Our First Horse

Okay, remember back in February when I brought up sheath cleaning and proclaimed it was never gonna happen? (And You Thought Victoria’s Secret Was Racy?) Well, after further research, I now think it’s gonna have to happen. Luckily, I have found some expert guidance. Try not to spray sweet tea out your nose:

Mr. Hand

1. Check to make sure there are no prospective boyfriends, elderly neighbors, or brownie troops with a line of sight to the proceedings. Though of course, they’re going to show up unexpectedly ANYWAY once you’re in the middle of things. Prepare a good explanation.
2. Trim your fingernails short. Assemble horse, hose, and your sense of humor (plus, ideally, Excalibur cleanser and perhaps thin rubber gloves).
3. Use hose (or damp sponge) to get the sheath and its inhabitant wet. Uh, that is, do this in a “civilized” fashion with due warning to the horse; he is apt to take offense if an icy-cold hose blasts unexpectedly into his personal regions.
4. Now introduce your horse to Mr. Hand. What I find safest is to stand facing the horse’s head, with my shoulder and hip snugly against the horse’s thigh and hip so that if he makes any suspicious move such as raising his leg, I can feel it right away and am in any case pressed so close that all he can do is shove, not really kick. The horse should be held by an assistant or by your free hand, not tied fast to a post or in crossties. He may shift around a good bit if he’s not happy with Mr. Hand’s antics, but don’t be put off by that; as long as you are patient and gradual, and stick close to his side, he’ll get over it. Remember it would be most unladylike of you to simply make a direct grab for your horse’s part. Give the horse a clue about what’s on the program. Rest your hand against his belly, and then slide it back till you are entering the Home of the Actual Private Part. When you reach this first region of your destination, lube him up good with Excalibur or whatever you are using.
5. If the outer part of his sheath is really grungy you will feel little clods and nubblies of smegma peeling off as you grope around in there. Patiently and gently expedite their removal. Thus far, you have probably only been in the outer part of the sheath. The Part itself, you’ll notice, is strangely absent. That’s because it has shyly retired to its inner chambers. Roll up your sleeves and follow in after it.
6. As you and Mr. Hand wend your way deeper into the sheath, you will encounter what feels like a small portal that opens up into a chamber beyond. Being attentive to your horse’s reaction, invite yourself in. You are now in the Inner Sanctum of the Actual Private Part. It’s hiding in there, towards the back, trying to pretend it isn’t there. Say hi, and wave to it. No, really, work your finger back and forth around the sides of it. If the horse won’t drop, this is your only shot at removing whatever dried smegma is clinging to the surface of the Part itself. So, gently explore around it, pulling out whatever crusty topsoil you find there. Use more water and more Excalibur if necessary to loosen attached gunk.
7. When Mr. Hand and the Actual Private Part have gotten to know each other pretty well, and the Part feels squeaky clean all around, there remains only one task: checking for and removing the bean. The bean is a pale, kidney-shaped accumulation of smegma in a small pouch just inside the urethra. Not all horses accumulate a bean, but IME [in my experience] the majority do, even if they have no visible external smegma. So: the equine urethra is fairly large in diameter, and will indeed permit you to very gently insinuate one of your slimmer fingers inside the urethral opening. Do so, and explore upwards for what will feel like a lump or “pea” buried no more than, I dunno, perhaps 3/4″ in from the opening. If you do encounter a bean, gently and sympathetically persuade it out with your finger. This may require a little patience from both Mr. Hand AND the horse, but the horse will be happier and healthier once it’s accomplished. In the rare event that the bean is too enormous for your finger to coax out, you might try what I did (in desperation) last month on the orange horse. Wrap thumb and index finger around the end of the Part and squeeze firmly to extrude the bean. Much to my surprise it worked and orange horse did NOT kill me for doing it and he does not seem to have suffered any permanent damage as a result. I have never in my life seen another bean that enormous, though.
8. Now all that’s left to do is make a graceful exit and rinse the area very thoroughly in apology for the liberties you’ve taken. A hose will be MUCH easier to use here than a bucket and sponge, IME. Make sure to direct the water into the Part’s inner retreat too, not merely the outer part of the sheath. This may require you to enfold the end of the hose in your hand and guide it up there personally.
9. Ta-Da, you are done! say “good horsey” and feed him lots of carrots. Watch him make lots of funny faces at the way your hands smell. Hhhmmm. Well, perhaps there is ONE more step…
10. The only thing I know of that is at all effective in removing the lovely fragrance of smegma from your hands (fingernails, arms, elbows and wherever else it has gotten) is Excalibur. Even then, if you didn’t use gloves you may find you have an unusual personal perfume for awhile. So, word to the wise, do NOT clean your horse’s sheath just before an important job interview or first date. And of course, there is the FINAL step…
11. Figure out how to explain all this to your mother (or the kid next door, or the meter reader, or whoever else you’ve just realized has been standing in the barn doorway speechlessly watching the whole process.)

Now, go thou forth and clean the Part.

(Copyright 1998 Patricia Harris; please email pat_berto@yahoo.com for permission to reprint)

How bad can it be, really? For me, I mean.

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Something all the experts will tell you is that when you’re working around horses, you need to wear the right kind of shoes. Have you ever had your dog step on your feet? Well, guess what - your horse will do that too. And need I remind you, your horse weighs considerably more than a dog, and has really hard feet to boot? (ha ha) I can tell you from personal experience that it pays to have the right kind of shoes.

Until this weekend, I had been really lucky. I didn’t have any boots, but I always tried to wear sturdy shoes. Valentine swept over my feet a couple of times, but I was quick enough to get them out of harm’s way. Then last weekend, I finally got my boots, and I love them! They are Justin work boots - ugly but tough! Very comfortable too. (I got them at C&S Tack.) Valentine likes them too - he tasted them both thoroughly. Maybe they look like apples to him.

I can’t tell the rest of the story without spilling Bill’s big news, so I’ll have to tell you…he got his own horse! That’s all I’m going to say. You’ll have to wait for his post to hear all about Static’s Blue Moon. But anyway, I was leading Blue Moon out of her stall yesterday, and she stepped squarely on my foot. It stung, let me tell you, but I was wearing my boots and they held up great. Today, the same darn thing happened, on the same foot - and I was wearing tennies. Big no-no. And I know why, now. Unfortunately for me, she stepped on the little toe I broke last year. I sure hope I’ll be able to wear my boots tomorrow. Owie.

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At some point - preferably before you get your horse, but at least soon after - you will have to decide what kind of bedding you want to use for your horse. Of course your horse’s comfort is an important consideration, but since, unlike your dog’s bed, this bedding won’t just be slept on - that’s right, horses are not “house broken” - there are other considerations too, such as absorbency and siftability (is that a real word, or did I just make one up?).  When you greet your beautiful, elegant equine companion in the morning, you will see that he made a small project for you to work on that day. More likely, two or three projects. He probably even has some stuck to his face. Sweet.

There are several options for horse bedding, beginning with the base - the stall floor. Our barn floor is just plain old dirt, but some barns have permanent flooring. You can also put in rubber floors - we are looking into that. They are easier to keep clean than dirt, and more comfortable for your horse than dirt or cement.

On top of whatever kind of floor you have, you need the multi-purpose bedding. This should provide comfort for your horse and absorb whatever he may leave in there for you to muck out. There are basically three choices: straw, wood shavings, and wood pellets.

Straw is the classic barn bedding. Upsides: It’s cheap and easy. I think it’s pretty comfortable too - we used it at first, and Valentine never complained. Downsides: it’s not very absorbent, and it’s hard to sort the wheat from the chaff, so to speak…when you go for the poo, you get a lot of straw too.

We haven’t used wood shavings for Valentine, but we do use them for our goat, Joey. They work great for Joey, because he hardly ever uses his little house as an outhouse, so one pack of shavings lasts forever. Upsides: They smell great, and cedar shavings, at least, naturally repel fleas. Downsides: We didn’t try these because we decided they wouldn’t be cost-effective. You’d have to buy a lot to fill a stall, and replace the soiled bedding with new shavings at a pretty good clip.

We finally settled on wood pellets. There are several brands out there. When we were researching this topic, the brand we found was Woody Pet. They don’t sell this brand anywhere nearby, but we checked at our local feed stores and co-ops and found a similar product sold under different names, such as Equine Pine and Eagle Valley ABM Advanced Bedding Management. We also asked other horse owners and the people at the feed stores and co-ops, and the consensus seems to be that this stuff is the best thing since sliced bread. So we shoveled out all the straw and put in six bags of wood pellets…

…watered them down to fluff them up per instructions…

…and presto! Soft, fluffy, absorbent and sweet-smelling bedding! Which equals a sweeter-smelling horse. If you love on your horse like I do, you’ll appreciate that.

Equally importantly, the stall cleans up faster and easier than ever before. The sawdust - which is what you end up with after you wet the pellets down - sifts right through the fork and all you’re shoveling out is poo. The urine soaks into the sawdust until the sawdust has reached maximum absorbing capacity, then it clumps together and you can shovel it right out. My big sweetie always pees in exactly the same place, so I just shovel that spot out every couple of days and add more.

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Sigh, it’s April 15th as I write this, a day I don’t look forward to every year. For some, however, it’s not as financially painful as it once was thanks to the ability to deduct certain expenses associated with horse ownership. Now as simple and nice as that sounds, deducting horse expenses is not something most horse owners will be able to do. In fact, there is no “horse tax deduction” unless you can prove ownership and maintenance of your horse is a business pursuit. An internet search revealed the following general rules:

• You must maintain a seperate checking account for business expenses. The IRS will look carefully at whether or not you’re running your “business” in a business-like manner. Save receipts, create profit and loss statements, write everything down.
• You cannot operate at a loss indefinately. The IRS will likely want to take a look at the profit/loss trend over time to make sure you’re trying to make a profit. Otherwise it looks like you’re trying to write-off your hobby.
• How pleasureable is your horse business? One article I found (linked below) noted two tax court cases where deductions were disallowed because owners referred to their horses with affection. This doesn’t seem fair, I know, but it sets some precedent.

I’m sure there are more “rules” out there but those should be enough to make us all wonder whether or not we really want to try and consider our horse expenses as business expenses. However, if your horse ownership venture really is for profit, best of luck to you saving on taxes! Legitimate horse businesses (according to the IRS) seem to be: breeding operations, equine camps and workshops, boarding, riding lessons with a horse that’s not your personal pleasure horse and horse racing. Apparently if you give occassional lessons to the neighbor kids on your own personal pleasure horse, it’s not advisable to deduct your horse expenses from your personal income tax.

But remember, I’m far from a tax pro so don’t necessarily make any life decisions based on what I write.

Some information for this post is from here (not affiliated): http://www.horses-and-horse-information.com/articles/0399horsebusiness.shtml

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A great source of information is your local tack shop. Halfway between the town where we live and the closest “big city,” tucked off the highway where you would never know where it is except for a roadside sign, is the best little tack shop around: C&S Western & Tack Shop. They have EVERYTHING there - tack, barn stuff, shoeing supplies, grooming supplies, boots - you name it. And the owner, Charlie, really knows his stuff. He’s been a great source of information and advice for us. He knows just about everyone in the area, too, so he knows who to talk to if you need something he doesn’t have (like hay). There’s a bulletin board full of resources in the shop, too. Charlie is also one of the nicest people we’ve met in a place full of nice people, and he has the best stories. If you’re ever in Greenback, Tennessee, look them up!

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Remember NickerMakers? Well, believe it or not, there’s a dumber name than that. I just got Valentine some horse treats called Stud Muffins. No joke. He LOVES them! They smell pretty good to me, but they look an awful lot like what I shovel out of his stall every morning, so I’m not tempted to try them. Yet.

In case you didn’t know, horses love to eat. It’s what they do all day. In fact, they are made that way - they are so big, and their diet is so low in calories, that they pretty much need to eat constantly. Valentine is no exception. For his regular diet, his favorite thing is oats, followed by fresh grass, followed by hay (since the grass started growing again, he’s not too keen on the hay). His favorite treats are apples, carrots, NickerMakers and Stud Muffins. My next experiment, treat-wise, will be homemade horse treats. I’m not making that up. I’ll post recipes here after the results are in.

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