Posts Tagged ‘responsible ownership’
The cost of owning a horse: Calculate if you dare!
I have said repeatedly on this blog that someone should make a calculator and put it on the web to help people figure out what owning 8 or 12 or 15 horses is actually going to cost them, since so many people seem to conveniently ignore this fact until 38 head are starving in their backyard. Horsechannel.com did it:
Very interesting to look at. My horses in California cost a little over $5,000 a year to maintain (I estimated $300 miscellaneous vet annually). My rescue horses in Washington, less than half that, due to the much lower cost of everything from hoof trimming to board.
Give it a try and post if you dare your actual annual cost of keeping horses! (I promise, I won’t share this information with your husband, ha ha!) Mine is over $20,000 which doesn’t really surprise me. It seems like it’s more but I didn’t factor in purchase costs for rescue horses, so that’s a chunk, nor did I factor in horse transportation, which I end up paying for a lot of. I chose to totally ignore the 2010 show season costs, because, honestly, when I think about that bill, I see a nice, shiny BMW convertible flying away from me on Pegasus wings, and it’s just tooooo depressing…(wanders off grumbling about big yellow accident-prone money vacuum…)
East Coasters, check out cutie pie War Action at Mid-Atlantic Horse Rescue! He is the size I like…the size I can get on without pulling a muscle
Now is a good time to talk responsible ranching!
So let’s do it. If you live/work on a working ranch, here is what I’d like you to share:
How many horses do you have?
Do you breed horses, and if so, for what market? (Ranch horses, show horses, family horses) How do you decide which mares to breed? How do you decide how many mares to breed?
What kind of training do you give young horses? Who does that work?
Do you register your stock with the appropriate breed organization? When?
What do you feed your horses? How many acres of pasture support how many horses (and give location, please)? Does that change in the winter? Do you have to buy hay? How much does supplemental hay cost you (per horse or overall)?
How do you handle routine care like farrier and deworming? How often are those jobs done?
Do you ranch for a living or does someone in the family have an outside job?
You have an injured, hard-to-catch broodmare on a 300-acre pasture. How do you handle this?
Water! How do your horses get water? Do you live somewhere that water freezes in the winter? If so, how do you handle that?
I think this is going to make for an interesting discussion. I haven’t personally worked on a property bigger than 80 acres (on that one, we rang a bell to bring them in for feed, doctoring, work, etc. and it worked great) and I know many readers here have only boarded on a small facility, so this is a chance to talk about how Mr. Leachman should have done things — because I know we ALL agree that he messed up royally and has caused a sickening amount of completely avoidable suffering.
Best of FHOTD: Conditioning, it’s not just for your hair!
A discussion on the MB led me to this post, which is actually something I’ve been meaning to talk about here for a while. One of the things that horrifies me most in the horse world is the number of people who simply do not know squat (or seem to care) about equine conditioning. A horse, like a human being, can’t just come out of a pasture and go right to work. Depending on his conformation and general “toughness,” this will result in varying degrees of soreness/injury. It often results in chronic hard-to-diagnose issues like body and back soreness, but it is equally common to see tendon injuries. There’s a right way to condition a horse, but it seems like a shockingly small number of horse people truly understand it.
I grew up in polo, where conditioning is a big deal. A lot of polo ponies have half the year off and only play the summer or winter season, depending upon where you are, so you are bringing them back from marshmallow pasture condition to finely tuned, muscled up athletes on an annual basis. And most polo ponies are Thoroughbreds, not a particularly tough breed when it comes to soundness, so you’d better do it right. We start them back just walking in sets (ride one, pony however many you can) for 45 minutes with two short 5 minute trots somewhere in the middle. They are ridden 6-7 days a week and the trots increase until you’re up to twenty minutes, and it’s only then that you add cantering and start working up from there. And you don’t sit on the same one every day – you give their backs a rest. Trotting builds muscle, so you do that first, and then you add the cantering, which builds “wind” – the endurance element for a horse who is expected to gallop, stop and turn for 7 minutes straight – five or more times the length of a horse race. Throughout the process, you watch their legs like a hawk for any signs of heat or swelling. If you do it right, in four to six weeks the horse is ready to play polo again and to hold up for the season.
In the past twenty years, I’ve seen more unfit horses on trails, at horseshows (I recall one obese AQHA gelding tying up and being unable to leave the arena at a 4-H show), in scary Youtube videos, and on idiotic “colt breaking clinic” videos (run ‘em around til they are foamy, that’s the way to train them in one day!) than I ever wanted to imagine existed. I’ve seen people who think it’s just fine to take a totally unfit horse on a six hour trail ride, and then wonder why he bucks the next time they ride him. Good God, people, this is why we have so much lameness! OK, bad conformation is a major contributor but lack of conditioning is right up there. Just like a human athlete, an unfit equine athlete is prone to injury and soreness. They have pain behaviors just like human beings do. They stiffen up and protect themselves and cause other injuries. The hocks hurt, and that makes them backsore, for example.
9. Ponying really is a wonderful, wonderful way to bring a horse back into work, particularly a horse who has chronic back issues or lameness issues. Just think about it – isn’t it better for the horse to build muscle first before having to deal with the weight/balancing a rider or being asked to put his head in a certain spot? Of course it is. However, it’s weirdly discipline-specific. I mean, if you pony a horse around a dressage rider, their eyes bug out. (I was once yelled at by some dressage trainer at L.A. Equestrian Center because the fact I was ponying one (perfectly behaved, quietly trotting) horse in the arena next to hers was freaking her horse out. Why is your inability to control your horse suddenly my problem? He is gonna see weirder things than ponying at LAEC, just you wait ’til the gay rodeo, so I suggest you learn to ride. OK, rant over) Seriously, I don’t know why all disciplines don’t use ponying. Surely even you dressage people have a couple of 20 year olds that are quiet enough to handle another horse trotting next to them attached with a scary snake-like lead line. 
*ducks and runs*
All right, everybody, what do you think? Are you as horrified as the ignorance of proper conditioning in the horse world as I am? What is your regimen for bringing a horse back from a long layoff? What are your tips for fitting up a horse with soundness issues or back issues? Do you use protective boots/wraps or do you believe that horses get too dependent on them? (I do like the Sports Medicine boots. Been using them for years, and no, I don’t think horses get too dependent on them, though I save them for the conditioning period, and then only thereafter for strenuous activity or when footing is iffy) How many of you use relatively high-tech methods of conditioning, like aquacizers and treadmills, or do you do things the old fashioned way?
This is Inspirada, a 13 year old large pony mare at Shiloh Horse Rescue She has been waiting for a home of her very own for quite a while! I like how her little ears are always going back and forth, checking out what is going on in the world.
Things NOT To Do This Holiday Season
Somewhat OT, because we’re going to talk about small animals here, too, but this is my rant of animal-related things that I am sick of seeing people do around the holidays, so listen up or I’m sending you a stocking full of coal!
Buy a puppy from a pet store. You really would think that, in this day and age, with all the information online, that people would realize that pet store puppies come from puppy mills, that many if not all of those puppies have health problems as a result that may lead to a very tragic, expensive, and short life, and that puppy mills are horrible places you do not want to fund with your hard-earned money. BUT NO! Even in my own circle of friends, I have seen people ready to rush right out and dump $2000 into some poor little parvo-ridden puppy, while somewhere in Missouri, some dickhead with as much concern for dogs as Michael Vick is laughing all the way to the bank.
No, I am not anti-breeder if it’s a proper breeder. My standards for dogs are the same as for horses. If you are breeding show quality dogs that have been tested for all applicable genetic defects and diseases, if you do NOT sell dogs to homes that you have not checked out and approved, if your puppies are home raised and do not live in some scary ass, filthy cage in your falling-down barn, I do not have a problem with you or the people that buy from you. But it’s just like horses. You, as the buyer, need to SEE the conditions the puppies live in and are raised in. If it squicks you out, RUN. Take your money ELSEWHERE. I know you want to rescue the puppies, but that kind of rescuing FUNDS FUTURE ABUSE. So instead, take pictures of the crappy conditions and say you have to show the puppies to your kids so they can decide. Then walk out, FILE A REPORT with those pictures, and go find a responsible breeder or a quality shelter or rescue to get a puppy from.
By the way, the same goes for rescued dogs and cats. There is NEVER an excuse for a rescue to be a scary shithole. I have heard it all about the volunteers didn’t show up today, our donations are down, etc. It is all nonsense. Simply do not adopt from anywhere that is not reasonably clean and sanitary, or anywhere you see sick pets mingled in with healthy ones. If we were able to keep cages clean, litter boxes clean, meds given and sick animals separate in the middle of Hurricane Katrina (and yes, we were) with only 1 person per hundred cats, I guarantee you that there is no reason for poor care to be provided at anyone’s rescue or shelter. It is called getting off your ass and doing the work. Stop funding lazy asshats, whether they are breeders or rescues.
Not every animal wants to be a part of your celebration. Please use a little common sense! When you know you have a scaredy cat or dog, or one that “sometimes” bites or doesn’t handle stress well, stop letting them run loose while you have your 26 relatives and their 13 under-the-age-of-five kids over. It is much kinder to lock the pet in an unused bathroom or a garage, or crate it, than have someone get bitten or scratched and then you have a drama. Or the pet gets out and is never seen again.
The same goes for horses. C’mon, I know everybody wants a picture sitting on the horsie, but again, please use common sense. You KNOW your three year old stallion is not appropriate, and “I don’t think he’ll do anything with someone holding him” are famous last words. Yes, every visitor will want to pet a horse, and you know which of your horses will tolerate that and which won’t. Saying no, even if it creates a bit of drama in the short term, is far better than someone getting hurt.
Animals as gifts! Unless the gift-ee is a child living in your home that calls you Mommy or Daddy, or you have the authorization of those people, animals are never a good gift. I cannot tell you how many times some well-meaning person buys their spouse or significant other a pet or a horse and it is a terrible match and not at all what they wanted (or it’s not what they needed, because Hubby doesn’t realize a green broke Gypsy Vanner is not appropriate for his wife even though that is what she says she wants). Right after the holidays, tons of “mistake” animal gifts get dumped in the shelters. A much better idea is to give something like a lovely gift certificate “good for” the kind of pet you know the person wants, and then take them out shopping at the breeders, rescues, whatever to find the one that is truly a perfect match.
Sure, there are exceptions – I gave a horse to a 12 year old once for Christmas. But she had been showing her for two years at that point, and I’d cleared it with her parents. In a case like that, heck, go for it – there are few things as fun as seeing the look on a kid’s face when she comes out to the barn and finds the horse gift-wrapped in the cross-ties and figures out what’s up.
Cheaping out on pet-sitting. I know, pet and horse sitting is not cheap, and I understand the temptation to just put out a round bale and fill an extra water tank or leave a huge bowl of food and extra water dishes because “we’re just going for the weekend.” But by now you should ALL be familiar with Murphy’s Law Of Animals. Did you see the news story about Kat Von D’s house burning down with her cat in it? All it takes is for a pet to chew a cord, something to get knocked over, an electrical malfunction or whatever and you have a fire. The temperature can drop and leave the water frozen and the next thing you know, you hae a colicking horse and no one there to see it or call a vet. And of course, if there is any time animals are going to break through a fence, it will be when you are 300 miles away at Grandma’s house. Spend the money for someone to stay overnight, and make sure you have checked out that person thoroughly, and that there is also a backup person who can be called in an emergency. And bear in mind that it just doesn’t work for non-horsepeople to horse-sit. I can tell you stories all day about straw being fed to the horses instead of hay, the wrong horses being put out together, and all sorts of physical problems not getting noticed.
Finally, although I would love to believe no one who reads this blog would ever do this, it happens so much that I know SOMEONE is doing it. Namely, dumping off the senior pet at the shelter and taking home a new puppy or kitten to delight the kids. Your kids may be too young to realize this is wrong, but YOU know what you are doing and I’ll bet YOU know enough not to TELL people you did it. You have an old pet and they are sort of blind and sort of deaf and they are peeing on things and kind of cranky and don’t want to play anymore. And you are cheap, and don’t want to pay for the vet, or you are sick of paying for the vet, and somehow a sensible solution like putting the dog in a playpen with a waterproof pad is just tooooo much effort for you, and euthanasia costs money and it might dawn on you that you are not such a great person if you have to sit there and watch your animal die, especially right before Christmas…so you dump off the pet and tell yourself it is sure to get a GREAT home. Then you get a new baby animal that is not screwed up yet and bounce merrily home to show the kids. There is never any excuse for this. It sucks. And you are not only doing something wrong, but you are teaching your kids to grow up and have the same disregard for life that you do. Do you really think that kids raised like this grow up and have any respect for anyone or anything? They will treat people as disposably as you have taught them to treat animals. You are not putting them on the right track to have good relationships in general, because you just taught them that the moment things aren’t perfect, bail out.
Now, for those of you who ARE disgusted by this practice, I want to plug a great rescue that does something about it. I just love Old Dog Haven in Seattle. They take in a ton of these discarded dogs…dogs that can’t see, dogs that can’t hear, dogs that need medication…and put them in long-term foster homes where they will be loved and petted and live in a house until they really are not healthy enough to be happy anymore, and it really is time to let them go. They pick up the ball that is dropped by so many owners, and they are a great charity to send some of your year-end donations to.
All right, I’ve said my piece! For the rest of you who are great animal owners, have a wonderful holiday season full of buying stuff for the pets, making yummy mashes and treats, and of course buying new show clothes for next season!
Now, for those of you who are looking for a good kids’ horse to check out this holiday season, One Tough Knight is a 17 year old Thoroughbred gelding recently rescued from the kill pen at the Enumclaw Sale. His name fits, as he is one of those tough guys who broke down on the track in his last race but survived and is sound and rideable today (and a sweetheart!) He has an old bow but is sound on it and should be fine for normal flatwork. It also sounds like he would be a good beginner lesson horse. He’s in the Seattle area. If you’re interested, contact Second Chance Ranch.
Useless horses…
A rescuer friend of mine posted her frustrations at hearing the “but I can’t keep a horse I can’t USE” line from yet another horse-dumping individual yesterday. And that made me think of how many of us aren’t users…we have a horse, or more than one, that gets to live a great life just because, well, they are cute and funny and we like having them around, and maybe they used to do something for us, or maybe not, but either way, they don’t need to be ridden to have value to us!
We lost one of those last night. My friend had to put Sarge to sleep. Sarge was a CBER horse from 2005, an ancient Appaloosa with very few teeth. The vet estimated his age at well over thirty when he was rescued, and he made it over five more years, living a wonderful life full of steaming hot beet pulp/hay pellet much, cookies that he followed us into the feed room for, and even a horseshow where he did halter, leadline, leadline trail and bribe your horse (2nd out of 21 – I could barely stay ahead of the old fart as he cantered at my heels!)
Sarge was no conformation horse, though the way he set up and trotted beside me in the halter class told me he’d been there before, somewhere. We never learned who let him get into the hands of Chuck Walker in Zillah, Washington in 2005, but I’m pretty sure he had been shown before. He was only ridden a few times due to his age, but was a bit of a hot potato and may have been a gaming or rodeo horse. In this home, he was just a pet. He babysat my orphaned weanling, he begged for cookies, he bit young horses that needed to get bit…well, he gummed them…and he generally amused and entertained anyone who visited!
This video shows his personality the best. In his last year, he was allowed to freely wander around the property and one day I was visiting this spring when he decided to put on a show.
You know, someone owned this horse and loved him. He was a snuggle bunny – not a horse who’d had a history of abuse and mistreatment. They gave him up. Maybe it was finances, maybe they wanted a younger horse to ride, maybe they went to college, who knows why. My friend got him and put thousands of dollars into maintaining him in excellent condition during his retirement. She wasn’t his first home, and except for that one horseshow, she never got any “use” out of him. But I know she thinks every penny was worth it, and I hope somewhere, the person who did own him when he was young sees this and knows what they missed out on.
Now I want to hear about YOUR useless horses…do you have a horse you got after his riding days were over, or are you keeping one knowing that he will never be sound again? If you have one you’d never part with, even though you can’t “use” him – tell us the story today!
(One direct link to a picture, please. The shift key fell off my laptop and adding code isn’t so easy right now!)
