Getting Out in the Mud

As the weather stays cold here in Idaho, we are looking for ways to keep the horses warm, but it is important to observe first. You might be surprised how little needs to be done to help the horses in the winter weather.

We live by the motto that it might be nice to upgrade something, but is it really necessary? It's the same with the training aspect of keeping horses. Each horse takes the cold weather differently, but that just keeps things interesting. Here is what we have found from watching our horses' behaviors and working to better each of them from where they are:

Soot: Our resident draft x (cross) is now about 17 hands and continuing to grow. His coat is coming in long and he loves to stand out in the rain, snow, and wind. Even though he's big, he can canter around in his 20'x20' stall and loves it! When we get him out, we have found that in this weather, we are working with him being better at giving to pressure on the lead rope. He leads wonderfully, but sometimes gets a bit ahead of us (his stride is longer than ours for sure!). We are working with him staying beside us rather than pulling ahead. For exercise, we brought him into the barnyard and kept him on the lead, working to having him yield to the halter/lead to keep his head toward the center. He is listening and even crosses over in the back, which shows he is trusting us. We would love to get a chance to have him pull the tire again.

Shine: Our almost 5 year old quarter horse is continuing to learn more as well. He has recently been my transportation out to the front of the house to pick up the mail from the mailbox out by the street. He is still getting used to the gravel on the driveway and it is a reminder to me to check his hooves each time I am done out there so I can get any gravel that has stuck to his hooves. Since he is still barefoot (all our horses are) it is especially important to check the sole of the hooves to make sure they are walking on clean hooves so they don't get bruised. I have yet to bring out the American flag again since our move, but hope to get a chance soon to use that as well. Shine also loves to canter in the field area beyond the horse stalls. We have plans to upgrade that area to have a wagon trail and a smoother place to ride, but Shine doesn't seem to mind cantering over the uneven ground, especially when it's moist and gives under his weight. 

Serita: This girl is now almost 1 year old and learning a lot! We would love for her to give to the pressure on the halter quicker, but that will come with time. She still picks her hooves up easily to have them checked for stones and stands for a long time to be brushed. Our recent accomplishments include, walking her around the field area where she mostly stays beside us, moving away from us when we ask while cleaning up her stall, and moving forward to get some of her pent-up energy out when we do freedom lunging in the round pen. She loves to kick up her heels!

 In the mud it has been better to work the horses more in the barnyard that has nice sandy footing. We do work them in the round pens too, but mostly from the ground.

Please, Can I Pull?

    Our draft horse, Soot, loves pulling the extra Mercedes Benz tire around. This is our first step to teaching him to pull a wagon and, now that we're in Idaho, a sleigh. Soot loves it! He has been a little antsy the last few weeks, but does listen when we work him each time. Last weekend, we grabbed the tire and took it to the round pen to have him pull it. He was then calm when we took him in there. It was pretty interesting!

    We lunged him a little while the other one of us got the tire rigged up with the ropes. Then we put on the surcingle and lunged him for a few more minutes. He then stood calmly while we got him hooked up. Right now we are still not hooking the tire directly to the surcingle. That way we can let go and it doesn't chase him around the arena. Well, we think he's ready to go to the next step. We're excited about that!

    Our dad was trying to remove a weed from the field with his small tractor and some chains. He would back the tractor up then gas it forward to pull the dead rosebush out, but it would just stop the tractor. This was going on close to the round pen and we could almost hear Soot say, "hey, do you need some help with that?"

Night Vision

In the winter here in Idaho, we don't have many hours of light after our desk job is over for the day. We recently bought ourselves some headlamps and those are fantastic! We can even tilt them to make sure they don't shine in the horses' eyes and make sure they are tilted toward what we're doing. I tip mine out when I'm pushing the wheelbarrow, but tip them down when we're cleaning up the pens. It's really handy and we have our hands free to do the work without having to hold a flashlight. 

I recently did some research on how well horses can see in the dark. Turns out they can see better than humans because they have more cones in their eyes than us, which means they can take in more light. It's pretty cool! Just a reminder that if you do shine a light in their face, their eyes do still take time to adjust back to darkness.

Footing

You might be asking, "what kind of footing is best where I'll be working my horse." Well, a few years ago I probably would have said that level footing that doesn't have a lot of holes is the best. That way you don't twist an ankle and your horse has the ability to run and play in the round pen without having to worry about sliding. Well, I am amending that comment.

As you may know, SS Ranch 77 recently moved to Idaho where we definitely have winter weather, so we did some research on the footing we should have for our horses. I saw a video once, by one of our favorite trainers, Jonathan Fields and he was lunging his horse up and down a hill. He says that gives them experience with uneven footing, giving them more experience will make them safer to ride in more situations and who doesn't want to ride their horse anywhere that suits their fancy that day.

Our research said that adding sand to the footing in a round pen will help the water to drain away and leave the sand which can be dragged to stay more even and then much drier than if you just have the mud left over after a recent rain or snow. Well, we don't have a lot of extra money right now, so we put the round pens in place, but haven't tilled the ground at all. Well, the horses don't seem to mind. They kick around and enjoy their time in the round pen, the humans just have to keep their knees bent so we don't twist an ankle. See the horses are used to keeping their balance and they have 3 other feet at any given time that they can "fall back on" to get balanced again. The uneven ground in the round pens is made by the grass that grows in tufts, but that is quickly being flattened by the hooves. 

We are going to do some grading and adjusting to the ground in the round pens, but the horses don't seem to mind at all running around as they are now.

We do have a small sand arena, we call it the barnyard, that has good deep sand footing. The sand drains the rain/snow away and it's a good place to ride even in the weather we get here in the winter. We're excited to continue to make developments to our property that gets it more "perfect" for our horses.