Thankful List

• ·      I am thankful for my horses Keeno and Princess.
• ·      I am thankful for 4H.
• ·      I am thankful for the Falkers and all they do for me.
• ·      I am thankful for family.
• ·      I am thankful of YouTube.

What are you thankful for?

Preparing Your Horse For Winter.

            Preparing your horse and equipment for a hard Minnesota winter will help both of you to enjoy it. Today we will be going over food and water, shelter and blanketing, and finally footing and elements. Let’s suit up and head out.

            Will your horse have enough energy to keep warm? In cold weather, your horse will use a lot more energy to keep warm, which means more food will to be accessible. Before winter hits, try and have all the supplies that go scarce in the winter, such as hay or hay cubes. Fresh water with no ice is crucial. Horses may drink more water in the winter when they only get hay because it is dry than green grass, which is wetter.

            Horses should have a place to duck away from the elements. A lean-to or run-in is great for this purpose. In late fall going in to winter, it is not a good idea to blanket horses. If you do blanket them, they may not grow the proper amount of hair for winter. Remember this phrase “horses weren’t made for blankets, blankets were made for horses.”  Most horses don’t need blankets; but some old, sick or young horses do. If you decide to blanket or stall your horse, decide on a temperature that the blanket goes on and come off with. For example, if the temperature drops under 15 degrees, the blanket goes on but if it is above that it comes off.

            Prepare for the winter elements. When the freeze hits, ice can become a problem. Make sure that you have a bucket of sand to sprinkle on any icy areas. Before freeze-up, it is a good idea to smooth out the riding surfaces because it’s hard for the horse to go through rough bumpy frozen terrain. Sometimes snow can get packed in their hooves. It is important to pick their hooves often, whether riding or not.

            Let’s go back in and warm up a bit. We just covered the cold harsh winter with horses. We went over feeding, shelter and even footing for your horse. Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the comments below.

Exercising

Exercising is very good for both you and me, but did you know your horse benefits from it as well? In this blog post, we will be going over why to exercise, ways to condition, and finally how you could go about it. Let’s put our boots on and start exercising.

            Why would you want to exercise a horse? Here are a few reasons. A horse that is in shape looks better than a fat or skinny horse. In young horses, exercising can increase growth hormones and help with bone development (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG2S3WcwhTE ). It also gives them something to do. A well maintained exercise program is a good way to make your horse look and feel like a champ.

            There are a few different ways to exercise a horse. A couple ways are to ride, drive, lunge, hot walk, and/or pony. With adult horses, riding or driving is a good way to exercise. Trotting three miles is an appropriate distance—start shorter and extend the distance a little bit every day. With a young horse, ponying is a great solution. I pony Keeno with my riding horse when we do 1.5 mile trots. I enjoy taking two birds out with one stone. Lunging at a walk/trot is a great activity for young horses. (Hot walkers can also do this.) Horses need room to run when they want. Since Keeno lives in a smaller paddock, I let him run in the arena while I run on Vegas. (see video) These are what I use to exercise my horses.

            The best way to start conditioning is to figure out your horse’s current activity level. Then create a program that will challenge your horse, but not over do it. Younger and older horses can’t be pushed as much as healthy adult horses. Create a chart to track frequency, duration, and intensity of each workout. (There are phone apps for this. Last spring I used Track My Hack, which shows how long you rode, distance and average speed.) Whatever the process, it is important to be consistent for good results.

            The best thing of conditioning horses is seeing them in peak condition. Well-defined muscles and seeing their ribs during movement along with a shiny coat are some signs of a well-conditioned and healthy horse. I hope you learned something in this short paper. Have fun getting in shape!

The Haunted Horse Arena

The haunted horse arena was my sister’s idea as a 4h horse project event. It was a Halloween themed desensitizing obstacle course. The swim noodles rub against the horses sides. Looking very scary, a lot of horses won’t push through them the first time you ask them. The barrels with the poles on them help the horse go through narrow spaces. The banner and plastic bags overhead help the horses get used to stuff above them. The tarp is to get the horse used to walking over a scary thing that crinkles and moves. The banner on the ground gets the horse comfortable walking over new colorful things that make sound. And the jump is just to jump over for fun. These obstacles can be very spooky to your horse. You don’t want them to be afraid. Let them relax by the spooky objects, so they get used to them being around.

This was a very entertaining night. Keeno didn't care about any of these things and loved going through it again and again. Enjoy the video.