Our First Horse

Okay, I was going to say “horse farts” but it just seemed uncivilized. Both of our horses have what I would consider a peculiar habit. Each time we let them in the barn they lift their tails and pass gas as they walk by us. What is THAT all about? Is this some kind of horse greeting I’m just supposed to know about or are they trying to insult me? I’m sure “horse gas” is what I’m smelling too because I can hear it escaping as they walk passed me. If you’re offended by horse gas, stop reading now, as it only gets worse. I remember reading something about the ozone layer and how methane from cow gas was causing measurable damage to the atmosphere. I’m not surprised if that’s true because my 1,000 pound horse can almost cause me to lose consciousness. I no longer wonder about the cause of all the barn fires in the olden days. Farmers used lanterns with flames! What were they thinking? It’s a wonder we don’t hear more about EXPLOSIONS in the barns of yesteryear with all that methane floating around.

But seriously, they don’t seem gassy (is that a word?) all the time we’re around them, just when we let them in for oats at night. I suppose it has something to do with the grass they’re eating during the day out in the pasture. Or maybe my neighbors are playing a joke on us by feeding our horses burritos. Haha, funny, I get it. Please stop now.
Note to self - let horses in early when romantic evenings are planned.

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Ya’ll know we have a 10-year-old son we call “The Kid” in these parts. Well, we had hoped he’d take to the horses more than he has and would write some posts here and there. It hasn’t happened. Yet. We haven’t given up hope but he’s not showing much interest. Mikki and I can’t really understand this since we would have both LOVED to have had a horse at his age, but as I mentioned before, he’s more of an “indoors” kid. I think if he was to ride a horse he’d get into them more, but our two horses are both pretty spirited and I’m not sure I’m ready for him to ride either of them yet. We’ve toyed with the idea of buying him his own horse but I refuse to buy him something I’m not convinced he’ll take care of and we don’t need any more pasture ornaments!

I’d love to hear from some of you who have kids who aren’t into horses as much as you. Have you had any luck forcing them to be interested ?

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We went to a small town Christmas event tonight and one of the prominent attractions was horse-drawn carriage rides, as well as hay rides. We paid $6, stood in line and boarded a small, white one-horse carriage for a ride down main street. It was awesome. Clack, clack, clack as we rode past merry makers, Christmas displays and antique stores with awnings covered with fake snow. Ah, Christmas. Despite a temperature of around 75 here today, it really felt like Christmas after dark in this little town.

Oh, and the carriage. How cool would that be? We recently saw one advertised in the local classifieds for $1,000. I wonder how much use we’d get out of it. We could be in the Christmas parade and load up for an old-fashioned ride over to a friends house nearby (also horse lovers). And this way we could all go, even though there are 3 of us and only two horses. We’d have to get a one-horse carriage though. Valentine is so much bigger than Moonshine, they’d surely be out of sync. Oh well, it’s an idea we’ll toss around until some money comes our way.

A fun little side note - there is a carriage maker at Dollywood that really make real horse carriages the old fashioned way - by hand.

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I just updated our horse expense list through October 2006 and pulled together this quick, if un-sexy line chart showing the trend. That big blip in the middle is due to annual vaccinations (I told the horses it hurt me more than it hurt them). With only two more months to go to wrap up 2006 expenses, it’s becoming clear to me that my earlier assertion about horses not costing that much may have been premature. Well, relative to say, a child, they’re not expensive. But relative to a dog, cat or lawn ornament, they are indeed expensive. So if you’re tight on cash and want a nice pet, a dog or cat is much cheaper. If you want a nice lawn or pasture ornament, consider pink flamingos, though I heard that the company that makes them just stopped production so you better snap them up at a yard sale before they move to “collector” status. If you really really like horses and have no qualms about putting off a car payment to buy feed, a horse is right for you and you should run out this weekend and buy the prettiest one you can find. Just kidding about that last part but we all know you’ve thought about it.

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Nope, not a Halloween post. The other day Mikki and I were out in the pasture cutting back a large section of a tree that had fallen during a storm. We headed on out with a chainsaw and an ax to clear the tree away from the round bale of hay resting under a nearby tree. The fallen tree presented a hazard to our horses so like good horse parents we were gonna fix it. I figured the horses would be afraid of the loud noises the chainsaw made but was surprised to see they didn’t seem to care. I guess they trusted since the noise was coming from around us, they didn’t have to fear it. At least we didn’t bring any plastic shopping bags with us. Now that would have been scary! Of course I didn’t saw very close to them and had they approached me Mikki would have shooed them off. And I didn’t cut any branches that would have fallen on them or snapped towards them, despite how close they look in the picture (it was a staged photo).

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A month ago I wrote about experimenting with a round bale of hay in the pasture during the cold season and here’s an update on how that’s going for us. Although our horses almost entirely ignored the round bale when the weather was warm, they’ve shown great interest in it once the weather cooled and the green grasses died off for the winter. In fact I’m starting to think we should have purchased a few more round bales. Not only was the price a good deal ($20 for 1,000 pounds of fresh cut hay!), I’m starting to thing the horses really need the supplemental forage until spring. Almost every day now I see at least one horse rear sticking out beside the tree where the round bale rests. The horses don’t seem to like to outer layer which is no doubt moist from all the rain we’ve been having but the chewy center must be delicious, as they’ve managed to carve the middle section of the round bale out (see picture). So I’d say the “experiment” is going quite well. Armed with this information, I’ll probably look for some more round bales, though the prices have almost certainly gone up since I bought this one. If I’m successful in acquiring a few more, I’m going to place them in the old barn to keep the moisture down this time.

I need to point out that the brush you see on the left of that picture isn’t normally there. A nearby tree split during a storm and has since been trimmed. We try to correct fallen trees and other hazards as quickly as possible for the safety of the horses.

Related Posts:
The round bale hay experiment - Part 1
The round bale hay experiment - Part 2 (you are here)
The round bale hay experiment - Part 3
The round bale hay experiment - Part 4
The round bale hay experiment - Part 5

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