Our First Horse

If you have horses, it’s likely you’ve used Farnam horse products at one point or another. Many of the products you see at feed stores and Tractor Supply come from Farnam such as fly masks, fly sprays, horse soaps, shampoos and conditioners, feed supplements, etc. I received a marketing email from Farnam recently that had a link to coupons and rebates you can print for discounts on Farnam products. Savings range from $1 to $25. If you buy Farnam products, save a few bucks by using one of these:

Farnam Coupons and Rebates

You can also find this list by visiting their website and clicking “Coupons” on the top menu.

Note: Farnam isn’t a sponsor and we’re not affiliated with them in any way.

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A few years ago we lived in Arizona during the height of the big real estate boom. We saw the price of houses in our neighborhood jump from $150k to over $300k and the desert all around Phoenix developed. It seemed even the least attractive homes in the worst neighborhoods were suddenly very expensive. I couldn’t figure out where all the money was coming from. How could people making $40k a year afford a $300k house in need of a new roof? Years later we have our answer and the “housing crisis” continues. I feel bad for those who had to pay twice what homes were worth, only to have their mortgage payments skyrocket and the value of their houses plummet. But I hadn’t even considered the impact this might have on horses in Arizona until I read an article a few days ago on azcentral.com (the website of the Arizona Republic newspaper).

Though I’m not a fan of E.J. Montini’s controversial political views, his column post “Abandoning houses, horses and history” was well written and eye-opening. Mr. Montini interviewed Holly Marino of the non-profit Horse Rescue of North Scottsdale and discovered that people in the Phoenix area are dropping off and abandoning their horses at an increasing rate. When people can’t pay their mortgages, they can’t pay to feed or board horses. The rescue went from having around a dozen horses to having 60…SIXTY. I know what it costs to feed and maintain three horses but I can’t imagine sixty. They’re struggling to find a way to pay the expenses while looking for good homes for the horses.

The impact of the huge increase in bankruptcies and foreclosures in Arizona extends beyond people to their pets, including horses. I’ll guess it’s a problem in other previously-hot housing markets like Southern California and Florida. It’s sad for the horses and sad for the people, many of whom are probably as close to their horses as we are to ours.

I’ll be traveling to Arizona in the next few months and will try to stop by the Horse Rescue of North Scottsdale to talk with Ms. Marino about it some more.

If you’re close by and would like to help, visit their website (they have a very nice website) for more information. They’re in need of blankets, hay, feed, money and more. Even a small donation of $10 can buy a bag of feed. If you’re not close by, consider helping out your local horse rescue. The housing crisis is impacting communities around the U.S. Most rescues are non-profit and in need of financial and/or physical help.

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A few days after our horses got loose, we were talking with some friends and discovered that the little runaway scene the other night did actually cause some property damage. The friends that caught our horses for us had a suspicious break in their electric fence. Now there are other ways this can happen but it’s likely our horses ran into it, probably got the shock of their lives and scooted off, wide-eyed and wide awake. They ended up in the front lawn of the house and that was the beginning of them being captured. It’s a good thing our friend’s cows weren’t in that pasture or it could have been a bigger problem. We, of course, offered to pay for the fence repair and it caused no ill-will but it goes to show you horses getting loose can turn out to be a big deal. At least here in Tennessee property damage caused by loose animals in the responsibility of the animal owner. Even car insurance companies will sue animal owners to recoup damage expenses.

We have learned quite a lesson here. Of course we didn’t let them out intentionally and have always been concerned about leaving a gate open but now we triple check!

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Speaking of hay, the word from the hay farmers in east Tennessee is that 2007 is shaping up to be a very bad year for hay. The first harvest of the year was about half it’s normal size and the lack of rain since the first harvest could mean there is no second harvest. In Tennessee, we had a hard freeze well into spring that seems to have slowed the growth of just about everything this season. That’s probably the culprit of the smaller-than-normal first harvest. Local farmers say we’re in the drought end of a 10 year moisture cycle in these parts.

What all of this means for those of us buying hay in east Tennessee is high prices and low availability. Last year feed stores were selling 30-40 pound square bales for up to $5.50 each last winter. I wonder what the price will be this year. If these farmers are correct, the best time to purchase hay is right now. As long as we keep them away from moisture, the bales will easily last and we have the room for it now. We’re planning on stocking up on round bales for winter and square bales for daily roughage. Worse-case scenario, we’ll supplement this winter with bagged alfalfa but I’d rather not do that. If you live in the southeast, this might be a good year to consider building some hay storage.

Luckily the midwest seems to be having a wet summer so you horse owners out there are probably in good shape. Heck, we might be importing hay from you guys this year!

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I just got caught up on our year-to-date horse expense list and chart. 2007 is shaping up to be more expensive for us as horse owners. It looks like the biggest reason for that is because we’re just coming off of the cold months and winter is definitely more expensive for maintaining horses. Last years expense list started in summer. Now that the grass is growing and our horses are spending less time in the barn, our expenses are going down. If it wasn’t for farrier expense in April, our monthly total would have been only $74. But horses (usually) need shoeing!

Here are some expense changes implemented recently:

• We find ourselves using more wood pellets these days, as it makes our job cleaning stalls each day much easier.
• We got some good deals on more expensive feed from Purina and now we’re hooked. We really like Omolene and Strategy. I think we’ll stick with Strategy for now, which sells for about $3 more per bag than local feed-store sweet oats. We’ll also be cutting back slightly on the amount of feed we use.
• We’ll start buying fly parasites again this month (May). We tried them last year and they worked. Today I noticed TONS of flies in the barn. We should have ordered the parasites a little earlier.

On an administrative note, the horse expense list page is looking cluttered to me so I’ll be redesigning it. The information is good, it’s just getting hard to read.

Here’s the updated graph:

Our 11 month average is $157.

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Last week we attended a Purina Horse Owners Workshop presentation at one of our local feed stores here in east Tennessee. Purina seems to put these on annually and we attended a similar presentation last year at a different feed store. The objective for Purina is obvious: convince us to buy Purina brand horse feed. Even though we expected part of the event to be a sales presentation, we were interested in the opportunity to listen in on a question-and-answer session by cowboy and “horse whisperer” Sam Powell.

Sam has been the speaker for both presentations we’ve been to so far and I’m always impressed with his common-sense approach to horses. He advocates observing how horses deal with leadership in nature as an effective means of communicating to your horse that you are the herd leader. His most important point is that with horses, there is always a leader. Every time you meet, a leader is decided. If it’s just you and your horse, and you don’t take the leadership role, he will. There are many ways to subtly show him you’re in charge. For example, Sam suggests that you never just let your horses in and out of the barn - as we do (he says “they’re not cows”). He says to halter your horse each time and lead him in and out. When you’re letting him out, lead him out, remove the halter, then walk away. Your horse should not walk away until you do. When you let him in, lead him to the stall, stop at the door and allow him to walk in while still holding the lead rope. He will turn around to face you; then you can remove the halter and lead rope. (An added benefit to this method is that it makes it much easier to trailer a horse if he’s used to entering a space alone after you’ve stopped in the doorway.)

Sam offers lots of good advice every year. If you have the opportunity to hear him speak, we highly advise it. Check out his schedule at www.asksampowell.com.

Oh, and an excellent barbecue dinner was provided at no charge to participants but you have to RSVP. This year supper included barbecued chicken and all the fixings, as well as a delicious desert. Tasty and filling (thanks Purina, Critter Country and other sponsors!). Product samples and literature were available and enough door prizes were given out that it seems almost everyone won something. Purina handed out special buy-two-get-one-free coupons and other discounts to entice us to buy their brand of feed. So when next year rolls around, if we get news of another Horse Owners Workshop, we’ll definitely be signing up again. It was time well spent.

We’ll write later about how we’ve been using Omolene 100, Purina’s sweet oat blend for “active pleasure horses”. For now, I’ll say we’ve been very pleased with it, even though it is a tad more expensive than the feed store mix. More about all that later.

Have you been to one of these presentations yet? What was your impression?

By the way, we have no connection with Purina or Critter Country and were not paid anything to say nice things about them.

For more information and to see if they have a Horse Owners Workshop near you, visit the Purina website.

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