Author: admin

Alpaca farming or ranching is a great lifestyle change from the hussle of the corporate world.
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Training A Miniature Horse To Drive – P1

Horses come and go on any farm and mine is no different. I acquired a 36″ mini a few years ago and what the heck do you do with a mini?  Get it another mini as a friend of course, then lose the original mini due to Lyme disease and now your friend mini is alone so you obviously need another mini to keep that one company, oh heck lets make it 2.   So you started out wanting no minis but through mini-math you end up with 3. Got it?

Ok, you now have 3 mini horses who do nothing but look cute and poop an amazing amount for such little animals.  Time to put one to work!  My day job switched my schedule around slightly, leaving this morning person with a few extra minutes a day to spare. Lets make those extra few minutes productive ones!

When I talk to people, they love to give me excuses. LOTS of excuses as to why they can’t or won’t train their horses and these are the main ones I hear all the most.

I have no time. Pft, sure you do. Follow along on this series and I’ll keep you updated with training my mini in just 10-20 min 3-5 days a week.

I can’t start, I don’t have a harness. It’s ok, we don’t plan on hitching to anything in a while. Heck, your horse might not even be a candidate to drive so don’t go off wasting $ on stuff you might not ever use.  Teaching a horse to drive starts with line driving. You don’t need a harness for that, heck you don’t even need a bridle.  Reins clipped onto a halter is what I start my guys in.  You don’t need fancy reins either, if you’re really going to cry poor braid up some bailing twine and tie it on to the halter or be real fancy like and use snaps.

Teach your mini to drive materials checklist

        1. Miniature horse
        2. Halter
        3. Reins – or bailing twine – or 2 lead ropes
        4. 10-20 minutes of your time. 3-5 days a week.

Are you ready to drive?  Check back for Part 2 and we’ll get you set up for your first lesson with your mini!


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High Tech Horse Farm

I’ve literally put down “Geek Farmer” on applications because that’s pretty much what I call myself.  By day I build fiber optic networks and to detox I have the farm.  Or so I thought.

The whole point to owning the farm was to allow my inner Luddite to flourish.  problem was, I really did like the conveniences of geeky things. 15 years into running this farm and we have quite the complex data network and other misc technologies to just make things slightly easier.

There’s your standard technology additives that people think about first. #1 on that list is your typical energizer.  Sounds exciting but it’s that thing that goes tick tick tick, that makes the fence go zap zap zap.

Next up once you have a fence that works and you’ve suffered through a NY winter are heated buckets.

These are my personal favorites.  Thick bucket and super warm water. I find these buckets serve 2 purposes.  1) Warm water for drinking 2) The water is warm enough that if you dunk a bit in them it warms up almost instantly so happy horse mouths!

Ok so those are the basics. But lets step it up quickly to things I’ve not not been able to live without. INTERNET. I hate to admit it but it’s true.  Without internet in the barn the test of my fun toys wouldn’t be possible.  I’ll write up a more in depth post on how to get this intangible gem in your barn but for now we’ll leave it as a MUST have.

Now that you have internets you can really start to nerd up. First thing is first, we need to see what’s going on!  So I’ve played with several different cameras and here’s what I’ve put in recently.  These are stand alone units, have their own SD card inside them, run off WiFi and easily connect to a phone app.  Long story short, if you have power and wifi, you have a camera.  No other wiring needed. Picture quality is pretty great and has built in DVR so you can rewind up to 18hrs and review and save to your phone too.

 

Cameras are great but you need something to watch them on right? Cell phone sure but chances are you’re talking to the vet and want to keep an eye on that colicing or foaling horse right? So This is where I may have gone a little over board.  It all started with an iPad with a case/stand so I could put it on the counter and watch the camera.

Pretty slick right? Well that was until the hubby came home with 2 toys I didn’t realize I needed! A very sexy Samsung 65″ TV and AppleTV.  I tipped my nose up in the air over the AppleTV part, we already had the Amazon Firestick so I didn’t see the point. Boy was I wrong! You see I recently switched from being an Android phone user to an iPhone 11 and turns out when you have all things Apple things get pretty awesome. With the flick of a button I can now stream my barn cameras up onto 65″ of 4K TV. *grunt*grunt*yeah baby!  I can now force all parties in the house to watch something emerge from the vagina of another animal in giant detail.

At this point you are probably thinking, “how could it get any better than that?” Well my friend, if you’re on foal watch even with cameras and TV streaming to every screen in your house chances are you’re going to fall asleep at some point. When you do, guess who is going into labor. You guessed it. that Dang mare who was miss piggy for dinner and showing no signs of labor. So now what? Well, you could engineer a birth alarm out of RaspberryPi and your stellar knowledge of computer programming.  Or, there is this awesome guy who did all the engineering for you!  It’s called EquiFone.  I recommend this one, I’ve used it myself.  Works off a cell phone sim card and will text you when the mare lies down.

Tada! You are now set up with enough “geek” to birth your mare at home.  Fencing, warm water, internet, cameras, TVs, iPhones, Birth alarms. Seriously it’s easy as RaspberryPi.  Yeah well, when your day job is need and you want to be a Luddite in the worst way but fail. This, is what your farm has turned into.  Until next time.

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I Hate Flat Wheelbarrow Tires!

Do you hate flat tires? I sure do. For the past 10 years I’ve probably replaced 1 or both of my pneumatic tubes in my wheelbarrow at least once if not twice a year. That’s it No more!

Today I changed out my wheels for Anti-Flat Tires! Solid tires and no more full wheelbarrow with a flat. Here’s a video of the process of changing out your wheels for no flats!

So what kind of wheelbarrow do I like? The dual-ies of course!

PROS:

  • 8-10 cubic foot bucket
  • Harder to tip over
  • 1 Handed operation

CONS:

  • Harder to turn
  • Wider – might not fit in tight places
  • More effort to dump

Links to the stuff I like to use!

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DIY Sand Dressage Ring (Arena)

Part of the fun of being a do-it-yourself-er is enjoying the end result.  For years I’ve just used a grass ring but with now having a trainer to help bring Pete along in his dressage, a proper ring with good footing was needed.

I had planned on hiring out this whole process, but after calling 5-6 different contractors, they were all busy helping the folks along Lake Ontario due to massive beach erosion and flooding.  It’s officially been the wettest spring on record. Which is good for me actually.  It’ll tell me where I need to work on drainage and what kind of base to put in since I’ll never see it this wet again.

Step 1

Using a measuring wheel and flags I walked off and marked the ring.  I did this step 3-4 times to verify my measurements.  You know the saying measure twice, cut once.  Same rule applies when you’re about to rip up a 20 x 40 Meter ring! FYI 20 x 40 meters comes out to 65 x 131 ft. I walked off 70 x 140 ft figuring room for fencing later on and area to store mounting block and cavaletties.

Step 2

Time to say goodbye to grass.  Thankfully my husband scored a PTO tiller off Craigslist last year.  At the time it was just a good deal and we didn’t have a purpose for it.  Well it sure came in handy for removing the sod.  After that was done came the longest part of the project. Removing said sod.  Mother nature continues to pour on us so it took weeks 1 bucket at at time to completely rid the field of grass.

Step 3 

Leveling the area was the next step.  That only took about 2 days a few hours each day after work moving soil around from high areas to low to even things out.  I wasn’t looking for perfection. Just to take care of the lumps, bumps and steep hilly areas.  The end still has a slight ‘U’ shape to it and incline on the long side.   Thankfully, Mother Nature once again decided to deposit about 5″of rain on the area to show me that my base surprisingly drains amazingly well. WOOT, I won’t have to spend $ on drainage or a gravel base. If you’re not so lucky, then you’ll want to make sure you have a way of diverting run off into channels away from your ring and put down at least a 2″ base of #2 crusher run and compact it with a vibrating roller.  This is why I thought I’d have to contract this project out in the first place.

Step 4

Footing!  At the time of writing this a load of road sand delivered costs about $450.  Since I also needed gravel for my driveway, I could only afford 1 load but, it covered the base about 1/2″ thick.  I think I”ll need at minimum ` more load and possibly 2 to finish the project but this part is easy.  From the time they drop the load of sand in the ring to when I spread it all out with the tractor only took about 90 minutes.  I dragged the ring a few times and even with 1 load of sand, it still looks good. Just needs a little more for cushioning.  This type of sand is good for a 3 season ring.

Step 5

Fencing was the last thing to add.  I called around and got a quote for $4,000 to put a fence around my arena. Ummm… I can’t even afford another load of sand right now thanks to hay season, so that was out of the budget. Goal, fence for under $500.  Actual  cost $458!   I had JUST enough T-posts in the barn for the 32 needed to get around the ring as well as the 10′ panels and gate that I’d use for easy access for humans, horses and tractors.  All that I needed was to make it pretty, and safe. In comes Safe-Fence products.  They make a nice vinyl t-post sleeve that fit over the post, sturdy insulators and a nicer electric tape product than Tractor Supply.  I opted for 4 strands for a few reason. #1 it looks pretty, #2 more of a visual barrier to foals and yearlings who tend to bounce off fences, and #3 It was on sale and I could get (2) 1350′ rolls for almost half price.  It’s a little over 400′ around the fence so 2 rolls was perfect fit. FYI finished dimension are 69 x 137 feet.  Guess there was some shrinkage 🙂

Finished product in the last photos.  I’m very pleased with how things went.  The only change I wish I could have done is use wooden posts in the corners. But, if I was going to bother putting the auger on the tractor for 4 silly posts I might as well have done all wood posts. That part is a 2 man job and I’m only 1 person so…..t-posts and sleeves it was.  And it sure looks good if I do say so myself. At this moment is is NOT electric. Though I might opt to put some juice on it if horses that are turned out don’t leave it alone. Of course electric would be turned off when using the ring.

I can’t wait to start using this arena.  Finally someplace I can train without the distraction of lush tasty grass under foot.

Products I used to make this
T-Post – https://amzn.to/2Dpwgao
T-Post Sleeve – https://amzn.to/2Dpwgao
Insulators – https://amzn.to/2Dpwgao
Electric Fence Tape – https://amzn.to/2PkneQA

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Making of a Foal – 2

Day 14 vesicle check.  14 days after ovulation we do an ultrasound check to make sure 1) the fertilization took and there’s a viable vesicle 2) there’s only 1 vesicle and we aren’t dealing with twins.  So how did my 2 mares do?

Live Cover Mare: This one I was convinced was pregnant. She had been charging the fence at my stallion to the point she was knocking boards down and was in general, bitchy. We ultrasound her first.  NOTHING. ERRR.  But a nice 32mm follicle ready and waiting for Mr Stud Muffin again.  Great.  Last thing I feel like doing is hand breeding again. Even more entertaining, the next morning after her ultrasound she was teasing the stallion, see photo. Thanks for wasting $50 on an ultrasound! Mares!

AI Bred Mare: This is the one I’ve spent $$ on and really really was hoping took.  Especially since I’ve had issues getting her to take AI before. Ultrasound immediately confirmed a vesicle!  YIPPY….well, not so fast.   Not 1 but 2 vesicles! Great, twins. Well, at least she’s an overachiever! We had to squish the idea of twins, put her on regumate and are now awaiting the 28 day ultrasound check for heartbeat of the remaining vesicle.

Back to hand breeding the live cover mare.  I guess the good news is my stallion is getting really good about washing and waiting for my queue before mounting.  Practice makes perfect on that one. Unfortunately the mare is less cooperative this go around and thinks it fun to kick my stud. Breeding hobbles I bought I swear are draft size and don’t fit her so Pete has to be nimble and time his jump up. So far so good but I don’t have a good feeling about this round with only 1 decent follicle in the factory line up.  Only time will tell.