I started drawing horses when I was four.  I remember I had been given a large book of colored construction paper, and if I had been more frugal I might have understood that such a variety of colors could have been used more creatively.  But I made a horse drawing on each page of that book, using a black marker, creating rather pudgy replicas of the species, usually only supplying them with the two legs nearest the viewer, but never forgetting the feed pan for them to eat out of.  All of my first drawn horses were happily eating grain from their feed pans.

The artistic tendencies came as naturally to me as the horse craze.  My grandmother was a good artist.  Her painted landscapes, wildlife, and other drawings hung framed around our house, and she loved watching me draw, always giving me encouraging words for my efforts.  My mom was also an accomplished artist, and had taught many of her students to draw and paint, so I had a lot of help as I started to create my own things.

As a child, I loved the horse stories by C. W. Anderson, not only for their adventures, but also for the beautiful detailed pencil drawings on each page.  C. W. Anderson was one of my earliest inspirations for drawing horses, and I read every book I could find in the library written by him.  His stories of Billy and Blaze were thrilling, and always had a good plot to them, where the trusty horse usually saved the day.  The drawings were very well shaded, and I learned some methods of pencil drawing just by looking at his drawings.


My mom had some drawing books by Walter Foster that I loved to work through.  They gave step by step illustrations for creating drawings, and it simplified the process enough for me to follow the steps.  The first would be simple lines or circles, followed by more refined lines and added features, and would end by adding shading and intricate details until the finished product was very lifelike.  It was this type of drawing that I enjoyed the most.  The book How To Draw Horses, by Walter Foster, is one of the best resources for a beginning artist with a love for horses.  I learned so much from the many Walter Foster books my mom let me use.


Here is an example of the step by step process that the Walter Foster books use:

My absolute favorite horse artist was Sam Savitt.  Mom had a framed print of one of his paintings hanging on the wall, a big brown gelding in an English bridle.  I loved the look of that horse, it was so lifelike I thought I could jump on his back and leap over the stone wall at the far edge of the painting.  That was the type of drawing I really wanted to be able to do, because Sam Savitt’s horses lived and breathed, they were so realistic.  No other artist could create such a complete and lifelike drawing in fewer pencil strokes than Sam Savitt.  He illustrated many books about horses and dogs, and his art is easily recognizable, as no one else compares in drawing and painting horses in action.

I never developed as easy a hand at painting as I had with drawing.  If I had taken lessons, I might have mastered the colors and knowledge of lighting necessary to paint in color.  I did quite a few acrylic paintings of horses when I was in high school, and sold a few in tack shops here and there, but most of them still hang in my parent’s house.  I don’t know that I could do as well now if I tried, having not painted in many years.  But they are a testament to my hard work when I was a teenager, and I’m kind of fond of them.

If you’re born with an art inclination, I would urge you to find your passion and develop it.  It doesn’t always take natural talent to succeed at something you love–find your own way and do what you love.  For me, it was horses that always appeared on my paper, and they inspired me to keep drawing.  Today as I watch our daughter draw fairies with big hair and ornate dresses, I give her the same advice:  Draw what you love. 

I draw horses in this fashion:

1.  Find an idea you like.  Either look at your blank sheet of paper and imagine the horse in your mind as you see it, or else use a photo of a horse to look at.

2.  Sketch a simple outline using easy shapes like circles and sticks to form the outline of your drawing.  This one step is the most important, and if you have the proportions wrong on this step, they will continue to be wrong throughout the drawing.  (Case in point, my example drawing below is way too short in the barrel.  It started that way in this sketch, but went unnoticed until I had finished the drawing.)

3.  Add more fluid lines and finish the framework of the drawing.

4.  Add shading, color in the eyes, leaving a small highlight near the light source, fill in shadows with small lines or cross hatching, define muscles, finish the details.  (Looking at this later, it appears that the rear end and front end of the horse belong to two separate bodies–again, it is the fault of too short of a barrel in step 2, so if I were to draw this again I would make the barrel longer.)

Happy drawing!

How To Draw Horses is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on May 16, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

We’re still trying to come up with a name for our mare.  We have kicked around ideas, but no matter what one person suggests, someone else has an aversion to that particular name, or they have a suggestion that they think would work better.  I’m beginning to think that I just don’t have the imagination I used to have when I was younger.  Coming up with horse names was a cinch when I was a little girl.

Take my Christmas gift in 1983, for example.  I recieved a beautiful stick horse with a life-like styrofoam carved head.  It was more real-looking than my siblings’ stick horses, and I was very proud of it.  Never mind that my sister’s stick horse was a hand-sewn fabric-headed thing stuffed with old nylons and had drawn-with-magic-marker black eyes, on an old slat for a stick….it was named Brownie.  Or my brother’s white plastic-headed horse with factory-printed bridle and details.  It had a hole in it and would lose purple fluffy stuff from the hole, so it was patched with duct tape….his horse was named Charolais Star.  I thought that my carved-styrofoam horse looked very real and very beautiful, and I named her Jasmine.

I also had a herd of imaginary horses, all perfectly named and perfectly trained.  My sister and I would gallop everywhere we went, one hand held out in front of us to hold the “reins” as we traveled.  We had the usual menagerie of imaginary horses—Midnight, Lightning, Storm, Black Beauty, Flash, and Golden Girl.  We didn’t know and we didn’t care if those horse names were cliche…or silly…or reminiscent of someone else with exactly that same name and we couldn’t stand that person, so don’t name your horse that.  No, naming our horses came as easy as the daydream scenarios we rode them in.

But I’m stumped at finding a good name for our buckskin mare.  My sister suggested Scotch, since she is a dark gold butterscotch color.  My husband and I discussed a broad array of names:  Katy, Dixie, Trixie, Roxy, and Girlie.  Nothing seemed right.  Last week, I mentioned to my husband that I have been thinking of naming her Brandy.  Then he tells me he’s been calling her Penny for the past month.  He said that Circle P brand on her hip made him think we should name her something that starts with P, and Penny is a good name.  Hmm….okay, so we’ll just see if anything ever sticks to this mare.

I have been working on a project for my folks for their 50th wedding anniversary.  I’m making them a scrapbook to give them at a big party we’re throwing at their place later this summer.  Of course, I had to include a few horsey pages, since their entire lives have involved horses.  I made one page with a list of the horses they have owned throughout their lives.  I thought it would be neat to look back and remember each one.  This list has a lot of neat horse names in it, though most of the horses had registered names, this is what we called them:

Old Paint – Mom’s childhood horse who had a long, successful life.  She loved to “run the hills” when she was a young girl, on Old Paint.  He loved to race, but if he got passed by another horse, he would show his disappointment by bucking.

Misty – Dad’s bay mare he trained and used for ranch work and later raised colts, Chigger and Sugar Ray.

Buck – The horse who taught my oldest brother and sister to ride, he was a good ranch gelding and a very patient babysitter for teaching kids to ride. 

Clipper – A big old white horse with hooves as big as the top of a five-gallon bucket.  My oldest brother rode him for cattle work.

Chigger – Misty’s first foal, Dad’s top horse for years, and the horse who taught me to ride.  I remember Dad having to cut a switch for me to tap him with because my legs were too short to get him going.

Sugar Ray – Misty’s second foal, a sorrel mare that was sold.

Smokey – Brown gelding purchased from Wescotts, a great cow-horse, the horse Kellie learned to ride on.

Patches – Old white mare bought from Francis Wescott when he gave Kandra her first horse, Apache.  Patches was a mix of Shetland, Arabian, and Quarter Horse.  For not being registered, she threw some really good foals.

Apache – Brown/white tobiano gelding, Patches’ foal, Kandra’s first horse that she trained and used for cattle work and barrel racing.

Kokomo – Grulla gelding, out of Patches, our family’s best cow horse, he was my Mom’s horse, but we all learned to ride on him.  He lived many years on their Nebraska ranch, and moved with them to Idaho, where he died on the ranch there in old age.

Peppy – Patches’ third foal, a bay paint gelding.  He was a short and chubby little horse with a big heart.  He was my youngest brother Kris’ horse.

Grulla – One of our first registered Quarter Horse mares that raised a few foals for us.  She was registered as Go Quick Queenie.

Blondie – A registered palomino broodmare named Sporty Lana Lee.  She was very gentle, but not well-trained.  She was a sweet old girl, and at age five I claimed her as my own horse, even though I wasn’t actually given my own horse for several more years.

Tasha – Gray broodmare who was mother or grandmother to our best ranch horses.  She was registered as Tasha Jo, and had a lot of Thoroughbred in her.

Sandy – Cute little dun mare out of Grulla, Kandra bought, trained, and sold before she left for college.

Barbie – Big bay daughter of Blondie, threw Kandra off and broke both her ankles, changing her colt training career for good, and giving us all more caution and respect when working with colts.

Missy – Sweet gray mare out of Tasha, broke to ride, kept as a broodmare for many years.

Tara – Full sister to Missy, dark gray, too mean to ride, but birthed most of our best colts.

Joey – Bay stallion out of Tasha, kept to breed to a few of the unrelated mares, then sold as a broke four year old.

Johannes – Another good Tasha colt, big light gray gelding, Kellie’s first horse to train.  Dad liked riding him because of his big fast walk.

Gunpoudre – Big dun gelding out of Blondie, my brother Kevin’s horse.  He and Kevin shared crazy personalities–they were always goofing off and making the ranch work more fun.

Sunday – Tall thin buckskin gelding with a blue eye, out of Grulla.  He was my  first horse to train, but was sold as a three year old, after which I started training Rudy.

Josie – Missy’s firstborn, gray filly born early, sold, we heard later that she was a winning show horse.

Spider – Big gray gelding, Kandra trained him, and Dad rode him most of the time.

Octavia – Missy’s dark brown filly, sold as a yearling.

Jack – Stallion bought at Pitzer Ranch, sorrel grandson of Two Eyed Jack, sire of many of our good ranch horses.

Rudy – First and only foal of Tasha and Jack, used on ranch to this day.  He was my horse, trained when I was just eleven, and we grew up together.  He had a passion for running away, and we learned to be careful to avoid that bad habit.

KJ – Stunning red bay gelding, Tara’s first foal, sold as a bucking horse, too wild for us to train.

Honeylou – Missy’s filly, sweet bay mare with a big white star, Kellie trained her, and she was sold as a three year old.

Frosty – Tara’s foal, born in a snowdrift in February and froze his ears off at the tips.  He was my little sister Karmen’s horse, and still lives on their ranch in Idaho.

Possum – Tara’s light gray gelding, Mom’s favorite to ride after Kokomo aged.  He is still one of their best riding horses on the ranch.

Blue – Missy’s gray gelding, I trained him as a three year old, and he was sold to the Pitzer Ranch.

Belle – Tara’s foal, a bright red mare.  I trained her as a two year old, and she bucked me off twice in one day.  But her cow sense earned her a spot in Dad’s bunch of ranch geldings.  She was the only mare he kept around for riding, because she was so skilled with cattle and quick on her feet.  They took her to Idaho when they moved, and bred her for mule babies.  She still gets ridden once in awhile.

Red – Another Tara colt, trained by Charles and Kris, Dad’s best riding gelding to date.  Red is quick, responsive, energetic, level-headed, and everything a ranch horse should be.

Garbanzo – A bay colt turning gray, out of Missy, sold as a yearling.

Cal – Big dark gray-brown gelding out of Tara, trained on the ranch and ridden for years, he always was a little explosive.  We sold him in Idaho to a lady who rides English and is training him for jumping.  She sends photos of him and he has turned a lovely gray.

Baron – Bay gelding out of Missy, used on the ranch for years, sold to friends in Idaho, still a good riding horse.

Cody – Grulla gelding purchased as 2 year old for me to train, re-sold to a lesson barn in Wisconsin, they report he is everyone’s favorite lesson horse.

Challis – Bought as a yearling, Karmen trained, her best cowhorse to date.  She uses Challis for everything, whether it’s moving wheel-lines, ponying mares and foals to new pastures, getting in stray cattle, roping at brandings, and riding on mountain cattle drives.  Challis is her buddy.

Hickory – Big bay mare,  bought in Idaho, trained, raises great colts.

Lazaroni – Red roan mare, bought in Idaho, good riding mare and excellent mother.

Pomerelle – Big bay mare, trained and ridden, died in a foaling complication last spring.

Doc – Buckskin stallion purchased in Idaho and used on the ranch until his death a few years ago.

Whang – Red roan gelding purchased, ridden, and re-sold.

Ruby Red – Sweet bay roan mare, purchased in Idaho and used as a riding horse and broodmare.

Chickory – Pretty little buckskin mare, gentle, Karmen trained and uses on the ranch.  She is reliable enough to let kids and beginners ride her.

Honeycomb – Hickory and Doc’s buckskin filly, sold as a greenbroke mare.

Companero – Karmen’s first mule, given to her in exchange for training Skippy, she still rides him, though he has a hoof condition and must be kept on low feed to avoid unsoundness.

Copper – Sorrel filly Karmen bought and re-sold.

Milton – Belle’s first mule colt, trained by Karmen, turned out very sweet and friendly.

Murphy – Belle’s second mule baby, trained to ride, pack, and drive, and sold.

Stormy – Lazaroni’s almost-black filly, sired by Doc, has been started under saddle, but not fully trained yet.

Forever – Blue roan Hancock-bred stallion purchased in Idaho as a yearling, has been saddled a few times, but not broke yet.  We will see his first crop of foals this spring, from all of the mares except Belle, who will have a mule baby.

Bluebird – Blue roan filly purchased as a yearling, she is big and beautiful, and unrelated to Forever, so she can have his babies when she’s older.

Tally – Karmen’s brown filly, purchased as a weanling, will probably train and re-sell or keep to breed.

Garnet – Ruby Red’s first mule baby, a sweet bay mule.

Donegal – Buckskin filly, out of Lazaroni, sired by Doc.

Surprise – Hickory’s unexpected filly, sired by Doc.  She was in the corral next to Doc for just a few short moments, and they didn’t even know she was pregnant until she had this baby in the fall.

Those are the horses I grew up with, or ones that Dad and Mom have now.  They are so inspiring and beautiful and friendly.  I can’t wait to go out and visit them again, just to admire the new foals and take pictures of their beautiful horses.

Any ideas for a name for our buckskin mare?  How does Penny sound?

Horse Names is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on May 5, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

Last weekend we took our cows out west where I grew up.  From here, it’s a four hour ride in a car…a six hour ride for a cattle pot and truck and trailer with seven people packed into the crew cab.  Saturday was one long hectic day.  But it was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time, because to me it meant going home. 

A trucker took the cows.  We headed out bright and early to sort the babies off from the mamas.  Nothing worse than getting a calf trampled and lame for life because a cow sat on it the whole way.  So we put the cows on the semi trailer and then loaded the babies in our gooseneck stock trailer.  My brother in law’s pickup seats six comfortably, but it was Cowboy Dad, his brother and brother’s wife in the front, and three kids in the back, so I sat in between the kids’ seats and got along just fine.  We packed the extra space around us with a cooler of drinks and a bunch of books for the kids to read, and we were ready to go.

Last week was full of cattle work.  We branded calves, vaccinated everything, poured them for mange and lice, and tried to brand the new cows we had purchased this year.  The squeeze chute wasn’t working properly, so after the first cow ended up with a stutter of four brands down her hip, we gave up on that idea.  So we took the irons along to brand them when we got to our destination.

We had lunch at the Arby’s in Ord, Nebraska.  I was born at Ord, so it always feels nostalgic.  We lived a good hour away, growing up, but it was one of the closest towns to get groceries, tractor repairs, dental appointments, and a monthly library visit where the obliging staff allowed us to carry out a whole cardboard box of books.  It was also the town where an eye doctor fitted me with glasses at the age of eight.  I still remember thinking, “Wow, I didn’t know the wallpaper was flecked–I thought it was a solid cream color.  Glasses are great!”  Every place out in the Sandhills holds those kinds of memories for me.

So we finished our trip at the ranch yard of an old friend.  Her husband passed away last January, and her son is helping her manage the ranch, and he agreed to lease us some pasture for the summer for our cows.  She is almost eighty-five and has had part of a foot removed during a battle with infection, but she is still the same person I knew when I was a kid.  She and her husband used to bring a five gallon bucket of milk to school every other day for us to take home.  They milked the cow by hand and had more than they could use, so they shared it with us.  Mom usually returned the bucket with some kind of cookies or baked rolls in it, but we could never keep up with their kindness.  These are the same neighbors who gave my sister her first horse, and started off the wave of horse craziness in our family.  We owe a lot to their generosity.

So we arrived at the ranch and unloaded the cattle.  We let them pair up and nurse and settle down a little bit, and then started sorting off the ones that still needed branded.  They had a couple of horses there, and they let me ride one, which was a real treat.  I loved that feeling of riding a cowhorse again…like you’ve got the throttle ready, and there’s power there when you ask for it.  I was re-living my cowgirl days, loping to turn back a cow, when I was jarred back to reality by my camera flying out of my pocket and landing in the cow-residue…that reminded me that I’m split between worlds of being a cowgirl and just writing about cowgirl things on a horse blog.  But it still felt good.

This blog often presents a quandary when I am working.  Like the day we branded calves.  There I was, up to my elbows in manure, skinned arms, smoke curling about my eyes as I held a kicking calf to be branded, and I thought, “Where’s the camera?  I should really get this on film!”  No way.  It was either help brand or stand around taking pictures.  No in between.  And since there were only three of us to do the job—my husband, brother in law, and myself—photos were out of the question.  So the real cowgirl things often go unrecorded because if I stop to take pictures, I miss out on the work. 

But this day on the ranch out west, I had a few moments to capture and preserve the wealth of feelings I get when I drive down those old familiar roads.  Each blade of grass holds a memory, each run-down building pulls me in and says “you’re home”, and each friendly face reminds me that the best of life is found at the end of a dirt road somewhere out west.

This is our brand, Lazy C Lazy K, on the front of our stock trailer, hauling the calves.

This photo, looking north along the driveway to the ranch, reminded me of these lyrics.

Cowboy Dad giving the three kids a ride on the four wheeler.

One of the ranchers’ yearling heifers.

A close-up of the saddle I was riding.

My view from the saddle.

A ranch horse.

The horse I was riding.

Our daughter watching the cows unload from the cattle pot.

Cowboy Dad sorting cattle.

Branding a calf.

The cows looking for their calves.

The rancher applying his brand to one of their cows.

My husband waiting to put another cow in the chute.

The dirt road leading up to the ranch.

Four Hours West is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on April 25, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I’ve been going to a lot of cattle sales lately, at the local auction barn.  Inevitably, there are two or three horses there every week, and I’m always curious at what they bring.  I wonder why they were brought there, and where they are going after that final winning bid.  It always makes me wish I had multiple pastures and unlimited funds so that I could take them home with me.

I think that horses are brought to the cattle auction because people are tired of feeding them, and they don’t want to put any work into selling them properly.  One week when we were there, after the sale, I overheard a conversation with two of the sellers, one of which is a trainer/trader type guy.  The trainer asked, “What did you get for your colts?”  “Ten bucks,” replied the seller.  Trainer:  “Well, I told ya you should’ve let me cut ‘em for you, they would’a brought more.”  Translation:  These backyard breeders had brought three year old stallions to the sale, not registered, not gelded, thin, wormy, and not even halter broke.  Sold for $10.  Here’s a photo of one of them:

I don’t know if a kill buyer bought them or not.  Even though it’s a small auction, I don’t know the locals well enough to know who is who, and what they do with their purchases.  But I would be surprised if there is a kill buyer who regularly attends the sale, because it is predominantly a cattle sale, with just a few odds and ends sold at the beginning, before the cattle begin to sell.  So I tend to be of the opinion that local horse people or farmers buy them.

So for $10, you’ve bought yourself a three year old stud horse.  You might take it to the vet, get it gelded, get it wormed and vaccinated, and now you’ve got over $100 in him.  Send him to a trainer for three months, and you might have a riding horse.  The best scenario at this point is that you could re-sell the horse for about $300 as a broke trail horse.  That’s as good as it is ever going to get, and improbable at that.  Most likely, this horse is in somebody else’s pasture waiting to get passed on to another bidder at another sale. 

Here are some of the bargains we’ve seen come through the sale ring lately:

Male llama sold for $6.  They said he was a good “guard animal” for any farm.  I wondered what that meant.  Are llamas mean?

This fuzzy yearling donkey jack sold for $15.

Nine year old registered AQHA gelding, sold for $475.

Ten year old tobiano mare, trail broke, sold for $400.

Five year old palomino gelding, not broke, sold for $100.

Five year old bay paint pony, not broke, sold for $12.

Yearling bay stallion, sold for $10.

Yearling sorrel filly, halter-broke, sold for $50.

12 year old grade sorrel gelding, broke, shown in 4-H, sold for $325.

4 year old spotted female donkey, bred, sold for $65.

This is just to show that you never know what might walk into the sale ring.  I always hope the best for these animals, and say a little prayer for them as they trot out of the ring.  If I had a million dollars, I would buy some green pastures and stock it with the misfits from the cattle auction….because every animal deserves a chance to live a happy life.

What You Find At The Auction is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on April 19, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I was at the cattle auction last Friday watching our feeder heifers sell when I got a text message from my brother-in-law that said, “You haven’t been checking on your adopted calf lately, have you?” I panicked, thinking maybe it was dead. “No, why? Is it sick?” I typed back. “Emaciated, lethargic, and has a runny nose and scours,” he replied. Great….I had quit checking on the mama cow, several days earlier, thinking she had adopted it and was caring for it. Evidently not.

So when I got home to assess the situation, the vet had already been there, thankfully. He had tubed the calf’s stomach to give it electrolytes and medicine, and taken her temperature—it was 107 degrees, so she was very feverish. My husband bought several packets of medicine to add to milk replacer as well as an injection to help bring the fever down. We went out to the cornfield to catch the baby and give her the shot. Earlier that day, a cow belonging to my brother-in-law had died of a respiratory sickness and perhaps old age, and her little black heifer calf was out standing by her looking sad. So we picked up both babies and loaded them into the pickup and brought them up to keep in a stall and bottle feed.

The red baby that my kids had named Uniqua was in really bad shape. She was bony and weak, and didn’t even try to suck the bottle we offered her. We had mixed in a packet of Resorb, which has electrolytes and medicine in it for scouring calves, and then filled the bottle with diluted milk replacer. We had to put the nipple in her mouth and then squeeze it with our fingers to get the milk to squirt out into her mouth. Then she would swallow, with a throat so parched you could hear each gulp. But she was very weak and just wanted to lie down in the hay. We got most of a bottle down her, before offering some to the black calf. The black calf drank down a whole bottle, she was very hungry and eager to drink.

The next morning we took bottles out for both calves, and the red one stood up and drank hungrily, so it was evident that her fever was better and she was feeling more like eating. The black calf never showed any hesitation, and after that first day, they both took their bottles eagerly.

It’s been almost a week now, and both calves are growing and gaining strength. One day I let them follow me outside into the barnyard, and the black one went running around, leaping and bucking. Then she remembered where she’d last seen her mama, and took off out towards the cornfield. I had to chase her quite a ways before I could catch her again, and so I decided that she’d better not be loose on her own until she got used to following people around a little more. The red heifer is very gentle and just follows you wherever you go.

So yesterday I made them a pen outside in the fresh green grass that’s growing near their barn, and I let them out in the daytime so they can graze and sleep in the sunshine. They love to jump and kick and race around their pen, and it’s so much fun to watch them.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of bottle feeding two calves, but once you start caring for an animal, you can’t help but become fond of it. Somehow taking responsibility for something just makes a job more rewarding. I am disappointed that the red calf’s adopted mother didn’t take care of her, but I think it was just too long after her own calf died that we introduced the new baby, and she just wouldn’t look after the little red one with enough attention to keep her in good health. She was allowing her to nurse, but probably not long enough or frequent enough.

So I’m stuck with these babies for awhile. I would like to feed them long enough to put some weight on them and get them looking healthy again, as they are both a little gaunt looking, and then maybe sell them. But we might just feed them until they don’t need the milk so much, and then put them out to pasture with some of our replacement heifers for the summer. They are sure cute!

Two Orphans is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on April 5, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

It’s springtime, and babies are being born, and it makes me start wishing and hoping.  No, we don’t have any expectant mares this year, but my folks out in Idaho have several mares that are bred to this Hancock bred blue roan stallion, Handmade Forever, for his first foal crop.  They purchased the stud colt and two fillies from Keith Munn’s production sale two summers ago, and are really excited to see how this young stallion turns out.   I’m looking forward to lots of baby pictures and celebrating spring as it should be.

Cowboy Dad and I talk quite a bit about getting one of our mares bred someday, and I’m wondering if this is the year.  We have never had a foal, even though we have three mares now.  Our old gray mare Cricket is not the breeding kind, being grade and who knows how old!  Our sorrel mare Daisy had been exposed to a stud as a four year old when we first bought her, but it was a pasture-breeding type of deal, and she didn’t turn up pregnant.  For several years, I figured I should ride and train her first, before letting her be a mommy, and then the more I was around her, I just didn’t figure her worthy of foaling.  I wouldn’t say she has a bad disposition, but she often shows blatant disregard for a person handling her from the ground, and has shown a huge aptitude to buck with any man that’s ever tried to ride her.  So we’ve never had Daisy bred.

But now we own our sweet buckskin mare, Command A Cowgirl, and there is no reason on earth why she shouldn’t reproduce again.  She is young, beautiful, quiet-tempered, a proven broodmare with a good colt from last year, and has had a year off to recoup and be in perfect condition to foal again.  Her foal would be easily marketable, even in this bad horse economy, if we decided to sell it later on.  But we would plan to raise and train it and keep it, or sell it as a broke horse.  The stud colt we bought at her side is showing a lot of promise as being very gentle, easy to handle (he let me trim all four feet with no trouble at all!), and is going to be a big glossy buckskin gelding by this summer.  This is the buckskin mare’s sire, Command A Buck:

So all that to say that I’m stallion shopping.  I’m looking for a registered Quarter Horse stallion, preferably buckskin or palomino, with a good disposition and proven rideability.  I’m not set on him having a show record, as I never intend to show and I don’t care to pay the breeding fee that normally accompanies a stellar performance record.  I love the good using horse bloodlines such as Two Eyed Jack and Doc Bar…I like some Thoroughbred in the mix, to streamline out the old bulldog Quarter build.  Just like I grew up with:  Two Eyed Jack crossed on Three Bars mares = best ranch horses ever!

I’ll keep you posted on what we come up with, and if anyone has any suggestions for good stallions in this area (Iowa/Nebraska), please let me know.  We’ve never had a mare bred before, and we don’t know a lot of the horse breeders around here, so any advice is welcome!  I will also be searching through a lot of horse classifieds and see what stallions are being advertised this spring.

Also, if you’ve had a mare foal this spring, or are having one in the next month or two, send me an email and a photo of your recent foal. I’d love to make a blog post to share all the babies’ pictures.

Stallion Shopping is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on March 29, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I’ve been really busy the last three days.  Four days ago we lost a calf.  One of our herefords’ calves was stillborn, and it’s a real shame because the calf really would have been something—a purebred hereford bull calf.  But for some reason or other, he didn’t make it through the birth process.  So we went to the cattle auction to try to find a replacement calf to graft onto the cow since her milk was still good.  I had seen my dad do this many times, and figured our chances were pretty decent, since this particular cow is Dorothy’s mother, and is very gentle and easy to handle.

We got to the auction early to look over the calf lots.  There were only four little baby calves, one big black whiteface, two puny all-black calves, and one little red heifer calf.  Our six year old daughter looked at the red heifer and said, “Let’s buy that one, because it’s unique.”  We bid on her and no one else did, so it was pretty clear she was meant to be ours, and the kids named her Uniqua.  We loaded her into the back of our pickup and I rode in the back with her so she didn’t fall down or get hurt.  She sniffed my hand, turned around a couple of times, and then laid down.

When we got her to the farm, we put the cow in the chute pen, which is very small, just big enough for a cow to turn around.  We fed the cow some corn, tied her with a lariat rope around her neck to the nearest strong post, and put another lariat on her back leg and tied it to an opposite post.  She still tried to kick when the calf first started to nurse, and kicked until the rope fell off her foot.  But when we got the calf into position to nurse again, the cow didn’t kick, and she let the calf nurse for about fifteen minutes.

The next morning was Sunday morning, and Cowboy Dad and I went out before church to try again.  This time we just put her in the horse stall and used a fence panel to move her into the corner.  While she ate her corn, she allowed little Uniqua to nurse again.  But as soon as her corn was devoured, she was on the move, turning circles in the stall and threatening to jump over the panel, so I let her out.  When I put her back in her corral, she paced the fence and wanted back out in the cornfield with her pasture mates. 

For the next two days, I went out to rouse the baby, who was always sleeping in the hay, and get her up to the cow.  If I didn’t stand there and face her off, the cow would let the calf start to nurse, but then would walk away to pace the fence again.  So I started holding a pitchfork in front of her face and stopping her every time she started to move.  This let the calf get most of a good meal anyway, but the cow was becoming more and more irritated with me. 

Then this morning, the cow was gone.  She had gotten the corral gate open and was out with the rest of the cows.  I woke up baby Uniqua and walked her out to find her mother.  Her mother was about as far away as she could get, grazing the green grass that’s started coming up around the edges of the cornfield.  But when I headed her towards the corral, she knew what was going on.  She went mooing to her baby, and let her nurse.  But again, I had to stand in front of her with my sorting stick to make her stand still.

After lunch I went back out again to see what was going on.  It has rained for two days, and the whole field is a muddy mess, so I didn’t want to drive out to find her for fear of getting stuck, so I walked.  I found the herd of cows with their faces buried in a spread out line of hay, their babies sleeping nearby, and everything seemed peaceful.  But my hereford cow was nowhere to be found. 

I found her in the trees, across a steep ravine with a creek running through it, grazing grass on the far side.  I didn’t know where her baby was, but I figured that she would know, because cows are good at that.  So I just went over there, crossed the creek on my fallen tree bridge, and drove her back to the cow herd.  Sure enough, before we even got out of the trees, I saw a little red speck stand up out of the hay.  Uniqua had woken up and was looking for her mom.

The cow made a straight line for her, mooing as she went.  When we reached the herd, Uniqua went to nursing, and the cow stood still.  I was thrilled, even though the rain had soaked through my clothes and I had walked a half mile in my uncomfortable muck boots.  I think the cow is showing really good signs of adopting the calf as her own, and so my work is almost over.  I’ll check on her again tomorrow, but hopefully this project was a success.

Walking out through the cornfield to find my cow.

The happy cows eating their hay and the babies nestled in their beds to stay warm in spite of the rain.

My fallen tree bridge I always walk on to cross over the creek in the woods.

The hereford cow eating grass on the far side of the creek.

Driving the cow out of the woods to go find her baby.

The cow heading straight for her baby.

The cow encouraging her adopted baby to nurse.

Happy cow and happy baby....

...and happy me, following cows around in the rain with my sorting stick!

Mix & Match With Cows is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on March 20, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

When you’re just buying a horse, or beginning riding a new horse, it can be really hard to know what type of bit to use.  There are two ends of the spectrum, where you don’t want to use a bit that is too severe and risk ruining a horse’s mouth, but you also don’t want to use a bit that the horse doesn’t respect at all and risk getting thrown or run away with.  So choosing what bit to use for your horse is a very important decision, and I’ll share some tips that might be a help.

My brother asked me the other day what kind of bit would be good for his gelding Toby, a ten year old black registered paint horse.  Having prior experience with riding this horse, I knew a lot about the horse’s sensitivity and reactions to the bits and headgear I had tried him in.  My brother purchased Toby from a woman who was scared to ride him and had him outfitted in a twisted wire snaffle and training fork that forced his head down with each touch of the reins.  Toby was a bundle of nerves, spooky, fussy, and actually dangerous to ride.  Against my suggestion to find a safer horse, my brother bought the flashy black gelding. 

After a year or two in the pasture, Toby came to our place for a training refresher.  I saddled him in the round pen and gingerly stepped into the stirrups.  He walked around with his head down like an old broke horse.  When I put a smooth D-ring snaffle on him, he mouthed the bit crazily and seemed very preoccupied with it.  I could ride him in it, but he continually lowered his head to the ground, chomping and trying to push the bit out with his tongue.  After a few rides in this fashion (it wasn’t much fun), I tried riding him in my rope halter, looping the lead rope over his neck and tying it again to the halter like reins.  He did just great in the halter, and responded well to all my cues. 

You can see in the above photo how much Toby was hating the bit, and couldn’t concentrate on riding because he was so preoccupied with it.  So I deduced that either Toby had teeth problems and needed a vet to look at him, or else he just hated bits and should be ridden bitless the rest of his life.  His mouthing wasn’t just the initial stages that most colts go through when you first introduce them to the bit…he was actually chewing it and could not relax with it in his mouth, no matter how much time I gave him to get used to it.  So after Toby returned to my brother’s, they had his teeth floated, and his wife has been riding him in a halter.  They asked me what kind of bit would be good for Toby, that would provide more control than the halter does.

I sent him a link to purchase this hackamore on Horse.com, an online tack store that carries most types of bits and horse tack.  My dad is a fan of the mechanical hackamore, and while I have seen some severe ones (I don’t like the rubber coated bike chain version you see once in awhile), the flat leather noseband with medium shanks is a good riding bit for a horse that dislikes a mouthpiece but still needs more control than a halter.  The leverage of the shanks makes the chin strap tighten under the horse’s chin, providing a lot of stopping power.  With a heavy-handed rider, that much leverage would be too severe, but in good hands, the hackamore is a great bridle to use.  My brother said he’ll let me know how Toby likes it.  I’m thinking he’ll love anything that doesn’t go in his mouth.

When you purchase a horse that is previously trained and ridden, it is always good to ask what bit the horse is used to being ridden in before you purchase the horse, and watch the horse being ridden before you buy it.  The type of bit used can tell you a lot about the horse, as well as about its previous owner.  While every bit has a purpose, and some bits are only severe if in the wrong hands, a harsh bit can be an indication of a horse that has bad habits or is unsafe. 

I think a good, well-broke riding horse should be able to ride in a variety of bits.  For instance, a ranch horse that is used to being neckreined in a curb bit would be expected to perform the same way if it was being ridden in a snaffle bit or hackamore, or whatever.  But it’s best to choose a bit that the horse performs well in, and then not change it.  Use the mildest bit possible that your horse will be comfortable in and still obey all of your directions.  I often hear of people wanting to try a different bit, hoping to solve some problem they have with the horse’s riding…and I usually think that the horse just needs more training and better riding, not a bigger bit.

When I’m training a colt, or first starting a horse that I’ve not ridden before and don’t have much history on, I will put them in a plain o-ring snaffle with a thick mouthpiece, because that is the most gentle bit.  A colt needs time to get used to the bit and learn to give to the rein pressure and find relief when he obeys.  A horse that initially resists the bit or attempts to evade pressure by tossing his head, backing up, or running through the bit should just be given more time and more practice until he learns to respond to the mild pressure of the snaffle bit.  So just because a young horse does not respect a mild bit does NOT mean you should change bits and get something stronger–it will only accentuate the problems.  Work with the colt to get a softer response by riding with more attentiveness, getting quicker at the release when the colt obeys, and giving the colt time to figure out what you’re asking for.  Pushing a horse too quickly through the bitting process will just make him hard-mouthed and sour.

Then after a horse has had some training and is going along well and you’d like to introduce neck reining, you can switch to a bit with a snaffle (jointed) mouthpiece and shanks, as this will encourage the horse to soften in the neck and give with less direct contact on its mouth.  I like to use a reining style bit, or an Argentine snaffle, and stay away from the Tom Thumb bit.  I grew up using Tom Thumbs because they were the cheapest bit you could buy, but they tend to pinch at the corners and sore a horse’s mouth.  I think if your horse works fine in this style of bit, you could use it for the rest of your horse’s life.  But if your horse is neck reining well in the shanked snaffle, you can also transition to a curb bit from there.

A lot of riders prefer bitless training and riding, and that often results in a very nice start for a colt, and keeps a horse’s mouth soft.  You can start a colt out in a bosal, which is just a braided rawhide noseband and usually has romal reins or a mecate.  This is a very soft way to start a colt, and gives them a very nice headset.  Once they get a good response and are consistent in the bosal, you can move up to neckreining with a hackamore and get along just fine without ever having to put anything in your horse’s mouth.

I would like to add that there are hundreds of bit types, and just because I’m suggesting these three doesn’t mean they are a perfect fit for your horse.  These are the bits that I use and favor, mainly because I grew up using them and was taught this progression when you are training a colt.  But there are other bits that work better for different riders and different horses, and just because you might see someone using a different bit doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good fit for their horse. 

I strongly believe that you ought to work with your horse’s preferences as much as possible.  If the horse hates the bit, find a way to ride without one.  If your horse is throwing his head with the shanked bit, back off to a milder plain ring snaffle.  If your horse acts uptight and uncomfortable, make sure you have his teeth checked by a vet, and try a milder bit or hackamore.  Just make sure you’re fulfilling your horse’s needs and listening to what he’s trying to tell you.

Choosing A Bit For Your Horse is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on March 19, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I have a horse story to share that my oldest sister Kandra has written, telling about her very first horse, Apache.  If you’ve read very many of my own horse memories, you’ll remember that my sister is the one who influenced my siblings and I to love horses, and I wanted to know the details of how she came to own her first horse, because it happened when I was just a toddler, and I don’t remember it so well.  I have always felt a strong gratefulness to the man who gave her the horse, as his generosity set off a wave of fondness for horses that encompassed my whole world, and changed all of our lives.  It is Kandra’s favorite horse memory, and this is how her story goes….

At age eleven, I was a straight, skinny girl with straight, skinny hair.  My days were filled with reading books while indoors and riding horses while outdoors.  Between those two activities, I’m sure I did a number of chores and miscellaneous annoying of my siblings, but the reading and the riding were my favorite pastimes.

In the books I loved, the main characters always had horses of their very own.  I kept thinking that surely, one of these years, I would somehow acquire a horse of my own, but so far it hadn’t happened yet.  I wasn’t sure how to go about making it happen, either.  In the meantime, I rode Ol’ Buck a lot.

Ol’ Buck still holds a special place in my heart as the horse that taught me how much fun horses could be.  He was the patient old gelding with few bad habits and limited spunk—the one that was “safe for kids.”  What good times we had all through my early years.  But the fact remained: he wasn’t really mine.

I began to wonder if I would ever have a horse that belonged to just me.  The very idea of it hung out above me like an impossible dream in a comic-strip bubble.  I didn’t see how it would ever happen.

Once I even entered an essay contest for which the prize was a yearling Arabian gelding.  I was so excited about the contest!  The assigned topic was “What I Would Do With My Arabian Gelding.”  I did my best writing and told all about our ranch and the good life this colt would have.  Mom typed the essay out on her old Smith-Corona, and we sent it in the mail.  Alas, we missed the due date by a few days, and my career in essay-writing came to naught.  Again I waited for my impossible dream to come true.

The kind neighbor who lived across the river on the other side of town would call my mom almost every day, it seemed.  Mom would be on the phone for a long time, discussing recipes, gardening, ranch work and who knows what.  We would see the long curly black cord of the old telephone, stretched across the kitchen, and we’d know we’d better keep the noise down and not start any fights when Mom was on the phone with June.  We all liked June a lot, because she was a great cook and she taught us how to make turtle butter in her river.  She was also Mom’s best friend, we guessed.

At this time in my life, I was really curious about June and her husband, Francis, because I had found out that they somehow had a whole lot of horses—a whole herd!  When we had gone to their river to go swimming, we had seen some of them along the road, and what a sight that was!  Mares and foals in all colors, with long manes and tails, looking wild-eyed at us. It was more horses than I had ever seen in one pasture!  Dad said their son Kevin was a cowboy and a horse trainer.  I was just dying to know how they ever got that many horses.

Then one spring day, the most unbelievable thing happened.  And who would have guessed—it happened during one of those telephone calls!  Yes, Mom was on the phone with June again, talking about recipes or tomatoes or canning or something.  I wasn’t even listening at all, until I heard my mom say something like, “Oh, she’d be thrilled.  Well, I’ll have to talk to Keith about it…” She didn’t usually need to talk to Dad about recipes or canning or stuff like that.  And who was the she that Mom was talking about?  Who would be thrilled?

All of my eleven-year-old curiosity was aroused, but Mom would not discuss it, not even a little.  The next day I found out the amazing secret.  Dad said that Francis and June actually had a little colt that they hadn’t planned on having.  This didn’t make any sense to me, but I stopped worrying about it when Dad went on to say that they were wondering if I might like to have that little colt.  I thought surely it wouldn’t work out, but Dad said we’d go over to their place the next night after church and take a look.  I was afraid to think about it too much.  I had learned that disappointment had a real ugly color to it, and I didn’t care to see any more of it.

After church on Wednesday night, there we went up the dirt road to June’s house, our station wagon headlights plunging up and down as we bumped over a few washboard bumps in their sandy road.  When we pulled up into the yard, they had set up some portable corral panels to form a pen, and Dad shone our headlights on the startled horse standing there.  It didn’t look like a colt.  It was something like a large pony or rather, a small horse, staring at us, eyes wild.  Then she shifted around, and beside her I saw the colt, a dark brown-and-white paint, trying to hide behind his mother!  I was so surprised that he was a paint!  None of Dad’s horses were paints.  None of them were even bright-colored at all.  This little guy was one of the first paint horses I had ever seen.

He was small and very wild, and we really couldn’t get a very good look.  But Francis came out of the house, with his stubble of whiskers and twinkling eyes, and he and Dad each propped a boot up on the lowest rail of the steel corral panel as we gazed at the mare and foal.  I tried to listen in to the manly conversation, but none of it was making very much sense to me.      

Later I understood more.  The mother of the paint colt wasn’t that great of a horse.  I never did know how long Francis had owned her or even why he had bought her in the first place.  He was ready to sell her earlier that spring when he realized she was looking very pregnant and was probably going to foal!  That explained their having a colt they hadn’t planned on acquiring!  They didn’t even know which horse had fathered the paint colt, but they knew it wasn’t either of their big registered Quarter Horse stallions.  That little mare was part pony, part Arabian, and part awful, really.  She wasn’t really breeding material, in other words.  But they thought she had gotten in with some other young stallions that weren’t gelded yet, and that’s how she came to be in foal.

That telephone call that I had overheard was dear, sweet June asking Mom if I would like to raise the colt on a bottle, because they were going to go ahead and sell the mare.  However, by the time I found out that that was the offer, Dad had already thought ahead a little bit.  He knew my eleven-year-old self wasn’t really responsible enough to take good care of a colt, and maybe he wasn’t sure how effective milk replacer would be.  I guess he knew full well how long I had been craving a horse of my own!

So just like the incredible Dad that he was, he asked Francis how much he was hoping to get for the mare at the auction.  Francis said she would probably just go to a “killer” buyer since she wasn’t broke and didn’t have papers.  They agreed upon some average price, probably per pound, and the next day we went back with the trailer to try to load them up.

I was on pins and needles with excitement!  My dream was coming true!  I remember jumping up and down like a three-year-old; I really could not contain myself.  Dad and Mom tried to prepare me and help me understand that the mare and foal were pretty wild—I wouldn’t be able to even lay hands on my wonderful horse until he was weaned, for sure.

When we went to load them and bring them home, we couldn’t even catch the mare.  We ended up opening a place in the corral panels and running them into the trailer without halter or anything, just like they were cattle!  I’m sure Dad was wondering what he had gotten into.

All through the summer and fall, they grazed far out in one of the biggest pastures.  I knew my colt was growing wilder and wilder, and I hated the fact that I wasn’t yet experiencing the euphoria of horse ownership.  Finally Dad said it was time to wean.  He had bred his big bay mare to a quality stallion the previous year, and the result was a really nice sorrel filly about the same age as my colt.  There the similarity ended, though.  She was graceful and leggy; he was spindly and small.  She was bright sorrel, and he was dark brown-and-white paint, with black mane and tail.  The biggest difference of all was behavior.  The filly had been handled several times since birth, and had the advantage of a gentle mother.  My paint colt replicated his mother in every way he could—they both would run until cornered, and then they would kick!

Dad and Mom and I talked about names for my colt, even though I didn’t know him very well yet.  Dad said maybe I should name him Crackerjack, and then he would grow up to be a crackerjack horse, meaning a really good horse.  It seemed like such a long name, though, and I didn’t like the name Jack for a horse, really.  Grandpa had given me a polished rock he brought back from Arizona or somewhere he’d been on vacation.  He said it was called an Apache Tear.  I thought that was a cool name.  It was a dark, almost-black rock and sort of reminded me of my colt, so I decided to name him Apache.  He was certainly wild and rebellious enough to merit the name, I thought.

We weaned in a big, stout corral, with the mares in an adjoining pen, and soon Dad threw a lariat rope on my little colt and wrestled a halter on him.  While I watched with my heart in my throat, he held onto the halter rope and leaned back upon it as my colt reared high in the air, threw himself over backward, struck and fought in every way to free himself.  Eventually he did settle down and even learned to be led.  I was so happy to see him follow Dad quietly around the pen.  But I was even happier when Dad said, “He’s really smart, I can tell.  And he’ll really like you, when you lead him, because you’ve always been nice to him.”

And that’s exactly the way it was.  I will never forget those days.  I’ll always remember that glow that started deep inside and spread throughout my whole being, as I saw my colt become tamer and gentler.  I eventually realized that my colt did, indeed, like me.  Very soon, my colt was much tamer than the sorrel filly—tamer even than any of our other horses.  He would come trotting up when I called.  He would follow me anywhere, would stand to be tied, and would pick up all four feet for me to hold.  He was the joy of my life.

Thus began one of the very happiest times of my life, as I tried new things with Apache.  Before he was even two, I was riding him bareback with just a halter on his head.  Even though he had no pedigree, he fulfilled my every dream.  From time to time, Francis or June would ask how I was getting along with him, and I always told them the latest milestone we had passed in his training.  Apache became a cow horse and then a barrel racing horse and remained my dearest companion.  Among the best memories are the quick rides around the pasture without saddle or bridle, finding out how well Apache would listen to leg pressure and how fast I could ride him and still guide him.  When we tried herding an ornery cow that way, it was all I could do to stay with him, and I decided I’d best saddle up, at least!

I’ve often thought about Francis and June and wondered if they had any idea of the contribution they had made to my happy teenage years.  Did they have any knowledge of the part they had played in giving me my dream?  How many other little girls have been given horses for their own?

Just recently, I’ve learned that Francis has passed away; he’s gone on ahead of us to Heaven.  Maybe now he knows.  I hope he knows that that simple little paint colt made a world of difference to a barefoot country girl.  Some gifts can never be repaid.

Kandra's first ride on Apache in January 1982

Riding Apache at a Church Picnic Trail Ride

Apache heading home at sunset.

Apache grazing with the other young colts on our ranch. From left: Sunday, Gunpoudre, Johannes (behind Apache), Apache, and Kokomo

Apache eating grain with the other horses, December 1984. From left: Tasha, Apache, Smokey, and Chigger

Apache as a 3 Year Old, December 1983

Apache Tear is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on March 7, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

One of my biggest complaints about spring is the mud in our barnyard.  The mud wouldn’t bother me so much, but I have to wear my muck boots.  And my muck boots wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t hate how they feel…they feel yucky because my jeans bunch up inside them and actually wear blisters on the sides of my ankles as I’m walking and working around the farm.  But I recently learned about a neat little cure-all for riding jean bunchiness.  It’s called the BootStroot, and I’m giving away a BootStroot set right here on this blog post!

The BootStroot was created by an inventor named Brandon Siegenfeld, whose mom was complaining to him about trying to keep her jeans tucked into her boots, and being bothered by their bulging and bunching.  So he came up with the BootStroot (“Stroot” comes from the words Strap and Boot combined), which is a nifty little strap of elastic with velcro closures that wraps around the cuff of your jeans to secure them closely to your ankles, making your jeans fit more comfortably in your boots, and keeping the jeans from bunching up around your knees and above the boots.

The BootStroot comes in three basic colors:  black, brown, and navy, and are customizable to fit any size.  They are quick and easy to put on:  simply roll up your jeans to make a smooth cuff, with the excess taken in on each side of your ankle and folded back smoothly; then wrap the BootStroot around the cuff, fastening it to itself with the velcro closure; step into your boots, and you’re ready to go!  Your jeans will stay tucked in without their hems feeling bunchy, and without the extra material bunching above your boot tops.

Here’s how to win a free pair of BootStroots from CowgirlDiary.com:  Comment on this blog post anytime in the next two weeks, and your name will be entered in our giveaway drawing.  We’ll randomly draw a name from all entries on March 26th, and will email the winner and request a mailing address to send you your free BootStroot!  It is free and easy to enter, simply click on the Comments button on this post, you will be required to login, and then just post your name or mention you’d like to be in the contest. 

If you’d like to order your own BootStroot, you can visit their website at BootStroot.com or email Sarah Redfield for more information.

A big thanks to Sarah Redfield for contacting me about the BootStroot, and for sending me a free sample to giveaway on CowgirlDiary.com!  I hope you enjoy the BootStroot.

A Cure For Bunchy Riding Jeans is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on March 5, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

It’s calving season! Granted, we aren’t all done with winter yet, but we’ve had such a warm one it’s made us think spring a little early. The cows have been out on cornstalks the last couple of months, and now a few of them have calved, and it’s fun to drive by and watch the little babies trying to get their legs under them and navigate through the corn stubble. It’s just one of the first signs of promise that winter is going away and there are brighter days ahead.

I had one of those “life flashing before your eyes” kinds of moments this week. One of those moments where you can’t believe what happened and worse yet, you know what could have happened if things had gone a little differently. It was a bright sunny day and as we left the house, our black lab Bullet was wriggling about and begging us to take him along. We don’t take him to the farm all that often, because he terrorizes the cats out there, and we worry about him being alongside the gravel road and getting hit by a car, because people drive like maniacs past that farm!

Anyway, we took him along, much to his delight, and we worked around the farm a little bit. I trimmed Milo’s hooves, which always tend to grow long on the toes and wear down on the heels, so he needs frequent trimming. And the whole time I worked, Bullet was close by, almost underfoot. Cowboy Dad had brought the chainsaw and was cutting trees out of the fenceline around the cornfield, and we worked stacking branches to burn later when we had a not-so-windy day. A couple of hours later, my brother-in-law came out with vaccines and ear tags for the baby calves. He and Cowboy Dad were going to take the pickup down into the field and tag the calves. I asked to go along so I could take pictures of the newborn babies.

Well, we had planned on leaving the dog in the barnyard, as the kids were there playing under the watchful eye of Grandma, and we didn’t want him bothering the cows. But halfway down to the field, we looked back and here came Bullet. For some reason, he thinks he has to stick close to me when we’re at the farm…he even follows me on horse rides. So I should have known he would follow us down to the cows, but I just wasn’t giving it much thought.

We drove up next to our cow Peaches, who had birthed a cute little black brockle-faced bull calf that morning. Peaches is a very tame cow, practically a pet, and so we weren’t worried at all as we approached her. My brother-in-law said something about the dog, but I was messing with the camera and Cowboy Dad had his hands full of syringes and ear tags, and we were all taken completely off guard when Peaches stormed full speed at Bullet, who was unsuspectingly standing nearby. Bullet is a pretty old dog, and has not been around cattle at all, so he didn’t even see it coming. Peaches bowled him over and pretty much trampled him underfoot, leaving him squirming on his back and squealing like he was being killed!

We were stunned! Peaches ran back to her calf, who huddled up close to her, and we watched in shock as Bullet tried to struggle back towards the pickup. That’s when it finally hit me, “We are going to have to put this dog down!” He was pulling himself with his front legs, but his back legs were not working, and I just could not believe it that we had stood there and watched it happen with no forethought or action to prevent it. I felt sick.

Bullet did pull his hind legs under him finally, and we lifted him into the back of the pickup. He was able to stand, but his legs were just quivering, and he was probably in shock. There was a bleeding gash above his eye, where Peaches must have nicked him with a hoof. But we could not see any permanent damage once he was back on his feet. So we went on around to the other calf and administered its shots, and then back to the barnyard. Bullet seemed to walk alright, but we could tell he was pretty tired out. He just doesn’t normally do that much running around in one day, not to mention getting run over by an angry mother cow.

I felt really sorry for him, so I let him sleep in the house rather than on the front porch, since the nights are still very cold. He was really muddy, too, so I gave him a bath and washed his collar. The wound above his eye was already starting to scab over, so it didn’t look bad at all. Bullet slept straight for the next two days, he was so tired out. But this morning he is back to his normal self. I can tell when he feels good and has an appetite, because when he hears me cooking in the kitchen, he jumps up and down on his hind legs out on the porch. That’s him telling me he wants something to eat.

So I’m happy that spring is almost here, and I’m thrilled to welcome the new little calves. I’m happy to learn one more lesson (don’t take the dog along when you’re tagging calves) without having someone permanently injured. It seems like the more you’re around cattle and horses, the more you learn. And sometimes you learn the hard way.

I worked with our weanling colt for a little bit.  He was easy to catch, easy to lead, and pretty much easygoing the whole time.  I brushed him a little (it is so muddy here!) and worked on him letting me pick up his hooves (I got all but one!).  I also loaded him in the horse trailer again, for practice, and he did just fine at that.  He is next on my list to get his hooves trimmed, but I didn’t want to expect too much from him too soon.  He is just getting used to letting me touch his feet without pulling them away.  So we’ll leave that for another day.  It’s good for him to just be handled, to get used to us working around him, and having it be a good experience.  He got to graze in the barnyard a little, as there is still some green grass here and there.  I can’t wait until it all turns green again, and we can let the horses out to graze! 

For now, I’m just pitching hay and biding my time…and savoring the muddy days, too.

Hello Babies is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on March 1, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I am a writer, and one of my favorite things to do is to tell a good story.  I have often said that getting a horse is like getting a brand new notebook.  You open it up, and it’s blank….just waiting to be filled in with adventures, experiences, knowledge, sentiment, good memories, colorful adjectives, and whatever else comes your way.  So it is when you get a horse. 

I went for a ride with Cowboy Dad yesterday.  We had talked about trailering out to some trails or something, since we had a whole afternoon and warm sunny weather.  But with the melting snow and muddy footing, we figured it would be safer to stay on the gravel roads around the farm…we have learned the hard way to not venture out on unfamiliar trails when it’s muddy.  So we left the kids at his mom’s and went out to ride. 

I know I’m getting old, because it’s not so easy to just run out, grab a horse, and go.  Just like jogging, the hardest part is just getting out of your front door.  But to ride, we have to load up all of our gear….saddles, bridles, boots, a drink…oh, and don’t forget the camera!  And haul it all out to the farm.  Then the horses have to be caught and led out through the calves’ pen, which is really muddy and cumbersome when you’re leading two horses and you have three others trying to get out with them because they don’t want to be left behind!  I’m working on getting a gate installed at one corner of the horse’s pen directly to the farm yard, so we don’t have to go through the calves’ pen and the corn crib to get the horses out.  But everything’s a work in progress….

So I catch up Cricket  and the buckskin mare, whom we’ve started calling Girlie.  We aren’t sure if the name is going to stick, and we aren’t sure if we even like it as a name, but it’s what we call her for lack of anything better.  She is just so docile and sweet natured, and stands there close to you when you’re putting hay in her bunk, and I always say, “Hey, girlie,” affectionately, out of habit.  So that might end up being her name…it’s hard to tell.  We had thought we were naming her foal “Rex”, but my brother in law started calling him “Cletus” as a joke, and now the kids are calling him that, so I’m afraid it is set in stone!  His registered name will be Cooke Commander, so I guess Cletus can be short for that.  Ha ha!

But I get the two mares all brushed off, with a little help from Cowboy Dad, who explained that the only reason he wasn’t jumping in to help me was because I never like how he puts the saddle on.  This was a shocking admission but I knew it was the truth…I have criticized his work a few times before on the exact placement of the saddle, or whether it is cinched tightly enough or too tight.  I have perfectionist tendencies, and while my comments are tempered to those I am befriending or don’t know very well, those who are very close to me often bear the brunt of my nit picking.  I don’t know why it is harder to use tact with those we love the most!  So anyway, I had to backpeddle a little bit and resolve to let my husband saddle his horse however he wants.  After all, my corrections were only within eighths of inches anyway…it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing…and he’s the one who’s nice enough to go riding with me, so I’ve got to work on being nicer.

We decided to ride along the highway, over the river bridge, and into our little town.  It’s only about a mile or so, and we haven’t ridden in that direction for a long time.  The horses were eager to go, Girlie stepped right out in a trot away from the farm, and her foal didn’t even whinny after her.  When we got to the bridge we had to watch for traffic.  The horses are very good with cars passing them along the roadside, but the bridge is narrower of course, and there is no room on the sides to be safely away from the cars.  The horses really don’t like that first step onto the bridge.  They can sense it is different footing, and they need to stop and sniff and make sure it’s okay to walk on before stepping onto it.  But we passed that without mishap, and rode on into town.

We live in a really small town where pretty much everyone knows each other.  We got the dogs all barking as we  clip-clopped down the street.  Kids rode past on their bicycles, waving, and the horses didn’t really even blink at them.  When we got to Grandma’s house, Cowboy Dad went up and knocked on the door.  Our kids came out and wanted to ride a little bit.  Cowboy Dad told our daughter she could go to the neighbors and offer to give their little girls a quick ride, since she’s best friends at school with one of them, and they love playing together.  So they all came out and we let them ride Cricket, and put our kids on Girlie and led them around for awhile. 

We were walking along behind the elementary school, and the grass was thick and still green, so the horses were snatching bites of it once in awhile.  I was leading Girlie with just our daughter on board, and once when she stopped to eat, our daughter kicked her sides with both feet!  Girlie jumped, and I yelled and told her to not kick the mare!  The buckskin actually only moved about an inch, which was incredibly fortunate, because she could have bucked or bolted without warning and really hurt our little girl.  We explained to the kids that if someone is leading a horse, you don’t kick or try to control the horse at all.  I think our daughter, who is five, was kind of trying to show off in front of her friends…but we’re lucky it didn’t cause a wreck.


On the way back to the farm, leaving town, I thought about letting Girlie lope.  But Cricket is kind of older and we usually take it slow for her sake.  So after trotting for a good length, I started to slow the buckskin mare up, and she really wasn’t ready to slow down–she kind of tossed her head to go faster, and when I shortened my reins further, asking her to slow down, she kicked out with both hind feet in rebellion.  I laughed and looked back at my husband, who was a safe distance behind on Cricket.  He said it wasn’t just a kick, she had bucked!  But he said she didn’t miss a stride, and I told him it didn’t even feel like a buck.  So evidently our mare has a little spunk to her, but that’s the first sign of any rebellion I’ve seen yet.  She does get “hot” at a fast trot or lope, and you can feel that she’s ready to kick it into high gear and boogie out of there.  But after that, I asked her to slow down and walk, and we walked slowly on a loose rein the rest of the way home.

I keep saying how incredible it is that we have only had her a few months and she is such a good horse.  The more I ride her, the more convinced I am that she had some serious training when she was younger, before being turned out with the broodmares.  Because it’s showing up in her response to the neck rein already, and how she is just “common sense” about everything I ask her to do.  It’s really nice to get to enjoy a horse, rather than fight with it or struggle constantly.
I have often said that getting a horse is like getting a brand new notebook.  You open it up, and it’s blank….just waiting to be filled in with adventures, experiences, knowledge, sentiment, good memories, colorful adjectives, whatever comes your way.  So it is when you get a horse.  That first time you see it, you take it at face value:  it is what it is, and you have no idea how good it’s going to be.  But the more time you spend, the more knowledge you have of that horse’s nature.  Even watching a horse eat its grain can tell you something about that horse.  Every moment you’re around the horse, you’re both learning, both evaluating each other, both acting and reacting to each other’s motions.  And it’s just like writing a novel when you train a horse…you are giving and receiving, and you are learning and sharing what that horse is like, and who it is, and what it will become.  After you’ve been around a horse for a number of years, you may have volumes of information on that horse, and you can work with that horse as easily as you can put on a favorite t-shirt.  Because in the time you have spent with that horse, you have written that horse’s story.  And it’s a beautiful thing when you can read that horse’s story and know that it’s a good one.

A Little More To The Story is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on February 20, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I’m baking treats today, in honor of Valentine’s Day, and I’m baking them for my horses! I’ve actually never made homemade treats for horses before, but a reader commented over on my Cowgirl Recipes page and requested some recipes for making your own horse treats. Having read several horse treat recipes online, I went to the kitchen to see what I had on hand, and made up my very own kind of heart-shaped horse cookie. They turned out great, and my horses loved them! Here’s the recipe so you can share some love with your equine friends this Valentine’s day!

Valentine Heart Horse Treats

Ingredients:
2 c. whole wheat graham flour
1 c. oatmeal
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 T. sugar
3 T. corn syrup
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 t. salt
1 pear, finely chopped

Directions:
Mix all ingredients together. Add more flour if mixture is too sticky. Spoon onto cookie sheet and press into heart shapes by hand. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Makes 6 large or 12 small horse treats.

Photos:

I used this whole wheat graham flour because it’s something I didn’t really want to save for normal baking (we’re kind of picky eaters and not used to whole wheat–even though it is more healthy).  If you don’t have whole wheat flour, you can use white flour or whatever you have in your kitchen.

For oatmeal, this is what I used…you could substitute any kind of whole grains with good results.

I used a pear in my horse cookie recipe because it was the only fruit I had that my kids weren’t going to eat.  This pear was a little too dinged up for my daughter’s taste, but I don’t think the horses will mind at all.  The pear flavoring in these cookies make them delicious (yes, I ate one!)  You could substitute an apple, carrot, or anything else horses like.

Dice the pear into fine chunks so your cookies don’t turn out too crumbly.  If you’re using a carrot instead, shred it or process it in a food processor before adding to your mix.

With everything mixed together in the bowl, test the dough for stickiness and add more flour or oatmeal if necessary.  You want it to hold together and start to form a ball when stirred, not stick to the edges of the bowl or spatula.

I used a large spoon to scoop the mixture onto my baking stone, then formed heart shapes with my hands.  It held together well and didn’t stick to my fingers too badly.  You could make flattened circles, or any shape you like.

This is what the cookie looked like before baking.  They didn’t spread out or lose their shape at all, while in the oven, so you can place them as close together as you like, they don’t run or smear into each other.

I baked them at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, checking on them once in awhile to see if they were done or not.  These had started to brown around the edges, and felt crunchy and hard to the touch.  The inside was still softer, but baked through.  I put them on a wire rack to cool.

Daisy rolled her eyes at first…she wasn’t sure what I was offering her, but then she took a nibble. Then everyone wanted to try them. Cricket ate three of them! She loved them.  My horses aren’t used to getting treats, though I have gotten some free Whinnie’s Cookies by mail to try, and they liked those.  These horse cookies were so easy to make, and out of ingredients I was going to probably throw away anyway, I think I’ll make them again soon.  Many of the recipes I looked at included grain, barley, bran, carrots, peppermints, and even maple syrup.   Don’t use peanuts or other nuts, but grains should be fine.  I think as long as it’s edible and tasty, you can go ahead and throw it in.   Enjoy sharing this treat with your ponies!

Share The Love! is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on February 15, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I’ve been thinking about the horse slaughter topic a lot lately, and would like to share some of my thoughts on the issue, but I find that I can hardly discuss it without stepping on toes, and probably square on the toes of some of my friends.  When you start talking about killing horses, there isn’t any middle ground where you can please everybody—people are either adamantly against it or staunchly for it, and are prepared to fight for the chance to prove that the opposing side is filled with lunatics and monsters.  I would like to point out that it shouldn’t be that way, because I do find myself somewhere in the middle on the question of horse slaughter.

Let’s go back a hundred years or so, and consider where we have come from.  Back then, a horse was a valuable asset in many ways.  They were still being used for transportation and farm work; and their career in entertainment, such as rodeo and racing, was growing rapidly.  People still depended on horses and needed them in their daily lives, and they were treasured as much or more then as they are now.  Horse thieves were more common then, because horses could be easily sold and traded and it was relatively easy money as opposed to homesteading, farming, and working hard for a living.  Being called a horse thief was about the lowest insult you could inflict on someone, because it carried the stigma of having absolutely no morals at all; which, in that time period, was also a rarity.

And this, I believe, is where the problem really stems from—it is a question of morals.  When I think of my grandmother, who was born in 1908, and her viewpoint on life and how she treated everyone, it is pretty clear how stark the contrast is with today’s society.  Grandma worked hard.  She treated people with respect.  She raised her children to work, to love, to appreciate beauty, and to care for animals.  But she was no emotional sissy, either.  If a job needed to be done, she did it, and possessed the common sense necessary to get it done right.  Grandma grew up poor and treasured what she had, and she knew how to stretch a dollar and make good use of something so you could spend wisely elsewhere.

Fast forward to today, where our society is overtaken with greed and the inability to recognize truth.  We have the kill buyer, who is only thinking of the profit he’ll make as he slams the trailer door against the emaciated hindquarters of the last horse, cursing and beating with his cattle prod to get the door shut on the five dollar carcasses he’s just purchased.  We have the horse rescue facility owner who is drumming up donations for the five horses she has out in the back pasture that she hasn’t looked at in two weeks because she is just now getting back from Las Vegas, and they sure had a good time with those contributions.  We have the dreamy-eyed teenagers and the fifty year olds just like them, who every time they hear the word “horse” they envision the Black Stallion cantering along a sunset beach, and have never taken into consideration that a lot of horses aren’t like that, so they’ve jumped on the bandwagon along with the freaks who think horses shouldn’t be trained or ridden at all.  And then there’s the breed registries and indiscriminate breeders who have made fortunes off of horses and the people who love them, but have also contributed to the flooded market and poor conditions for their creations.  All of these people have a problem.

As for the kill buyer problem, and the inhumane handling at processing plants, it is a moral one.  The employees ought to be required to treat the animals in a gentle manner, preserving their sense of well-being as much as possible, and acting responsibly when handling them.  If you don’t cringe or feel bad when you see an animal beaten or slammed by a gate, you have no business working with livestock.  Even with difficult animals, if you use common sense and a little patience, you can accomplish your task with minimal fear or pain inflicted on the animal.  It starts with who you are as a person, and what your conscience dictates to you.  There are a lot of people who handle horses carelessly, and though you can’t always regulate it or just throw them in jail, you should do your best to influence anyone you can on how to treat animals.  If every parent would teach their child that animals are to be cared for and loved, then we wouldn’t need to regulate slaughter or how animals are transported or treated.  They would be governed by their own conscience, and everyone would be better off because of it.

There is also a problem with the people who lie about rescuing horses.  I want to state first that you can find facilities who have done an absolutely amazing job with retraining horses and finding homes for them and making the transitions so perfectly organized that the horses and new owners benefit greatly, and I applaud their efforts.  There are good rescues.  But then there are the liars, and we have seen them recently in the news, where everything is underhanded, they are paid by the people placing the horses, they’re taking donations from the public to fund their rescue, and then they’re selling them out the back door to Canada slaughter plants.  That kind of lying and cheating needs punished to the fullest extent of the law.  Horse owners need to be certain of the character of the people they are dealing with, before they trust their horses to them.

The emotionally-fed “dreamers” are as big of a problem as anyone, because they don’t understand the truth.  When you fail to understand that God created man with a dominion over the animals and the earth, you can easily be confused into joining the wrong side.  There are people who believe that animals are better than humans, and that you should never eat meat or use animal products of any kind.  Because our emotions get involved, we sometimes lose sight of the harsher realities of life such as death, or when an animal is injured or not useful anymore.   Or that it does require raising and processing animals to feed the people of the earth, and it’s not wrong to do so.  One can possess a true love for horses and still have a realistic view of the big picture, understanding that sometimes it’s best for the animal itself to be put down or killed.  It is easy to bandwagon with those organizations who protest horse slaughter, because our feelings for the animals do side with them.  But when you uncover their other true agendas, you might be surprised at how extreme they are.  Many of them believe it is wrong to own or train a horse, expect it to perform, or labor in any way at all.  Their agenda pushes to elevate a horse’s rights above a human’s rights and create strict rules for animal ownership, and it is a slippery slope to be on. 

I would also like to point out that there is an overbreeding problem in the horse industry.  If people would excercise more common sense when it comes to breeding and horse ownership, it would help stabilize the horse economy.  Just because you want your mare to have a baby doesn’t mean she should.   When you consider the origin of some of these animals, it is ridiculous.  When the same thoughtless woman brings her dozen weanlings to the horse sale every fall and they sell for $15 apiece, she needs to be educated about her actions.   She is directly responsible for the abuse that will probably happen to each horse in its lifetime.  If you’ve been to a horse auction, you know what I’m talking about.  These breeders are most likely trying for paints or appaloosas, and bring in their solids that are good for nothing and are lucky to find a home that will feed them.  And their colored foals only bring a small amount more, but they’ll keep breeding because they have a stallion and a bunch of mares and they “enjoy raising the babies”.  But there is no one to take care of those animals after she dumps them at the auction.  I’m sorry, but it is a crime to be that irresponsible.

The big breeders and breed registries are no better, because they further contribute to the problem.  If everyone were to stop breeding for five years (not because of legislation that demands it, but out of goodwill and a plan to save the horse industry), and work to improve all of the horses that already exist by training them, placing them in good homes, working to improve conditions for rescue facilities, and integrating older performance horses into free riding programs for needy children, wouldn’t the difference made be astounding?  It would put a dent in their bank accounts, of course, but if the AQHA membership fees alone were redirected into saving some of these useless horses, wouldn’t they end up the hero in the long run?  I do think that something along these lines could be done if the breeders and registries were in it for the horses, but because of the almighty dollar, it sadly never will.

Because of the aforementioned problems, I do believe there is a need for a legal, cleanly-operated, well-run meat processing facility in the United States that can humanely put down and put to use the bodies of otherwise useless horses.  There are far too many horses in existence for them to be properly cared for, and to have a good way to end a life of pain or neglect would be the best option.  For those screaming that you should never kill a horse, I would point out that there are just too many horses for them each to be rehabilitated and made useful or even able to live a pain-free life.  If you know the physical make-up of a horse, you understand that a thousand pound animal navigating on four intricately functioning hooves can often lead to lameness or perpetual injury.  If you understand the phsychological make-up of a horse, you also understand that some life experiences render a horse as wild as a deer and as dangerous as a mountain lion.  And some horses are malformed from birth, untamed and unused, and generally counterproductive to the care required to keep them alive.  While it’s not a pretty picture, it is true that horses, in some cases, should be killed. 

I do think that there should be restrictions on what type of horse a kill buyer is allowed to purchase, to prevent them taking young healthy horses.  I understand that regulations don’t come without employing someone to enforce them, but with careful planning, I believe it could be done and done right.  There is significant evidence that humane euthanasia by a veterinarian is no easier on a horse than a penetrating captive bolt or electrical charge that renders the horse insensitive.  A gunshot is often more humane than the euthanasia.  So I do think it is possible to kill them without needless trauma, and find a use for what otherwise could spend many more years in pain and neglect.

There is also a need today to not waste things.  We live in an excessive world, where we are encouraged to recycle, but we still see trash in the road ditches.  We think nothing of throwing away things we don’t want because our tastes require a new version of that item.  It’s so sad that the same aspect carries over into the horse world.  If you purchase a horse, you are taking responsibility for it and that should mean something to you.  If you can keep it and care for it properly until it lies down and peacefully breathes its last, that is the best way possible for the horse.  But if the horse you own is no longer healthy, cannot be cared for, or has no potential for a useful life, it should be your decision to sell it to be killed and used for meat or other byproducts.  I don’t see how that is any less honorable than choosing to have it put down by your veterinarian, and it is a cheaper and more useful option.

 I also think it is wasteful to believe that you can save every horse in the world and let it run wild on the prairie for the rest of its days.  A horse running wild on a prairie does not serve a useful life.  That would be like saying the infestation of rats in your house is how they were born to live and we need to preserve that heritage.  I am a big fan of mustangs, and agree that they are beautiful in their natural environment, and if some rich lady wants to buy land and let them roam free, that’s fine by me.  But it’s a waste to put tax dollars into the equation, and so much has already been wasted in the hands of the government. 

This isn’t an easy topic, and it may result in inflammatory comments or lost friendships, and if it does, I apologize.  I don’t have perfect answers to all of the problems with the horse industry, but I can see some clear-cut errors in the thinking of people who breed with no real plan for the resulting foal, and I hope this article might help educate the beginning horseman who doesn’t really know what to think.  If there are any thoughts or comments you would like to add that are well-thought out, good for discussion, and truly based on your desires to act in the best interest of horses, I’d like to hear your suggestions.  In the light of this subject, I am even more devoted to caring for my own horses the best that I possibly can.  I hope and pray that they have the best life I can make for them.

The Word Nobody Likes is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on February 9, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I never pay attention to the forecast.  I’m not a fan of watching the evening news, and I don’t listen to the radio on a regular basis, so I’m pretty much out in the cold when it comes to knowing what’s going on with the weather….literally.  It snowed in the night and I didn’t even know there was a chance of snow!  In my opinion, snow just makes chores that much more difficult, so I wasn’t all that excited to see it.  But snow seems to have a different effect on children and animals.

Our kids are usually sleepyheads and hard to wake up in the morning.  But using the tactic, “Come look at the snow!” got them out of bed in a hurry.  It was much the same when I let the cats out to investigate.  Tinkerbell went running and leaping out onto the deck, reaching under the thick layer of snow as if it were a blanket with a mouse underneath it.  She skittered this way and that, tail arched in crazed delight as she carried out her silly pantomime.  It felt good to start the day with a laugh.

When I got to the horses, they behaved pretty much the same way Tinkerbell had.  They ran back and forth through the corrals and down to the creek, stopping to blow through their noses with that horse-language alarm signal.  Then they’d all take off again, tearing around and bucking like crazy.  Even old Cricket put on some fancy moves.  I tried to catch them on camera, but my shutter is slow, and I only caught half of Milo’s wild spin:

Milo is an expert at showing off.  He is not a spooky horse at all, and will step over, around, and among things without hesitation.  But when the horses start to running or feeling their oats, he usually puts on the biggest show.
 

You can tell by Cricket’s expression that she is egging Milo on and trying to drive him away.  They all have to exert their authority and remind the younger ones where they belong in the pecking order when the horses get to running around like this.

The buckskins were having a hay day all their own.  They naturally avoid the other three, but Milo’s antics were catching on quickly, and they went racing away to the creek and back at full speed.

 It was fun to see them enjoying themselves and getting some exercise as opposed to standing around their hay bale like they have been doing lately.  Then they all stop and stand still and listen, and it just feels so beautiful to be a part of their electrified silence on this crisp morning.

What Is It About Snow? is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on January 17, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

My sister-in-law introduced me to Pinterest a few weeks ago.  If you’re not sure what it is, it’s a website where you can “pin” or bookmark websites or photos that inspire you in a neat collection of “boards” for you to come back to and read or use later.  For instance, I have a board of horse photos, a board for scrapbooking ideas, a board of photos of things in my favorite color of green, and boards that give do-it-yourself tutorials for making some really neat things.  You can get recommendations from your friends by seeing things they have pinned or liked, and it is just fun and relaxing to make your own collections to come back and look at whenever you need inspiration.  Last night I was creating a board for the kind of style I’d like to have.  As I was pinning a beautifully ruffled dress that you could only wear to a wedding party or soiree, the thought hit me, “Who am I kidding?  I deal in cow manure!” 

It’s true.  Yesterday I was knee deep in it, hands covered in it, a trail of it all the way through my house and an inch of it in my bathtub.  The car smelled of it, my shoes are completely ruined with it, and my frame of mind was pretty much the equivalent of it, too.  It was just a cow-manurey kind of day.

It would be easier if Cowboy Dad were around.  But he and his brother went to Denver for the weekend to take in the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo.  So it was up to me to feed the calves and horses and make sure the cows had water.  They didn’t.  The tank was drunk down to the bottom, and nothing remained but an icy rim around the top of the tank.  When I went to start the hose running, it had been used and not drained properly and was frozen shut.  Since it must pass through the feeder calf pen to reach the stock tank, it is continually being dragged through fresh manure whenever it is used….I really didn’t want to put it in my  recently-vacuumed Tahoe, but I didn’t really have another choice.  I got it into the car and back to my house, managing to scrape manure all along the way through the kitchen and living room, and piled it into the bathtub (yep, got some manure on my white fabric shower curtain!) and filled it up with hot water.

As it defrosted, I used a scrub brush to clean most of the manure off.  Wrapping it in a huge bath towel made it easier to carry and caught most of the muddy drips as I carried it back out to the car.  I got it hooked up and decided to fix the problem so that it wouldn’t happen again.  From the hydrant, I ran the hose straight up to the top of the corn crib door, through the corn crib aisle at a slope, and all along the fence panels sloping down until it reached the tank.  I used nails and baling wire to secure it, and after the tank was filled, it looked like all of the water drained out of it on its own.  So hopefully I won’t have to repeat the thawing process with the hose, and the hose won’t get drug through the manure every time we need to use it.

But manure is still a big part of my life, and I have to say I prefer it that way.  My husband and I have talked quite a bit about just selling the cows and being done with it, as the cost of keeping them has outweighed the benefits some of the time, since we don’t have enough of them to really make it a profitable business, and getting started in cattle required a lot of facility and equipment purchases.  But I always consider it a quality of life that we’re paying for.  Not everyone has the privilege of dealing with manure on a daily basis.

There is just something comforting and stable about being in the presence of cows.  So many times after evening feedings, we just stand there listening to the calves gobbling up their grain, crowded in side by side at their feed bunk, their tails wagging in enthusiasm and their happiness spreading to us as well.  The feeder calves are also fun to watch because they get so excited at the smallest things and go bucking and jumping around the corral.  They are very curious and will come up and sniff your hands if you offer them, and seem so childlike in their actions.

We have named a couple of our cows, and they are practically family pets.  Dorothy and Peaches (pictured above) are heifers that we kept from babies when we first purchased their mothers as first-calf heifers.  Peaches is a small black white-faced cow who is pregnant with her second calf.  She is tame, but not when she has a baby to look after.  Dorothy is a deep red Hereford cow that is so tame you can give her vaccinations without putting her in a chute.  She will follow a bucket anywhere you want her to go, and has become the “leader” of our cow herd whenever we need to get them in the corral or even into a trailer to move them.  Dorothy lost her first baby and didn’t take with her second AI session, so she is coming up on 4 years old and still hasn’t raised a calf for us.  Anyone with smarts would have turned her into hamburger by now, but we just can’t do that with Dorothy.  She is an angel, and we all love her.  So we’re going to try again this spring with a low-birthweight bull, and see if she can be a mother after all.

We have worked countless hours putting up fencing, hauling water in a poly tank in the back of our pickup, cutting trees out of the fence lines, and pitching hay—all because we have cattle.  But I would rather have the experiences and lifelong memories of those hours working alongside my husband and my kids, or when I was a child working with my siblings and parents, than give up all of that and the work, trouble, and yes—the manure that is involved in owning cattle.

Cow Manure is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on January 16, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

Today was amazing.  Well, if you don’t count the fact that it’s the beginning of January and still a little cold for my taste.  And if you don’t mention that today was my husband’s first time to get bucked off a horse.  It was sunny with no wind, a Sunday afternoon, and he said we’re crazy if we don’t go for a horse ride today.  So we did.  Here’s how it went:

I saddled up Daisy for our daughter to ride.  She loves that horse.  I’m happy Daisy has a rider who appreciates her.  She’s a girls-only horse…she really dislikes men for some reason.

I told her to be sure and pet Daisy a little before I put her up in the saddle.  My dad always told me to pet the horse a little so he knows who you are before you just go get on.  If you’ve been the one to groom and tack up, it’s not that big of a deal, but otherwise you need to introduce yourself.  Just bringing a kid out of nowhere and throwing them up in the saddle is a little presumptuous, in my opinion.  So we always say “hi” and pet them a little before getting on their back.

So far our daughter has never been frightened or hurt by a horse.  I’m thankful for that, and want to keep it that way as long as possible.  When you start out fearless and progress with no interruptions to your confidence, it makes a lifetime rider out of you.  I had the very same start, and so when the time came that I did fall off, got stepped on, had the saddle turn under the horse’s belly, and even drug along the ground under the horse, the my confidence and love for horses was never shaken. 

I saddled the new buckskin mare for myself.  Yes, she’s still lacking a name.  And not as gorgeous in winter as she is in the summer, but her demeanor makes up for it.  Never have I met a sweeter horse.

So we started out through the cornfield, the buckskin happily leading the way, with Daisy and her cargo in tow.  Daisy is the boss of the herd, and my buckskin mare is at the bottom of the pecking order, but she didn’t fuss at having Daisy following so closely on the lead line.  She wanted to trot a few times, which resulted in surprised squeals from my daughter. 

And we had to stop a few times.  Here we are checking to see “why” we needed to stop for a minute.  Not the best moment to take a picture, but it did give me time to get the camera out of my pocket.

So that segment of our afternoon went beautifully, and Daisy chalked up another good ride in her book.  My girl went off to play with the farm cats, and my husband asked me to saddle a horse for him.

Cowboy Dad has been riding Milo quite a bit recently, and unless every horse goes along for the ride, it can be kind of tricky keeping Milo going.  He is sweet on the mares we left back at the barn, so his attention was constantly on turning back towards home.  My husband said let’s walk down towards the south fence, and then when we turn east we’ll try trotting.  I figured that was a good plan, since we’d be heading away from home and the horses needed the exercise.

It didn’t turn out too well, because when me and the buckskin started to trot, Milo started to trot really fast and then went to crow-hopping.  Cowboy Dad did alright,but eventually was mostly on one side, so he bailed and half fell, half jumped to the ground.  Milo took off then, snorting and prancing and stepping on his reins.

With a little help from the buckskin mare (I wasn’t helping much, mostly snapping photos, and wishing I had caught the real action shot!) my husband caught his horse.  Milo was spooky and ornery, almost acting like he had a guilty conscience and knew he was in trouble.  But we never punish a horse for such a thing, because by the time you catch him, in his mind all you’re punishing him for is for allowing himself to be caught again.  You just have to take the blame yourself and get back on.

So after a little walking, a little talking, a little tightening of the cinch, we were ready to go again.

And this time Milo behaved much better.  I thought Cowboy Dad was pretty awesome to get back on and keep riding.

He even agreed to take some pictures of the mare and me.

She wasn’t really wanting to stop and pose, we were riding along the river bank, which drops off steeply and it made her a little nervous.

But it was a beautiful day to ride, and I ended up riding for most of the afternoon.  The mare didn’t get fussy or try to get home in a hurry.  She is very calm.  Very laid back.  Really easygoing.  She pretty much made Milo look like a train wreck. 

See, in horses, disposition is everything.  Milo has much more experience under saddle than she does.  Daisy has more than either of them combined.  But Daisy isn’t trustworthy….I’ve seen her buck like a rodeo bronc with a trainer friend of mine.  So I never really relax around her.  And Milo has this ornery barn-sour streak that just makes him difficult to deal with.  Granted, it could be ridden out of him if he were worked steadily for six months.  He would be a fantastic little horse with regular riding.  But this mare that I’ve ridden maybe six times is pure gold because she has a good disposition.

I let our youngest sit on her back for a little while before I put her away.  He is usually reluctant to ride and very cautious around the horses.  But he loves the buckskin mare.  She carried him patiently around the farm for a few turns, never minding that she’d already been ridden quite a bit and had done her share of work for the day.  She put a smile on his face that matched the one on my own.  It was a wonderful day with the horses.

A Day in Pictures is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on January 9, 2012. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I absolutely love Christmas.  It’s my favorite holiday, and all of the excitement and anticipation that comes with the shopping, giving, and receiving is what makes it fun.  Growing up kind of makes that excitement fade, until you have kids of your own, and then you get it all back watching them exclaim over their gifts.  If you’re like me, you just can’t quit thinking about what might be in that package under the tree with your name on it.  I’m everlastingly curious but too principled to peek.  So this time of year always gets me giddy with excitement!

Some of the stories through the years still make me giggle.  I remember the year my folks had bought me a realistic-looking carved stickhorse.  I was maybe six years old, and was clueless until just a few days before Christmas when my little brother found it and galloped through the house riding it, with my mom chasing him and trying to keep me from seeing what it was.  All I remember was seeing the end of the stick go around the corner with my mom hollering at him to stop.  I didn’t know until Christmas morning what the commotion was all about.  I loved that stickhorse and named her “Jasmine”.

I was never asked, as a child, “What do you want for Christmas?”  We were a big family with seven kids, and we knew we would “get what we get and don’t throw a fit”.  We all shared toys, so even if our brother got a neat gift, we were happy and excited too, knowing we would get to play with it also.  But we didn’t ask for things, and we knew it was in poor taste to beg for something in particular.

So when I was about fourteen, I didn’t tell anyone what I was really wishing for….I had been using my mom’s western saddle ever since I had graduated from the vintage kids saddles we all grew up learning to ride on.  Mom didn’t ride very often, having her time spread too thin between housework and gardening for a family of nine.  So I was free to use her saddle whenever I wanted to…but I really wanted one of my own.

My older sister had gotten her own saddle when she was about twelve, since she was tall and had quickly outgrown the kids’ saddles.  I remember that Dad had sold two or three fillies (we usually kept the geldings to train as ranch horses, and sold off the fillies we raised since we used our own stud and they couldn’t be bred to their own sire) and used some of the money to buy my sister a saddle.  So for a year or so I had been feeling that it was about time that I would be getting a saddle of my own.

I waited patiently for Christmas to come, not telling anyone what I wanted or thought I might be getting.  Mom would usually wrap the small gifts first and put them under the tree with strict orders to not shake them or peek in them until Christmas morning.  The bigger gifts were not put out until late Christmas eve, because they were often harder to wrap or cover, and our parents didn’t want us guessing at what we were getting.  So when my mom placed a large puffy-looking present under the tree on Christmas eve that was big enough to be a saddle pad folded in half, I was certain that my wishes were about to come true.

On Christmas morning, that was the first gift I opened.  And pulled out a bag stuffed with newspapers that were packed around a violin case and new violin!  At fourteen, I hid my dismay and thanked my parents.  To this day, they don’t know that what I really wanted and had built my hopes on was a saddle.  The violin was a short-lived hobby, though I still have it and will keep it forever.  But it wasn’t a new saddle.

So the following summer my dad started talking about getting himself a new saddle.  His was worn and a flat, heavy old roping saddle, and he just thought he’d order a new one.  He showed me a catalogue where you could get a complete saddle package—with saddle pad, breast collar, matching headstall and reins.  He asked what color of saddle pad I thought he should get.  I said, “Well, you ride a gray horse, so I’d get the black and silver one.”  I teased him that maybe he’d need to buy a fancy new horse to go with the saddle he was getting.  I never dreamed my dad could be sly.  But he went around to my two younger brothers and asked them the same thing.

Christmas Eve came and there were no hints or any signs of big secrets.  I had learned to not build my hopes up, and I was pretty used to the hand-me-down saddle of my mom’s, so it wasn’t really on my wish list for that Christmas.  But on Christmas morning, after we opened up our gifts, my dad said, “But there’s more!”  He told my brothers to open up the sliding glass patio doors and go around the corner of the house and bring in those big boxes.  We each got a brand new saddle package, each with the color of saddle pad we had suggested that Dad get!  I had never been more surprised, and had never had a better Christmas than that one.  It was the best gift ever, and even more exciting because I had wanted one for so long.

My dad is still riding his old flat roping saddle.  I don’t think he’d want a new one if you offered him one, because he’s just used to his old saddle and it’s comfortable to him.  And I’m still riding my saddle, even though the silver and black saddle pad has a few strings hanging and is showing its age.  I’m glad I didn’t show my disappointment that day, because the violin was a very nice gift and I know my parents gave it to me with excitement.  Now that I’m a parent myself, I see how much planning and hoping we do when we buy things for our children.  But it was a very vivid Christmas memory for me, and one I will always treasure.

I am excited this Christmas, as even the smallest gift still holds significance and thoughtfulness.  We seven siblings are all grown, most of us married with kids of our own, and we still buy gifts for each other and try to gather as a family for Christmas at our folks’ place when we can.  But I am most strongly tied to my family for the memories I have of those days as a child when we were so close and so tightly knit.  And I look forward to more memories to be made.

For you I wish a very Merry Christmas and hope you have an exciting day with your own family.  The giving and sharing and closeness is what makes Christmas my favorite holiday.  And the excitement of not knowing what surprises still await.

The Fun Is In Not Knowing is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on December 24, 2011. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

I had our weanling colt on the lead line the other day, working on halter training a little bit more, and I thought it would be a good time to introduce him to the horse trailer.  I wasn’t there when my husband went to pick him up, when we first purchased him, but I heard that he was hard to load, and wouldn’t follow his mother into the trailer.  They had to use portable corral panels to box him into a small space behind the trailer and then adjust them smaller until he was forced to jump in.  So I knew that trailer loading was an area we needed to work on with him. 

He followed along happily out to where the trailer was parked.  We have a gooseneck stock trailer that is nice and open and roomy, which is quite an upgrade from the rusty mustard yellow bumper-pull we started out with.  So when I opened the door and stepped inside, the little guy bravely sniffed the trailer floor and then followed me in.  We stood there a moment, as I patted him and told him, “Good boy!”  And then turned around and walked back out.  He handled it like a pro, and will most likely load easily the rest of his life, because there was no trouble.  But some horses are not so trusting, and you can find yourself in the middle of a huge battle before you even realize it.

When I was a kid, no one ever worked on trailer loading.  Then we would find ourselves in a huge hurry loading up to go out and work cattle, and one of the horses would just absolutely refuse to load.  My dad wasn’t the sort to patiently coax anyone to do anything, much less waste time on a stubborn horse.  So he usually took out a coiled lariat or whip and made being outside of the trailer more scary for the horse than getting inside of the trailer, so the horse jumped in and away we’d go.  It wasn’t the right way to train a horse to load, and that horse would balk every time from then on.

 When I was training my own little mare, Beauty, the only trailer I had access to was a borrowed two-horse that was barely big enough to squeeze into.  She was fine with standing near the open door of the horse trailer, but didn’t quite know what to do when I asked her to get in it.  So I carefully picked up one of her front feet and set it inside the trailer.  Then I clucked to her, signalling her to move forward.  She eventually got in, but then couldn’t get out, afraid to back up in such a tiny space.  So I did one of the more stupid things in my long list of horse experiences:  I got into the other side of the trailer, climbed over the divider in front of my Beauty’s nose, and fairly lifted her whole front end as I pushed her backwards out of the trailer.  She was a very brave and obedient little horse, and loaded fine in a bigger trailer, but that little one scared her.

When I was in high school, our church youth group had a few horse training seminars (yes, I grew up in the Nebraska Sandhills, where every kid had a horse) with a horse trainer who was also my Sunday School teacher.  He demonstrated with a young horse who was not used to the trailer, and taught us some simple steps that resulted in him being able to sit nonchalantly on the wheel well of the side of the trailer, and motion for the horse, on a loose lead line, to go get in all by himself.  I will share the method I learned from that horse trainer, Kevin Wescott, for training a horse to trailer-load, and making that first experience a good one, so that the horse will load happily the rest of his life.

Horses are flighty creatures, with strong instincts to protect themselves.  A horse who has never seen a trailer before will most likely view it as a horrific trap, to be avoided at all cost.  It takes time and patient handling to train a horse to be comfortable loading into a trailer.  The best scenario is to practice loading when you have enough time to do a thorough job of it. Don’t wait until you have to get somewhere in a hurry and expect your horse to jump right in. It’s something you have to practice, and you need time so that you can do it patiently and correctly, without losing your cool and damaging your horse’s sensitivity.

One important step that can really work in your favor is to prepare the trailer in advance. If it is a small trailer with a removable divider, take the divider out to make it appear as safe and unspooky as possible. If it is a step-up trailer, get it parked so that the step isn’t very high, such as backed up to a slight hill, so the ground is only a few inches from the floor of the trailer.  Have the trailer in a spot that is safe and comfortable for the horse, so that there are no distractions or scary objects to add to the problem. 

Put a halter with a long lead rope on your horse. Lead him up to the open door of the trailer. Your horse will probably stop and balk at the door, which is fine, and is to be expected and allowed.  Leave the halter rope as slack as possible to let him sniff and breathe and lower his head to “check out” the trailer floor.  He needs to test it to see if it is safe.  Pet him and give him a chance to look around the trailer and get used to the idea of standing near it.  Being comfortable near to the trailer, in a good position for loading, is your first goal for your horse.  Work to accomplish that before proceeding.

Then, standing at his side, (don’t stand behind him or in front of him; you are not pulling him or driving him into the trailer), give a vocal command such as “ck-ck-ck” to move forward.  If this cue is ignored, use the last two feet of the lead rope in your hand to swing in an arc and make a light swat on his back, between withers and croup.  If he moves forward, lower the rope and reward him instantly, petting him and letting him stand and relax before asking for more forward movement.  If he does not move, pop him with the lead rope consistently in an even timing until you get a response from him (you may have to pop a little harder for a desensitized horse; a sensitive horse, you will hardly need to even touch with the rope and they will jump forward, so read your horse’s sensitivity beforehand, and adjust accordingly–some horses only need a vocal cue).

If the horse pulls back, tries to back up, or tries to go around the trailer door, ask him to lunge briskly in a circle for a minute or two, and then ask him to stop at the trailer door, rest, and relax and then think about stepping in again. Make sure you get him up to the door of the trailer again, before you let him stand perfectly still and relax.  If he is still wanting to avoid the trailer or pull back from it, lunge him in a half circle again, and halt in front of the trailer door.  Then reward him for going to the trailer by letting him stand and relax a minute before asking him to step into it.

The main idea here is to make the trailer the “safe” place for the horse to be. Start with the “safe” place being the open door.  (Later, the “safe” place will be inside the trailer.)  Your goal is to get the horse to want to stand at the door, then encourage him to take a step forward.  What you must do to accomplish this is reward him for ANY forward movement to the trailer.  This includes just barely inching one foot forward.  The second he lifts a foot to move forward, your consistent “popping” with the halter rope should stop IMMEDIATELY and you should praise the horse, pet him, talk to him, and let him stand a moment.  Then, ask him to take one more step by giving the vocal command and starting the popping again.  This is how you move his “safe” place forward into the trailer. 

Any backward or sideways movement should result in him having to longe again in circles near the back of the trailer, and he will look for a place to stop and rest….that’s how you get him thinking the best place to be is the trailer.  He should learn that it’s more work to avoid getting in the trailer than it would be to just go in and get to relax and rest.  Use his natural instincts to get your desired result: him standing comfortably in the trailer.

If you get him right to the trailer door and he won’t step up, you can pick up a front hoof and place it in the trailer.  He may take it back down, but continue the popping, then.  Eventually he will learn to step in.  At first, only let him put his front feet in, and then stop him and after a moment ask him to step back out.  You can pet him, praise him, and then ask for forward movement again.  Remember to always reward his forward movement.  Once he is completely inside the trailer, try to back him out again.  It is scary for a horse to get out, and you don’t want him to “freeze up” once he gets inside. Repeat the whole process a few times, and only when he is loading smoothly should you give him any treats or grain inside the trailer.  Let him stand for awhile, just petting him and standing near him in the trailer.

The more often you can repeat this, the next day, and the day after that, the better your horse will get.  Remember, you are not pulling or driving the horse into the trailer.  Your desired result is that he sees the open gate of the trailer, and thinks “that’s my comfortable safe place…I’m going in there.”  The horse should walk right in on his own.

If you have a spooky horse, you might have a little more trouble, and need to do more groundwork before you try loading him.  But in time I think this method will work for you, and it really is the best way to train a horse to load in a trailer.  The other methods (coaxing in with treats, or putting a rope on his hind end, or hitting the horse to drive it in to the trailer) aren’t as good for you or your horse.  This way may take longer initially, but it will set a precedent for the future, and help your horse make it a habit to load easily every time.

Trailer-Loading Techniques is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on December 7, 2011. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!

Snow is coming!  The kids are excited with the prospects of sipping hot cocoa, listening to Christmas music, and watching the heavens swirl their magical crystals into sparkling drifts over our front steps.   I’m not looking forward to doing chores in subzero temperatures, no matter how pretty the snow is.  When the water tanks freeze over and I can’t peel the layers of frost-covered hay off of my big round bales to feed my horses, winter isn’t fun anymore.  If only we could enjoy the snow without it being so cold…..

We spent last weekend working on fixing up a stall for our weanling colt.  There was a space inside the old corn crib at the farm that was used long ago to store ears of corn.  Since then, it had been opened up to allow some cattle to come inside and get shelter.  They had broken some of the supporting boards loose and made quite a mess of it.  But yet, it was a stall with a roof and shelter from the wind, so we worked to clean it out and repair the broken boards.  It’s now clean and ready for our weanling stud to inhabit during cold nights and blizzards. 

Our colt is currently living with some bovine companions.  We have a yearling heifer named Georgette in with him, as well as a bucket calf named Fluffy, and another heifer.  They spend their day around the bale feeder, filling their bellies.  When we come out to feed, the colt gets excited and goes to work sorting cattle….he shows a lot of promise as a cutting horse.  We put grain into several different large feed tubs, spread around the pen.  The colt takes one bite from the first tub, then runs quickly to another tub to chase away the calf that is eating there.  Just as the heifers get settled in to eating at another tub, here comes the colt at full speed, darting in with ears pinned to chase them away and eat their grain.  The colt spends more time chasing than he does eating.  The heifers are bigger than he is, but he is one ornery little beast they don’t want to mess with.  Overall, it’s a pretty good situation because he is getting better feed than he would if we put him in the pen with his mother and the big horses.  We are also afraid the big horses would run him through the fence, so for now he gets to live as King of the Castle in the heifer pen. 

In winter, the most important concern is making sure the horses have plenty of hay and drinkable water.  In a blizzard, or very low temperatures, giving horses free choice hay is the best thing to keep them warm.  A horse with a full belly is warmed from the inside out by the digestion and fermentation process of the feed.  Our horses normally drink from the creek, but when it gets very cold they prefer drinking from a water tank with a tank heater in it.  Insulating the tank with straw bales around it and partially covering it with plywood will help keep it from freezing over.

I also read a very interesting article in the December 2011 issue of Equus about horses’ hooves in cold weather.  It says, “Hooves are designed to not only withstand subzero temperatures for prolonged periods but even thrive in them…when the horse’s brain receives a message that the hooves are too cold, shunts in the vascular areas of his feet open to allow the blood to move from arteries directly to the larger veins, bypassing the capillaries and the chance to cool down.  After the feet have warmed sufficiently, the shunts close again to restore blood flow to the capillaries.  A horse’s tail and ears have similar shunting systems.”  The article went on to say that horses’ feet thrive in snow, making them healthier and harder.  So I was happy to learn that they really aren’t as cold out there as they look!

Our horses do have a run-in shelter they can go in when it is raining or windy or cold, and that’s another good way to protect them in the winter.  We are worried about the new mare, because she is rather an outcast from the herd and does not feel comfortable in close quarters with the others.  Our old mare Cricket (who, aside from the new buckskin mare, is at the bottom of the pecking order) is very aggressive to the new mare, and likes to bully her.  So I am worried that it might be cold and she may not be able to come inside the shelter when she wants to.  We are planning to put her back in with her colt if it blizzards or gets extremely cold, and she can stay with him in his new stall.  They have been separated since the first of October, so he is completely weaned and they can be put back together if necessary.

When I was a little kid, it seemed like the cold weather had no effect on me.  We would ride all day every day, working cattle, getting in sick calves to treat, and going on long cattle drives.  I would never have complained, because I would have met with the offer that I could just stay home if it was too cold—and nothing could deter me from getting a chance to ride!  Now that I’m grown, that youthful eagerness has subsided, and my self-preservation instincts drive me to basically hibernate as much as I can.  I usually don’t ride from Thanksgiving to spring, but there may be more cattle work during calving season this year, so I may get the chance to relive my childhood a little.  I just don’t enjoy the cold so much anymore.

One of my family’s traditions when I was growing up was cutting a live Christmas tree on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  It was always a whole family affair—-all nine of us!  Dad would drive Mom and the little kids out to the tree strip that ran around the north side of the alfalfa field.  The older kids would grab a bridle, hop on a horse bareback, and careen wildly through the snow, showing off for Mom and shouting and laughing amongst ourselves.  We would scout the tree strip for a likely candidate, peruse the length of the pines, and come back to cut the one we liked best.  Dad would often climb the tree with saw in hand (these were full grown pines that we just lopped the tops off of for a tree).  We would watch and exclaim excitedly when the top fell down through the branches to the ground below.  Mom was always snapping photos and getting us all to smile for the camera.  It was one of the best days of the year!

The best days of all are the ones you get to spend with your family—and your horse family—no matter how cold it is.

Cold is an original post by CowgirlDiary.com , written on December 5, 2011. If you are reading this on any other website other than CowgirlDiary.com, please understand this is stolen material and the site owners should be ashamed of themselves. Thank you!