Asparagus and Horses

This week I picked 1.3kg of asparagus!

Over the year I’ve been making a lot of changes to the way I manage our equine friends – 2 horses, 1 pony, 1 donkey.

Jo

Sparky

Milly – the pony

Kasper

In March we changed their home paddock.  They now live in the paddock adjacent to the house.  We can see them out the window and they can see us.

In April we had a fence built about 4m inside the existing fence.  The horses now live between the two fences.  There is a large area under some trees which they use for shade and shelter.  The area available for grazing is much reduced.

Another “bonus feature” of the track system is the fact that I can know exercise myself and all of the equines at once – I ride my bicycle and chase them around the track.  The horses go full speed – with Milly in front.  The donkey is very cunning and tries to find places to hide so that he won’t have to go around.  The new fence is 350m long and we do 6-10 laps 3 times a week.
In October we spread small, round river stones for about 20m along the track around the water trough.  The horses have to walk over these several times each day.  I’m hoping that it will help improve the soles of their feet as well as helping reduce the mud in what is a wet area of the track.

In the gravel photo you can see two yellow buckets, one on each side of the water trough.  Each day I fill these with 100ml of cider vinegar and 20l of water.  The horses frequently drink from these buckets.

This week we built and installed 4 slow-feeder barrels.  Theoretically, this provides the horses with hay 24 hours a day.  On 18th I filled the first barrel, it was empty on the 21st.  On the 21st I filled all 4, they were all empty on 23rd.  Today (23rd) I filled them all 1/3-1/2 full.  The barrels are constructed from 200l plastic drums with both ends cut off.  A small mesh hay net is attached to one open end of the drum and a cut-off end is used as a lid.  Three blocks of wood are attached to the top of the drum to prevent the lid from slipping down inside the barrel.  The barrels are attached to convenient trees using three large screws.

Sparky enjoying hay.
We have found that all four equines are slimmer than usual for this time of year.  They are also very calm.  Normally they would be skittish and silly from all of the sugar in the grass.
Milly is a completely different pony than she was a year ago.  Suzanna now rides her using a cross-over bitless bridle.  This has resulted in a much calmer ride for Suzanna – Milly is no longer trying to escape from the pain the bit was causing her.  She has also lost a lot of weight and her feet are in better condition than ever before thanks to the work of a wonderful barefoot trimmer – Bronwyn Hamilton.