Heartwarming Story

Wanted to share a heartwarming story of a rescue doing hard work at saving horses.

http://projectsageblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/another-tale-from-new-holland.html

Guyliner and Mustaches

I love King's partial blue eyes. I have to admit that when we went to look at him back in April of 2007, I never even noticed his eyes. The pictures don't do his eyes justice. He's got the prettiest partial blues with guyliner.
King isn't a rescue. I was specifically looking for a trail riding horse. He does have some health issues that would most likely have sent him to auction. I'm still trying to come up with a way to remedy those issues. During the summer, his muscles get soar for no apparent reason. We took him to the vet because he came up lame one summer. I don't remember the scientific name of what's wrong but the vet explained it as such:

You know when you run and then stop without cooling down. Your muscles build up toxins that without proper stretching, etc. can't be released so the next day you're really soar. Well, that's exactly what King has although he doesn't do anything. There's some buildup of toxins in his muscles which I believe is caused by the heat. It always looks like he's lame in his front end but it's really soar muscles.

We have medicine for him during the summer. I'm hoping to come up with a better solution so that we can actually use him as a trail riding horse instead of a pasture puff during the summer months.

If you look close, can you see Sam's mustache? When we first brought Sam home, he had a huge mustache. It was the cutest thing! But ever since we started feeding him a grain mash (which was right away) his mustache disappeared.

This year's mustache is much smaller but it's cute to see that he has one anyway. Sam is such a character and really brightens my day (except when he rushes the barn door at feeding time). Sam is keeping the weight on this year. Luckily someone told us to try calf-manna and that seems to be the trick.

We have him on soaked beet pulp (which is an acquired taste), soaked alfalfa (to keep his ulcers at bay), soaked senior (to try and keep the weight on), and soaked calf-manna (to help keep the weight on). No wonder he gets excited for feeding time.

Jim has a question for you

Jim after a quick ride down (a whopping 10 minutes thanks to the sleet and snow.)

Does my butt look big to you?

Babe Says "Thank You Stacy A."

Last Friday Babe's owner, Stacy A., stopped out with a surprise! Babe got her very own Weatherbetta blanket!

THANK YOU So much Stacy for buying Babe a blanket. Babe has been enjoying her blanket ever since. We've had on and off snow this entire week, including freezing rain/sleet. Babe's blanket has kept her dry and happy throughout all of the nasty South Dakota weather.


We can't thank you enough for your generosity! Doesn't Babe look cute?

Spring Sale Season

Alright folks, lets start planning.

The next sale I'll be attending for sure is the Mitchell Livestock Catalog Horse Sale. It's being held March 12th. I believe the cataloged horses start at 1pm and non-cataloged and loose horses follow.

I have no idea if there will be lots of loose horses (100+) or not many (50+) because people want to use them this summer. Spring sales are a bit hard for me to judge. I'm afraid we wont' see any skinny horses as the vets are not allowing super thin horses to run through. It's a good thing, but also a bad thing as these horses are now being squirreled away in back pastures starving to death.

I'm always curious to see how these sales go.

I'll try to shoot for the Kramer sale (if they are having sales in the winter). I haven't had a chance to get down there since last fall. I do not like the South Dakota Horse Sale (aka Corsica Horse Sale) as it's a good ol' boys place and they stash away their loose horses from the public eye. They changed their sale date to the third Saturday of every month. At some point I need to get the courage to start going. My excuse now will be that a saddle club I belong to is having their rides that same day. But I can still make it to a few in the winter and fall. I'm not yet ready for that sale though. It takes a harder soul than mine to attend that auction.

Selling season will soon be upon us. My hope is to plan and prepare for this coming fall selling season and bring in those that need retirement/sanctuary this fall/winter. For some reason I keep thinking there is hope for some in the spring and summer months. People will want to ride and play with horses when the weather is nice. My fear is always late summer and all of fall for those same horses.

Maybe we need to look at fundraising for hay. If we had a larger hay supply, I could bring in a few more. The pasture is full so I'd have to supplement or drylot some if we brought any more on. We'll see how things progress.

I'm afraid I'm going to be rattled the rest of the day thinking about the March sale.

Start picking up pennies and stashing them away. Every little bit counts to save a life.

Wordless Wednesday

Thor - I love that soft brown eye. He is such a soul mate.

Slaughter Talk

I've heard rumblings on a couple different forums and blogs about a bill being proposed concerning horse rescues in Nebraska

http://www.nptelegraph.com/articles/2011/01/16/news/40001280.txt

and horse slaughter in Nebraska
http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/stop-horse-slaughter-bill-in-nebraska/

I haven't had time to dig into either of these but wanted to posted. If anyone can find the time and post comments on this contraversial topic, it would be greatly appreciated.