Easy keeper?

Um.  Not so much.  "Easy Keeper" is an expression describing horses that don't need a lot of food.  And Canadian Horses are well known for being easy keepers.  Air ferns actually.

This presents some challenges however.

My fat girl
L has become seriously overweight.  I'd say...maybe...2 or 300 pounds overweight.

When we were competing we'd work a couple of hours every single day.  And in peak shape she'll take your breath away.  Sometimes we'd ride 6 or 8 miles just warming up.  L has a very large capacity for work.  She'll just go and go.  And go.  We were going to start endurance riding at one time.  But that's another story.

She barely gets a third of a cup of grain for breakfast and dinner.  We have no pasture so the rest of her diet is hay.

It's hard to keep her fit and I certainly don't have the stones anymore to do it under saddle.

So I'm putting her on a program.  She'll get some more disciplined ground work.  I'm talking about my discipline here.  I need to more actively supervise her exercise.

And I got this:

Tough-1 Hay Hoops slow feed haynet
Product review: So far it's just perfect! She's been eating too fast. And that's why she's getting as much hay as she's been getting. So I got that slow feed hay net a week or so ago and I'm just thrilled. She figured it out easily enough. It's slowed her way down so I can give her less hay and not only does it keep her busy she's also spending less time with an empty stomach. All kinds of wins. I have read that the net will break down and tear apart in 6 months to a year so I'll have to get a spare net to keep around.

Wicked Clean

"Wicked", in the local vernacular, means "extremely" or rather, something more than "extremely". So we often say things like "it's wicked good" (meaning it's *really* good) or "it's wicked bad" (meaning it's *really* bad) or..say.."it's wicked hot" (you get the idea).

20 July. 6:00 am
It's been in the 90s for over a week and Friday was 100 degrees. Me? I love this kind of weather!

L looks miserable in the heat but she actually holds up well. My Paint mare G, on the other hand, is just about the most miserable creature you've ever seen in the heat. She *desperately* needed a bath. Making Saturday... bath day!

This is G. One down. One to go.

L is not very happy about this
After her years of showing you'd think she'd be a little better about it. She just doesn't like baths much.

But this is ok
And they're both. Wicked Clean. I love clean horses!

Clean horses

I just love clean horses!

Bathing them I'm not too thrilled with
Imagine washing your car and having your car free to wander away from you every few minutes...

It's a big project. Usually on a hot day.

<Censored>

Um. What is he doing?!
Hygiene lesson! Mares get a waxy crusty buildup on their udders. They need a good scrubbing. There was a time L was rubbing her tail. I'd hose her hind and I'd scrub her tail with tea tree oil shampoo. I kept her tail clean and brushed. None of it worked. This can be serious business. They can rub the hair off their tail. The hair can take a very long time to grow back. They can rub their tails raw. They can become infected.

One day, after a thorough bath that included cleaning her udders - she stopped rubbing her tail! Your mileage may vary. It's just something to consider.

The easiest thing to do is either use a soapy sponge or a soapy tail to get under there and scrub. Being very careful. This can be a good way to get kicked clear into next week. If you've never done it before get some help from an expert.

No problem. She likes it!
And it's not as ..awkward..as.. sheath cleaning (can be).

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Behold. Nice clean horse!

Scrub a dub dub

I really wanted to ride. But this time of year? When it's 80 degrees? Time for baths! This could be the last bath day this year.

24 September
These things can go either way. Turns out today L was quite agreeable. Sometimes she can be a real stinker!

I like the Cowboy Magic stuff. Mostly because it rinses out so thoroughly in cold water. I use the rosewater formula with L.

Squeaky clean!
I love a clean horse. Of course she won't stay that way for long.

Floating

My horses had their teeth done this week.

Floating L
It's important to have a dentist see your horse every year. A diet of grass on the range will continually polish a wild horse's teeth, which continue to grow into their senior years. When a domesticated horse eats mostly hay and grain, ridges or "points" form along the sides of their molars. These points can lead to all kinds of health and training problems. And of course uneven molars can cause TMJ strain which is an issue with L. Her dentist was the first to actually diagnose her dysfunctional TMJ.

Polishing or filing these points is called floating.

I prefer a dentist who uses hand tools (called floats, essentially, they're files). There really is no reason for this to be an unpleasant experience for them. The horses. Not the dentists. I've seen heavy handed use of power tools draw blood and heard stories of horses being uncomfortable for days after having been floated. In 16 years now I've never had a horse show signs of discomfort for any appreciable amount of time. I'm talking minutes here.

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Something about this picture strikes me as "classic".

I can't quite put my finger on why. It's almost identical to a black and white picture I took of my first horse many years ago and maybe that has something to do with it. And truth be told - I cheated, but you probably knew that. This is a recent digital image and I used Gimp to desaturate the color. I have a problem of sorts with that because the "purist" in me insists that *real* black and white pictures have to be made from black and white film.

It still doesn't have the same kind of charm that a real black and white picture has but I like it anyway.

Heatwave?

Sweety doesn't like the summer heat like I do!

One obvious thing to help make your horse more comfortable, especially if they have a thick, luxurious mane, is to band it so air can get under it and help cool them off a little.

On days like this we don't really work. Maybe a couple of circles left and right to stretch but that's it. Then we just do a little 20 or 30 minute bareback pony ride. There was a little breeze today and it was actually kind of nice in the shaded woods but holy crap the deer flies were just awful! Maybe 50 feet or so from the woods we were descended upon!

So we went off to lap the fields. A good head shake to get rid of the last of those pesky bugs!

Much better. Off on the left there is a couple of acres of eggplant. Yum!

Take a left at the eggplant and oh my! Look at all that hay!

She was a little bit of a pill lapping the hay fields. All she wanted to do was eat! You'd think she'd been just starving to death I swear. So I had to get all mean and then she was really awesome.

Make no mistake. If anyone wants to know:


It's not the heat it's the humidity!

Really.

If we do any real work in this kind of heat I'll hose her down. But when it's both hot and humid the water doesn't evaporate and in a few minutes she'll just be all covered in hot water. Even after scraping the water she's still just covered in hot water.

So I sponged her down good with a linament solution when we were done. A linament solution will help her be more comfortable. I just kinda wing it. Maybe 6 or 8 ounces of Absorbine in a gallon of icy cold water. I use a big sponge, start at her feet, get her good and wet but not soaking, and by the time I get to the top of her legs she's making faces.

After I worked that around and scraped her down and let some air move around her, I put her away and I went and had one of these:

I like the seasonal brews.

I would surely like to have done a few miles in the woods. The woods are relatively cool and they smell so good this time of year but all things considered, ya, this was a nice day. Just like I thought it would be.