Throwback Thursday

Brego

Throwback Thursday to the summer of 2011. It was before the drought, before two kids, and before the Sanctuary became non-profit but well into our time as a functioning sanctuary.

Wishlist Wednesday

Wishlist Wednesday: Our wish for this Wishlist Wednesday is for senior feed. We are deep into winter. We are experiencing a January thaw but winter is not over, nor will it loosen its grip for a long time. As the winter wears on, the horses need senior feed to help supplement.

The hard keepers, Junior and Bo, go through a considerable amount of grain to keep their weight up. Jim, our oldest resident at age 30 years, also needs his senior feed to keep him happy and healthy.

Senior feed is about $20 per bag. Anyone want to buy Bo, Junior, or Jim (or any of the other senior residents) a bag of senior feed to keep them happy during the long winters?

Jim during a storm a few years back

Jim

Where's Skippy

Skippy has decided that he wants to travel in 2017. He's already starting to schedule his trips and getting his itinerary together. He wants you to enjoy his "vacations" too!

Every month, Skippy is going to go "somewhere" although we won't share all the details. Skippy wants you to guess where he's at. No answer is wrong, he simply wants you to guess where he's at and see what everyone comes up with.

Skippy is planning on "vacation" next week and will go on vacation every month. This is a guessing game and we want to see you'r guesses.

So here are the rules:

Every month, Skippy will go somewhere and will post a picture every day he is on "vacation". All you have to do is comment on each location for that week. Your answer does not have to be right, we just want to see your guesses. Each time you guess, your name will be entered into a drawing for that month. Whoever wins that month will have their name entered in to the big drawing at the end of the year. There WILL be a prize for the end of the year although the prize is TBD at the moment.

So, tell your friends, tell your coworkers, tell your family. The more guesses, the funner it'll be. 

I'll try to refine the rules (or at least reword them so they make more sense) and repost them. But for now, wanted to share!

Tuesday Senior Care Tips

The following is from Standlee Hay Company and is for all horses young and old:

Winter Tips for Taking Care of Your Horse

Imagine living in a field of grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes. That's literally what the summer months are like for your horse. It's easy to forget how much pasture grass can play a role in your horse's diet until the snow starts to fall. As winter sets in and the pasture grass starts to disappear, there's 3 key factors that will play a role in our horse's health: Water, fiber and essential nutrients

Water

Often one of the biggest concerns of dehydration is impaction colic. This form of colic is mainly caused by your horse becoming dehydrated because it consumes less water. During the winter, horses consume less water because of cooler temperatures (no sweating), less water availability (frozen ponds, cold water, etc.) and a diet of hay (10% water content) instead of pasture (80% water content).

The first step is providing your horse enough water to drink. An adult horse (1000 pounds) in a cool, comfortable environment that is not working or lactating requires a minimum of 5 – 10 gallons of fresh clean water per day.

But here's the thing about horses: When it comes to water, their European roots start to show. Horses do not like ice in their water. During winter, many owners notice their horses becoming dehydrated, despite the fact that they've provided their four-legged friends all the H20 they can drink. When a horse drinks cold water, it causes their bodies to become colder. This means they have to expend additional calories to heat their bodies back up. Horses will naturally drink less water if it's too cold. Warming water using insulated or heated buckets will allow your horse to drink more. Research has shown that horses drink the most water when the water temperature is between 45 and 70º F.

Fiber

During the winter months, fiber plays an even larger role in a horse's diet. Fiber obtained from hay is necessary to keep the digestive system of your horse functioning properly which helps your horse keep warm during cold weather. Without enough fiber, horses literally become possessed beavers. They'll start gnawing the wood off anything from fence post to bedding in order to make up for their lack of fiber.

Horses should be eating at least 1.5% of their body weight in fiber per day. That means about 15 pounds for a normal, 1,000 pound horse. If the fiber is high quality, your horse can consume up to 3% of their body weight per day (30 pounds for 1,000 pound horse). That's why here at Standlee, we carefully manage every aspect of the growing and harvesting process to ensure our fiber is of the highest caliber.

Essential Nutrients

In order to stay happy and healthy, your horse also needs protein, trace minerals and vitamins. Pastures are often a great source of these essential nutrients for your horse, but during the winter, most pastures will disappear.

A common source of supplemental protein, vitamins and minerals comes from fortified grain concentrates. However, when choosing a product, it's crucial that you choose the feed that is intended for your type of horse. For example, if you have a pregnant mare, you should select a feed that is intended for pregnant mares, not "senior" horses. This is why each product page on the Standlee website lists the intended horse type for every one of our products.

The next critical factor in choosing a grain concentrate is making sure you are feeding the recommended amount. If you're feeding 1/3 of the amount recommended, your horse is getting exactly 1/3 of the intended nutrients. If you feel the amount of feed recommended is too much (i.e. your horse is gaining too much weight), you should feed your horse a more concentrated product. More concentrated products are called "supplement pellets" or "balancer pellets." They're designed to be fed at much lower rates but are still fortified to provide your horse with adequate nutrients.

If you're not 100% sure how much forage your horse requires, check out our improved feed calculator. We've carefully designed this free-to-use tool to take into account several key characteristics of your horse so you know how much feed you should be providing your four-legged friend.

Quiet Weekend

A fairly quiet weekend. We were able to enjoy the day off Monday. It was a busy weekend but I'm not exactly sure what all we did.

We had a load of hay scheduled to pick up this weekend and went ahead and put hay in to the big pen. We also put a bale out for me to dole out to the ponies. Luckily the ponies aren't going through the hay as quickly as the rest of the herd. It's amazing to realize the generosity of family. My hay guy is my uncle and he let us borrow his truck and trailer to haul a load of hay home. I'm still waiting for the bill but it's so much easier to use his trailer than to use ours, which only holds three and Mike is still trying to get it all fixed up. He had to put a hole new floor in it and didn't finish before winter hit. I'm hoping he'll get back to it but until it's needed and its' an emergency, I dont' see that happening. Such is the life. 

But because I'm tired of looking at white and brown, I figured I'd post some pictures from a few years ago when we went to the Black Hills. Of course all my pictures are old because my latest pictures are stuck on my phone or on a flash drive that I need to find again in my house, which is always a disaster.

But for now, hope you enjoy the pictures.

A few from the Sanctuary

Happy Friday

Happy Friday!!

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: Back to January 2011. The three wearing blankets are all gone to greener pastures with the sun shining on them. Our South Dakota winters are tough on the older horses so we do everything we can to ensure they stay warm on those bitterly cold days.

Queen

Babe

Brego and Sam