Ducks4you for 2022

[ducks4you]

I have always thought so. They are like dogs, that need a job and, treated kindly, can be very docile.
OR, left without training and to not follow you, 1,200 pound monsters.
Where there is a leadership vacuum, the horse will become the leader.
Weak owners need not apply.
Most of my horses, over the years, will let anybody handle them. Many of them would let anybody ride them.
A few were too much for me. You swallow your pride and move on.
Anyway, it's fun having them in the back yard.
I am running for mayor of our town bc the current mayor is stepping down.
Recently a family in town bought 20 acres ajacent to and inside of the town, so now we have 2 horse owning property owners.
I intend to ask for their help to win my race next Spring.
We are both zoned correctly, but bad leadership can pass an ordinance outlawing them.
Gotta fight for what you have and what you want.

 

[heirloomgal]

That is so great! Running for mayor! Wow!

It's just so fabulous when people actually get out there and get involved in things to make them better. It's so easy to gripe on the sidelines as a spectator, but things go to pot at least partly from people sitting on their laurels. I don't think even half of my country votes!?

I love that you are such an educated horse owner! Mind you, I know nothing about horses, but aside from gardening I am always looking at dog training material. I'm fascinated by it, and having gotten a dog in 2018 after over 20 years+ of not having one, I wanted to understand dog ownership from a truly educated point of view. I didn't want to be just a passive owner, and in the beginning it was easy to slip into the trap of treating him as a fellow human. Bad move! Thank goodness I chose the breed I did, because for first time owners they are a relatively easy breed, minus their nose. Just like you say, if they don't perceive you as the leader, they'll become one. I've been to a seminar and consulted with some people who really know their stuff and that really helped me. Up until the last few years I had NO IDEA about any of these deeper psychological realities of these animals we share our lives with. But I'm starting to really be able to read body language now, and all the non-verbal cues. It's taken me 4 years to start to really get a handle on the subtler messaging.

Are there any trainers you really like?

 

[ducks4you]

Hard to say. I have only started ONE horse, my Arabian, "Corporal", (1982-2006, RIP). They are like puppies, very impressionable when green and unspoiled.
I like Clinton Anderson, as far as big names go.
If I had a spare $15K I would buy my next horse from him.
When badly trained it takes, IMHO, 20x as long as good training to fix it, but I think horses Can be retrained. I don't believe that you can rewire a spoiled dog's brain.
My DD's laugh, bc we always run our hands around the back side of all of horses, so that they know where we are, and do the same with people, too.
I scold my horses all of the time, and they dismiss it.
Really, what you need to recognize is the body language of a frightened horse. Few, is any horses are vicious. They crave a herd, and sometimes the owner is the only herd that a horse gets.
MY GS barks at them all of the time and they dismiss Her, too.
Don't take any horse training on "Yellowstone." As a ranch, they are a mess.
No rancher would buy QH's that slide and spin. Uesless.
Cutters, maybe, but all of that front leg dancing wears out the front legs.
Kinda like getting your education from Pinterest.
I took Hunter/Jumper lessons, and then taught English Pleasure, Western Pleasure, Beginning Jumping, and military (bc we used our horses for Civil War Reenacting, Cavalry, on the weekends, for 21 years.)
I like a horse that is balanced. QH's have a lovely sitting trot. Mine will perfo9rm a floating trot at libery, when excited. I haven't worked him enough to get that far when riding him, but I might.
My Arabian could perform a passage, a piaffe, and collected canter. A thoroughbred that we owned once performed a capriole, when the drummers struck up and we were about to march out. Glad nobody was behind him!
Man, that horse could clear a jump. Very scopey, would take you with him over a fence.
I have no real preferences. Many English riders hang on their horse's mouth, instead of following.
Many Western riders choke up and press on the brakes. The curb bit is a fulcrum and you can use your fingertips to stop my mare with a curb.
Most training is repetition. If you know the basics and you are a patient trainer, you can get your horse to do practicallky anything bc the horse will trust you.
My horses have always been trained to walk through 32" doors, and be lead by a rope around the neck.
We are never as strong as them, so we insist obedience and give lots of rewards.

 

[Dahlia]

Ducks, it must be so wonderful to have horses. Where I live horses are very, very rare - you see the odd farm with a few horses when you drive to the outer little towns, but not many. I'm not sure why this is, though I imagine it must be related to the cost of horses and thier care. I was walking some trails a few years ago with family and there was a couple who were actually riding horses on the trail too (this has never happened to me, ever!) - which made us all feel like we were up close and personal to a couple of giraffes! Like, totally amazing! DD especially is spellbound by them. I have very little expereince being near them, but the few times I was able to pet one, or be up close was wonderful. I can only imagine how great it must be to have your own.

As a child I always wanted a horse. I gave up after wanting one for 13 years! Lol. My daughter worked on a farm with horses for a while and she loved it!

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

I wished for a horse for many many birthdays, but sadly since Daddy was in the Air Force, and we moved every 2-3 years, it was never to be.

Mayor!! I'd vote for you!!

 

[ducks4you]

@Rhodie Ranch , D'awww!!!
I would appreciate your Prayers. I believe that I am supposed to run. DH is sure that I will be the only one on the April ballot.
The only word from the Lord that I have gotten is that I should be running.
All about obedience.
Our current mayor waited until November 19th to decide, so that gives me less time to get petitions signed, BUT, our city atty works in the same office as DH, so I can pretty easily ask her legal questions.

 

[baymule]

A Mayor! We can all say, “we knew her when she was a duck.”

 

[ducks4you]

Little town of Philo took a page from the slighter larger town of Gibson City and put up a town Christmas Tree with a seasonal roundabout.

 

[ducks4you]

Regarding perennial rice, which I think is GREAT IDEA, I have expounded on my post there.

You don't Have to replant alfalfa, which grows 3 ft roots and IS a perrenial. The older it gets, the thicker the stems that grow, even if often harvested. so, a 3 year old field pushes it.
Only cattle can handle stemmy hay, so usually it is tilled into the soil for a heavy feeder crop after it.
My hay man, before I moved, was selling me awful and old alfalfa bales, and one year all of my horses lost a LOT of weight. You can see, on my thread, that my current herd is nicely padded.
Feed stores sell 40 or 50 pound bags of processed alfalfa dry pellets. I imagine that the stems, dried and ground up make for good pellets, and I bet that is what they buy. It is a product sold out of Idaho.
This year's hay has some stems I would rather not see, but still, everybody's doing fine.
I haver begun counting flakes, to be sure that I don't run out.
Cup and Cakes=3 flakes/2x/day
Buster Brown = 2 flakes/2x/day
Cindy Lou = 2 flakes/2x/day
I go through 3 or 4 bales every 3 days or so~45 bales/month
The bales weigh about 65 pounds/each.
Each bale has about 10 flakes. You feed by weight, so sometimes a flake is a little light and I add more.
Also, since I bed with some straw, I don't worry if they are a little bit hungry in the morning bc they will eat straw. Horses need to keep their guts moving. Straw has very low protein but good fiber to help with this.
The bottom stacked bales to the south of the door to my catwalk to the shelter manger is partially blocked and it makes it harder to throw flakes into the manger.
I have moved most of them to another part of the loft. I only have 7 more to go.
Gotta save my strength for stall cleaning. By the weekend this problem will be fixed.
I think that there is better future in selling invasive plants to be processed for animal fodder than for human consumption.
But, most of us like rice.
Remember about 8 years ago or so, when the news reported a rice shortage? I know people who DIDN'T eat rice, but they stocked up on it, anyway!

 

[ducks4you]

9 Wheelbarrows full cleaning wet and dirty stalls today, bc I got lazy and didn't clean this week.
Here are my stacks before I started to pull bedding.
First are 29 forty pound bags of pine pellets. They fit nicesly on pallets east of my mare's stall.
Second are 63 twenty-three pound (surprisingly, but I found the weight on their website) packages of fine pine shavings, one of the other pile. They sit on top of 2 pallets. Barn floor is cement. Barn stalls are lined with 3/4 in thick rubber mats.
Third are 37 packages of pine shavings. Last time I only stacked 21, 3 each layer, but I stuffed more in this time and on top of the large oil can that holds 250 pounds of sweet feed. These pine shavings sit on top of a piece of plywood, instead of sitting on the cement which could hold moisture.
The tarps are necessary to keep horses from breaking open packages from boredom. In back of the third picture there is a 4' x 6' particle board, and I tucked this tarp underneath one layer so that, again, my horse won't bite into anything.
QUITE a lovely wind block bc 1/2 of the stall stops a draft.
I will recover the shavings pile and tuck in a 3rd tarp to keep any rain or snow off of them
Some might suggest that i store bedding in the loft. my 3 loads of bedding were about #1K or more each. DIdn't want to put that kind of weight upstairs, NOW, all of the weight rests on the floor of the barn.
NEXT YEAR, I need to clear out my "Carraige House", which has the dimensions of a 1 car garage, and get all pallets and bedding stored a winter's worth ALL in there, except I would want to stage bedding in front of Buster Brown's stall bc of the great windblock.