June trims

Lana was out on Monday and Tuesday of this week to trim horses. Both days were hot, but Lana comes equipped with her own fan! We had two fans blasting her and the spoiled horses on the cross-ties. I think it was because of the fans that all the horses were falling asleep and were therefore very uncooperative! Fortunately, Lana is amazingly patient (more so than I am!) and even at her most frustrated with simply step back and say, "Quit being a snot nose."
Gone are the days where the farrier whacks a horse on the belly with their rasp or angrily yanks the horse around. Not Lana. She'll put a horse back in the stall and come back to them later.

On Tuesday we did the Thoroughbreds (JW, Dancer, Shellie) and Kurly has his front hooves trimmed (we're doing corrective trimming every 2 weeks on Kurly's hoof since he tore a huge chunk of hoof wall off a few months ago). The TB's hooves always look awful just before their 6-week trim. Lana suggests a biotin supplement for horses with crummy hooves - no other product really does the job.

 

On Wednesday we finished up the horses on the 6-week schedule. Bodhi and Magic had lead in their feet as I dragged them from the pasture to the barn. I do not recommend trying to walk the two most lazy horses on the farm at the same time. While one eats grass, the other plants his feet. I wanted to release a badger behind them to nip at their heels! We finally made it to the barn where they rested in stalls with breezy fans and copious amounts of hay. Molly and Betsy were also trimmed. It was a bad day for Molly's arthritis (and attitude) so we didn't push her and didn't finish her back hooves. I will be giving her a dose of bute a few hours before our next session to help ease her discomfort.

Even without much rain the pastures are holding up. Pasture 4 (the one on the left as you drive up our road) is empty - the grass is beautiful! Two more weeks of growing and hopefully some down pours and that pasture should be busting with grass! Pasture 5 (Magic. Bodhi, Cas, Dusty, JW) is holding its own. I mowed it this week to keep the weeds at bay and the grass, although short, is thick and available for eating. Come July 1st, there will be more pasture rotation to allow other pastures to grow.

Since it is SO hot I will be buying some more high quality fans for the barn. As tempting as it is to purchase the $20 box fans, they just don't create the breeze the horses need in this humidity. Even brand-spankin-new box fans leave you begging for more. Plus, the plastic fans don't stand up well to the barn dust and they are more likely to cause a fire, apparently. It looks like the best deal I can get is $40 per fan (metal 20''), but these are Wal-mart brand and who knows about their quality. The next best option is a huge leap to $80 per fan, but they are guaranteed high quality, high velocity and will do the job. If I bought one for each used stall that would cost $700. It would take months and months to recoup that cost. So I may get a few fans at a time and see how doubling up on box fans will work. Rest assured your stalled horses will not be hot!

If a horse is sweating, I hose them off. I just can't help myself. Sometimes even if they aren't sweating I will hose them off anyway because it feels so good. Just this past week I have hosed off Molly, Betsy, Shellie, Tav, Pokey, and my horses.

I got a load of 15 coastal square bales on Friday. These are super green! I'll be heading to Micanopy to pick up a load of O/A bales this weekend.

That's all the news for now! Stay cool - your horses are!

Brief Update

Just a quick update on the farm!

Poor Pokey was diagnosed with a large hole in his suspensiary ligament. The treatment, for now, is stall rest. so Mr. Pokesters will be back under his fan for the time being. To be sure he has enough company day and night, we've made some accommodations. Shellie, Dancer, and JW are still coming in during the day. Satin will start coming in at night to keep him company. Because Satin will be leaving Tav all by his lonesome in the pasture at night, I've brought Miss Molly up from the oldies herd to be Tav's nanny. Well, it turns out that Molly most certainly is NOT his nanny and prefers to be called his girlfriend. They are getting along wonderfully!

JW is back from his short stint at the UF vet school where he had a CT scan performed on his noggin. The good news is the docs didn't find anything that needed surgical repair, so he'll just be snotty for now.

It's been about 8 months since our last dental day and some of the older horses are ready for their teeth to be done again. If you want to add your horse to the list for Dr. Bess Darrow equine dentist to float, let me know. Here's her website.
If you'd prefer Dr. Erica Lacher to perform the float, she's giving discounts on dentals during July if you transport your horse to the clinic. It's about 12 miles from the farm - about a 30 minute trek. http://www.springhillequine.com/

On Thursday the 27th, the following horses were vaccinated for Rabies as well as spring vaccines:
JW, Magic, Dusty, Tav, Pokey, Molly. Jedi and Ufir had their hooves trimmed on the 28th. Lana the farrier will be out in about 10 days to trim all the horses on a 6 week schedule, which is pretty much everyone at this point.

Pasture Upgrade

Dear Weeds,
You do not fit in to my pasture management system. Therefore... you must die!

I still hesitate to use herbicide even though the product we will use is "safe" when "dry" with no suggested period of time to keep the horses off. Even the vet says "Keep them off for about 24 hours." I still hesitate! Yes, these powerful chemicals are designed to target plant proteins and are deemed "harmless" by scientists. But I have heard "scientists" say some pretty impressive CRAP.

That said, I am mowing the weeds as frequently as possible - while they are still small and not producing seeds. This will allow the grass to catch up (once we get some gosh darn rain).

Pasture 1 has been dragged, seeded, and dragged, and mowed, and mowed. The next step is to allow it to grow and once the rain starts (soon, according to the radar!) I will apply fertilizer.


Pasture 3 has been dragged and mowed. I have not put down the seed yet because I may still need it as a back up pasture for the 3 horses on 'this side of the farm'. If I seed it and then have to use the pasture, all my baby grass will be gobbled up before it can re-seed itself!

The new (used) drag!

Pastures 4 and 5 (on the 'other side') have both been dragged and mowed. I love to drag because it spreads out all the manure piles as well as pulls out some shallow-rooted weeds. And mowing gets the rest of the pesky weeds.

Stall horses have been coming in during the day now. Since I have time on my hands I am bringing them in around 10am or when it starts to get hot (they still get fed early, before 8am). I try turning them out by 5pm if it isn't sweltering out.


A HUGE oak tree came down during a rain storm a few weeks ago, taking out (what I originally though to be 40 feet of fencing) about 60 feet of pasture fence! Lots of good news though; no horses were in the pasture when it happened, it only took out wire and the posts are mostly in tact, and it wasn't a tree on our side, so we won't lose any shade. Yay! Trees happen.

Chris took on the monumental task of dismembering the tree with a hand saw (yes, the manual kind!) and a hatchet. Now that he's pretty much hacked it up Dexter-style he's sporting some awesome guns.


After leaving massive piles of tree digits, Alex loaded them limb-by-limb into the truck and trucked (no pun intended) them over to the burn pile, unloaded them, and went back for more. Whew! And in the Florida sun!

Do your Native American rain dances, send prayers to rain gods, and cross your fingers - we need RAIN!

Many of you have met the new addition to the farm, Darsy, the 4 month-old Holstein heifer calf. Feel free to brush her, feed her treats, and scratch her favorite places. If you want to take her out just let me know and I'll give you some basic instructions (I'm a nervous mommy!).

The spring flowers are beautiful! They only last for a few weeks so take your pictures soon :)

Everyone is doing well despite the low levels of grass. We're still getting our ducks in a row to seed and the ducks keep swimming in all different directions!

Congratulations to Molly and Chris on their fantastic find in Canada! A quaint home with Bodhi right outside their window - perfect!

For those of you in school - good luck on your exams. It's almost over!

Florida is Baaaack!

The oaks are shedding on to the backs of the horses (and donkeys!). The horses are shedding on to the grass. And the itty bitty birds are carrying the horse hair back up into the trees. It's spring time!



I've been soaking everyone's grain in water the past few days. Since there is still limited fresh grass the horses are eating a lot of dry matter (hay, grain, etc). Adding water and occassionaly adding wet wheat bran will help their guts out. Just trying to avoid upset horse bellies!

Everyone appears nice and plump so once the grass explodes in the next few weeks we will very likely need to cut back on their grain.

Since your blankets are no longer needed feel free to clean them and hang them to dry on the fence. No reason we can't put them away until next winter!

Enjoy Florida!

April Showers...

Wow! It's April (finally) and the azaleas are flowering!
For those of you lacking a green thumb, the azaleas are the bushes around the barn. Vibrant pink and white flowers are popping up all over their green backdrop. Although azalea bushes are somewhat toxic to animals when ingested, they are not very tasty (otherwise the donkeys would be toxified by now!).

Just in the few days we've had the horses out of Pastures 1 and 3 grass has begun to sprout! We purchased a spreader/aerator from Tractor Supply. With Chris's help we assembled it in under 2 hours only to realize that it was a worthless piece of equipment. Bummer! Lesson learned.
The good news is TS will accept the aerator as a return AND I don't have to disassemble it! Whew.

Instead we'll be buying a more expensive, less complicated, multifunctional piece of farm equipment: a spiked drag harrow! Basically just some heavy duty steel twisted into a chain-like drag with about 6 links of metal that point into the ground. It can work as a drag for the arena, an aerator for the pastures, and a drag for the round bales. Figures the simplified equipment works better.

Because of the whole 'crappy aerator' incident, upgrading the pastures has been set back a few days until I can get the aerator returned and the harrow purchased. That may happen this evening since TS is open late!

This weather is amazing, isn't it!? Perfect for doing anything outside with your furry friend.

With spring weather comes necessary spring vaccines. The mosquitoes are coming out of hiding and with them we see a plethora of vector-borne diseases. Is your horse vaccinated?

Updates, updates!

Pasture upgrading is in full swing!
We finally received our soil sample test results back -- the pH, Phospohorus, and Potash (potassium) are at perfect levels. Hooray! That means we don't need to add lime to adjust the pH. They do recommend adding 50 lbs of Nitrogen per acre. The don't test for Nitrogen but they say that for grazing pasture they always recommend adding Nitrogen.
So, we have the Nitrogen, the Pensacola Bahia grass seed, the seed spreader/aerator, the herbicide and backpack sprayer. We're good to go.

Betsy, Dancer, and Shellie were moved about 5 days ago to Pasture 4 with Jedi, Ufir, and Molly. Molly was thrilled to see her younger lady friends and ran around with them until everyone settled down. Molly has buddied up with Betsy and they all seem very content with the new herd arrangements.
Pokey & Tav were added to Magic's pasture and all went smoothly. We've added corral panels outside this pasture so that the slow eaters (Tav and Pokey) can take their time eating without having to put them in the pasture while its growing.

Now we have two empty pastures on the 'barn side' ready for aerating, fertilizing, and seeding! We'll let them grow for (ideally) 60 days before switching up the herds again.

Pokey and Betsy will no longer be "stall horses" - they are both going to enjoy the luxury of 24 hour pasture!
Shellie and JW will remain in the stalls with pals Satin and Dancer until further notice.

I am typing this update while in my Epidemiological Methods class... so I'm going to cut this short!

See you at the barn!

Kathy