Desire's size 0 Easyboot Gloves and the powerstraps are being shipped today. A perk of being friends with the people you are buying things from--they get mailed quickly! I ordered them from GETC of course, and also asked them if Desire had any feet/feed issues in the past. They were surprised to hear that she had flat feet and thin sole and said she had not been that way with them. Which of course makes me feel even worse...I was inadvertently ruining my horse's feet!? But they also said pregnancy hormones, the relocation from Utah, and changing feed all would contribute to it and assured me it would be reversible. So the boots and accessories are on the way and I will be moving horses into their respective paddocks for weaning within the next week. I haven't heard back on the saddle so that's still to be resolved but the most important thing is Desire's hoof health and we will be working towards that immediately. I sucked it up and bought some of the INSANELY expensive grass hay at the feed store yesterday, only 10 bales for now. Hay is SO pricey this year and only going to get worse this winter. I've been looking on craigslist and wherever I can think of to find a better deal on hay but it doesn't seem available. The feed store folks said hay is getting exported from Cali overseas and also to the East after the all the floods and storms they had this year, plus the late rainy spring=scarce hay. The prices never even dropped this summer, usually we get down to around $8/bale in summer but its been $12+/bale all year and the grass hay is at $17/bale right now!!! Gahh! The feed store is stocking forage/stable mixes anticipating people not being able to afford the hay and using that as alternative feed. It just seems wrong that you can maintain a working horse on NO hay at all, just these feed mixes, but they do seem to be formulated as replacements of hay. If anyone reading this knows about feeding this kind of stuff I'd be really interested to hear because these hay prices are going to be deadly this winter and if it is a true, acceptable alternative I might check it out. I'll be reading whatever I can find on it as well.
Oh yeah, finally got the ride results from Mendocino Magic, we got 3rd place out of 15 completing riders with a ride time of 5 hrs 6 minutes. Pretty interesting considering I got almost the same placing with a ride time 2 hours faster at Patriot's Day. Just shows you the type of trail really does affect things!
Non horsey photo, still pulling delicious watermelons out of our garden--love it and the horses love the rinds!
Hay: I dunno if it works out cheaper, but Karen Chaton really liked Elk Grove Stable Mix for her two on the XP. It's pelleted hay / hay replacer, $13 a bag at my feed store, or you can buy it in bigger drums. Dunno how much it works out to per day - I just bought a bag to feed when we ride in National Forests cause it's weed free.
ReplyDeleteHooves: I have subscribed to a couple of barefoot yahoo groups for years. I don't read all the posts but I've noticed that there seems to be something weird about the minerals in CA hay and a mineral balancer seems to really help CA horses. People swear by California Trace or LMF Super Supplement (I use the LMF, never tried the CT.) Linda Cowles is in your area and she has a great site. I'm not saying you need to try to switch to her - your trimmer sounds fine so far - but she's got a lot of good stuff to read about CA hay, minerals, etc.
Okay had a whole long reply that just got lost, ARGH. I have used the Elk Grove Stable mix before but only as a supplement, not as the mainstay feed. I can just see Desire gobbling a pelleted feed like that in about a minute and then sitting around all day with no food til the next gobble session. She is a prime candidate for the slow-down-fattie feeders or whatever the politically correct term for those are, lol. Her previous owners at GETC said she needs as much sugar as possible cut out of her diet and more fat and roughage. But CA hays, especially coastal, are known for high sugar content, even the grass stuff. *headdesk*
ReplyDeleteI've used the California Trace Minerals before but I was scheduled to get a 50 lb bag delivery of it that never happened so I sort of moved on without it. I wasn't having any real issues with hoof health at the time though so I will look into it again.
You might want to soak her hay. (God, doesn't that sound like a huge pain in the ass?! I guess it's not worse than soaking beet pulp though.) Apparently you can get a lot of sugar out of grain hay that way and make it safer to feed.
ReplyDeleteYeah, my, err, plump and food motivated mare would scarf down all her complete feed in 20 minutes and scream at the gate for the next 8 hours. I couldn't do that either!
The EGM pellets are a pretty good deal, sign up for their frequent buyer program on their website: elkgrovemilling.com I've continued to feed it to my horses after the XP as part of their daily diet and they are doing awesome on it - they love it more than anything. I feed it soaked, so they are used to having it that way - and add some additional salt to it. It works great that way they are used to it for the rides. The EGM pellets have a NSC of around 14%, which should be pretty safe unless you have an IR horse or one already experiencing hoof sensitivity issues. It hasn't caused sensitivity in either of my horses, and they've eaten a ton of it (literally) by now. :)
ReplyDeleteIf you really want to eliminate wasted hay, try a Porta-Grazer. I love mine - they are used at home and at rides. The horses can't waste any hay and it keeps them eating at a more natural rate. My guys prefer to eat from the grazers over hay bags or loose hay, I think they like the feeling of pulling the hay through the round holes. Also, if you wanted to soak your hay that would be the way to go, just hose from the top and open the drain plug on the bottom of the grazer to let the water drain out.
The Porta-Grazers look great. Would be good for her as she hogs things so quickly. I tried to soak my hay this evening and made a gigantic mess. Might have to figure the budget to get one of those puppies.
ReplyDeleteYou can soak BP in two nesting buckets and I bet you could do the same with a muck bucket of hay. Get two nesting muck buckets, drill a bunch of holes in one. Put that one inside the other one, stuff hay in there, add water. When you pull up the inner one the water should drain into the other bucket. I know this works for BP but hay's bulkier...
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