  Do I know how to live it up on a Friday night or what?

Framed

Another Foot Update

I took these photos during yesterday afternoon's bandage change.  There has been a great deal of hoof growth recently and the growth is somewhat distorted because of the hole in the foot.  Growth comes from the top down and is stimulated by pressure from below, the hole makes the pressure uneven which makes the growth uneven.  The hoof wall will have to completely grow out before the hoof will even up again. 

I am pleased with the amount of growth though.  I have actually trimmed the foot twice now and it is still far too long.  The hole in the foot is already reaching the ground, which means there has been at least a half inch of growth in the past few weeks. 

I am nervous of trimming more however, because the sole of his foot where the original abscess was is also dying off and a large hole has developed there.  It is connected to the hole in the side of the foot and it is clear that a large section of the hoof, including wall and sole is going to slough off and eventually be replaced.  I don't think any of us were expecting that.  I am just a bit worried that too much hoof will fall off all at once and weaken the entire hoof capsule.

It is amazing how much a hoof can regenerate given a chance, but there has to be enough hoof to support the animal and maintain cohesion while it grows.  Ramsey is sound on it and it is growing at an amazing rate so I think it is OK, I just don't dare trim it more.  If you look closely, you can see a hole in the sole that connects with the hole in the hoof wall.  What doesn't show in the photo, is that quite a bit of the sole around that hole is spongy and dead.  I can peel it off with my fingernail so it clearly is not doing anything.  I removed the really soft portions, but left anything that might help maintain structural integrity.

Ramsey is due (overdue actually because of the holidays) to go back to Cornell for a checkup and a new set of x-rays.  I am going to be making an appointment for him on Monday.  I am hoping to have the farrier there examine and trim the foot and hopefully, he can show me just how much I can trim back without causing harm.  They had talked about putting an acrylic patch on the foot if it is healed enough on the inside and I think it may be time for that.  The patch would replace the dead hoof and support the foot while it grows out. 

The heel bulbs are still tender, but have healed well.  The white-ish stuff you can see here is my beeswax salve which has helped a great deal.  I think it has helped with hoof growth as well.  Every time I change the bandage, I massage the salve into the entire coronet band and I have seen a dramatic increase in growth since I started doing that.  It may not look pretty yet, but it is healing and most importantly, it does not bother Ramsey much at all now.   It's progress anyway

Work With What You've Got

Emma did a fine job of ringing in the New Year last January, and we had big plans for a celebration this year as well.  However, we are back to this again...

"We'll come out and celebrate Spring, you're on your own for New Year's."

Ah well, I guess we'll just have to go with our practice shot.  Emma does have a point after all, how can we all watch the ball drop when it is lost out in the snow somewhere, guaranteed not to show up until Spring.  Perhaps this can be the motto for 2013:  Work with what you've got.  So...

Happy New Year!

Light Points

"Ramsey, what have you been doing?"

"WELL, EVERYONE KEEPS SAYING i LOOK FUNNY BECAUSE i HAVE A BROWN NOSE AND i DON'T HAVE ANY LIGHT POINTS LIKE MOM AND MOST OTHER DONKEYS...

THERE'S ALL THIS WHITE STUFF EVERYWHERE SO i THOUGHT i'D FIX IT....

SEE, i HAVE LIGHT POINTS NOW!"

"WHAT DO YOU THINK MA, DID i DO A GOOD JOB?"

"Oh yeah, you certainly did a good job.  You look, um, very light."

"GOODY, HOW ABOUT A BIG HUG AND A KISS THEN?"

"Um, yeah,well, I wouldn't want to mess up your new look.  Why don't we wait till later."  When you've dried off a bit.

 "Say Ramsey, aside from your make-over, what do you think about all this snow now?"

"THER'S ONLY ONE WORD FOR IT MA....

BLEEEECH"