finding a horse trainer

[ijon1]

Electro -braid is a excellent electric fence. Not cheap, but I had it up for eight years, and it held up good. I had trees fall on it, and only broken a insulator.

 

[arabianequine]

We looked at some for .03 a foot.....and insulators, tpost caps, and charging system. We discussed what we needed yesterday so we have a plan on what to get. We will need to actually go out and check things so we really know how much of each to get.

 

[dreamcatcherarabians]

Can you buy big round bales of decent grass hay? IMO your filly is underweight and has a wormy belly. I use Ivermectin Gold or Quest Plus 2X/year and then I rotate Ivermectin/Panacur/Safeguard every 2 months. If my horses aren't responding to the routine de-worming schedule I use a Power Pac or 2X the Fenbendazole dose for 5 days in a row. That usually takes care of any hangers on.

I feed my Arabians the Daily recommended amount of Purina Omolene 400 feed and they have free choice grass hay while out on pasture. Right now pasture is kind of a euphemism, so they get a big round bale of hay to eat on. I'm using Omolene 400 because it's what seems to work best for my horses, I don't care if you prefer Nutrena Safe Choice or Atwood's Brand 12% feed or oats or corn chops or whatever, just FEED that baby.

Your filly is only 2 years old and growing, she's going to need lots of calories for that. If she's already thin going IN to winter, she will be a RAIL coming out in the spring. I've been there, I've done it, I've seen how skinny a horse I THOUGHT was being well fed can get. I've raised horses on straight alfalfa, now I'm on straight grass because I can't feed the local alfalfa due to blisterbeetles. Probably not an issue where you are. My horses don't do worth SPIT on nothing but grass and I have every age from 7 months all the way to 28 years old now. I just put my 32 yo horse down last week because of his arthritis, otherwise he was totally healthy.

At one point I had 14 head of horses and I spent over $1000/month on feed. Arabians are NOT generally easy keepers. Some are easier than others, but my friends who have Quarters feed less than 1/2 of what I feed and their horses are porkers. To get and keep a young horse in prime shape, not necessarily show shape, you need to feed some concentrates plus a minimum of 25 lbs hay, free choice per day. Notice I said minimum. If you have 100 lb bales of grass hay, I'd set one out for her to eat and see how much she eats in 2 days time. I'm betting at first she'll eat that hay up like a Hoover and then once she's getting enough she'll slow down to appx 1 bale every 3 or 4 days. Leave it free choice so she can graze and feed her the concentrates 2X/day. She'll fill out, calm down and become much easier to get along with.

As for finding a trainer, I too do not recommend most Arabian specialty trainers. BTDT too, sat down talked to them discussed what was expected, got the ya-ya and went up and found weighted, dang near big lick shoes on my HUNTER for God's sake. Brought him home and he will be going to a local hunter/dressage trainer who is fairly close so I can check up on whether it's lipservice or for real what they tell me. I would go hang out at a local open show and see whose horses are well behaved, quiet and respectful and that's where I'd start. Go spend a day at the trainer's barn and just shadow them all day. Stay out of the way, don't ask a lot of questions, just watch. If you can get someone to come out to your place, that's awesome, but for your safety and the filly's, she needs to have some training very soon.

The only thing I'll address is her 'neck snaking' thing. If she's getting fed enough, she'll quit. She's trying to dominate you into dropping her food because she's hungry. I make my horses stand and face me and give me 'Pretty Ears' or I move on down the line to the next horse and the horse with the ugly ears or who presents their butt doesn't get their concentrates til next meal. It only takes one or 2 missed meals and they quit with the disrespectful behavior. So if she snakes her neck, rears or anything you don't like, walk away and take the food with you.

Lucky, 32 yo horse I just put down

Peppermint Patti, Res Champ Pinto Mare

svs Il Divo, 2 y.o. Jackpot Colt, Arabian Sport Horse Nationals, he placed 3rd, would have been Reserve Nat'l Champ if I'd been able to get a little more weight/muscle on his hip/butt area.

svs Viado, he's a little rounder than I'd like, but he's going into saddle training within the next 30 days and he'll shape up quickly.

Patti & Hillbilly Harley DCA at 6 weeks

I didn't put these up to brag, but so you can see that my horses are very well fed and in pretty decent shape. I show regularly and I show from babies to senior horses. I'm not saying a word about the fencing, as you can see we're still re-fencing our place. We have that horrible hog wire that was topped with barbed wire & Tposts too. I have covered all of the Tposts and have replaced the barbed wire with electric tape. Slowly but surely, we're replacing all of it with wood posts and top rail with no climb mesh and a hot tape inside the fence line to keep the beavers off the top rail.

 

[arabianequine]

Thank you,

What wormer should I give her this week first to start....it has been 3 months last time she had Ivermectin it was apple flavored I believe.

How much of the bagged feed would I give her? Whatever the daily recommended amount is on the bag?

I don't see the big round bales advertised around here. In the bigger cities they are and they are over an hour away from me. Not sure if we could get them out there that easily either at feeding time. I heard alfalfa and sweet grain I should not give her.....all that protein I heard is bad for horses health and will make her more hyper. Same with the sugar.

I have just left before but gave the min hay and/or not give her a treat if she is acting real nasty.

 

[michickenwrangler]

Since she is an only horse, you could probably worm her every 2-3 months with a different wormer.

If your last one was ivermectin, then you may want to do Panacur, a tapeworm wormer or Ro-something (can't recall the vermifuge name, but it begins with an Ro).

My schedule:

Winter- panacur

Spring- the ro-something one

summer- panacur then tapeworm a few weeks later

Fall- (after first hard frost) ivermectin

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
First, given that you have had some trouble handling her, you are better off with her happy and safely-handle-able and a bit on the pudgy side (which can then be *fixed*) rather than having her lean, crabby and get herself or you into some real permanent trouble. Even though yeah I would hate to see a real young horse fat, even then, fat is still a LOT more fixable than putting you in the hospital or getting such bad habits so-ingrained that she is a lifelong behavior problem with a dim future.

However, that said... she's definitely not fat -- I mean, you can see her ribs! Fat does not start until you can barely even *feel* the ribs, let alone see 'em.

A big belly is NOT the same thing as being fat. (Hers doesn't look especially big to me but, you know, hard to tell from just a few pics I suppose). A thin ribby horse with a big potbelly, in cases where that occurs, is either too much poor-quality roughage in the diet, or chronic worminess, or in some cases some horses are just kinda built like that and especially if they've never actually been muscularly fit in their lives they may always tend somewhat towards that shape.

If it were me, I would have the vet do a fecal -- this should not require a farm call, you should be able to arrange it on the phone and then just bring a baggie with a fresh clean manure sample in it -- to give you some degree of reality check on her likely worm status.This is not perfect, because worms do not release their eggs constantly and some types (tapeworms especially) just don't show up in fecal floats... but it can give you a reasonably worthwhile insight into where she stands.

And then continue to give her at least 20-25 lbs of hay per day divided into as many feedings as is convenient, plus as wc says the prescribed amount of a ration balancer designed for the kind of hay you're feeding (grass hay? i forget) (I am sorry not to have mentioned that before, I guess i was just assuming you were already doing it), and see how she does.

michickenwrangler, I will betcha your "ro-" wormer is Rotectin, which is one of the brand names of ivermectin?

Pat

 

[michickenwrangler]

Pyrantel pamoate

I looked it up on my dog's wormer.

Takes care of roundworms and hookworms.

I was probably thinking of rotectin, but if it's a brand of ivermectin, then it wasn't the vermifuge I was thinking of.

 

[arabianequine]

I put about 3/4 of a bale in her tire for her am feeding today and she is making a mess with it everywhere. I hope it don't go to waste. I will put the rest out there when goes down a bit. I let you know how long it lasts.

 

[patandchickens]

I put about 3/4 of a bale in her tire for her am feeding today and she is making a mess with it everywhere. I hope it don't go to waste.

Yup, that is a disadvantage of putting out a whole day or two's hay at once... you usually do end up with more waste. Feeding a measured amount several times a day is the best way to minimize waste, IMHO. You can get a sense from how fast they clean it up whether they'd like larger amounts or whether you're already feeding a-plenty... I usually figure that except in extreme cold (when I am actively pushing hay) if they don't clean it up in 2-3 hrs they maybe didn't need quite that much in that feeding. (This is for feeding 3-ish times per day... it'd be different if you're feeding more or less often, of course)

Pat​

 

[arabianequine]

She ate a better part of the day.... and now laying in some of the stuff all over the ground. Maybe half a bale so tires not so full to throw it all out with her head.