Hauling horse panels

One of Donna's horses is foundering.

http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/agriculture/pests-diseases-and-weeds/animal-diseases/horses/founder-laminitis-in-horses

While treating her horse - Donna is soaking hay to get the sugar washed out - Donna also plans to pen the horse up in a smaller area with no access to grass.  To do so she bought 7 horse panels.  The flexible kind.

I hauled the panels in my pickup.  The panels are 16 ft long.  If I laid them flat in the pickup's box the end of the panels would drag on the ground as the pickup's box and tailgate length is 10 ft.  The two Murdoch's employees and I bent the panels up and one worker closed the pickup's tailgate.

I drove carefully to Donna's place on back roads.

To get the panels out of the pickup I had to carefully open the tailgate.  With pressure against the tailgate it didn't want to open.  I finally triggered the tailgate's latch and then jumped back.   The panels shot out of the pickup's bed as the panels straightened out.

No one was injured.

Cattle and new horses

Now that Wyatt has cut and baled the neighbor's field to the south of me, today they brought their horses there.  This afternoon while I was working on my south pasture fence the cattle came to check me out and then saw the horses for the first time.

They stared and stared at the horses.  The horses were nervous and flighty.  The cattle didn't seem too pleased the horses were there.  They probably remember that they had access to that field the past several years.

Once the calves got bored with looking at the horses they had to check out what I was doing with the fence.

Then Buddy came over to check out what I was doing.   Of course when Buddy came over I had to quit working.   The red calf partially seen on the left was in front of Buddy before I took this photo.  While a swipe of his head Buddy pushed the calf out of the way.

Here is a 2 minute 20 second video of the cattle and horses: https://youtu.be/XIVCIFTQ6do

Cattle, dog and rodeo

Yesterday I wrote about the irrigation pump.  Also on the same morning (Thursday) Dan brought over a large square bale of hay for his cattle.  With the drought and lack of grass it was past time for his cattle to leave.  He hasn't a place for his cattle currently so he will ship them Tuesday to the auction held on Thursday.  To tide his cattle over until Tuesday he brought over a bale of hay for them to eat.

I helped him unload the bale from his trailer.  We wrapped a chain around the bale and hooked it to one of my railroad tie posts and drove off pulling the bale off the trailer.

Then we needed to separate his cattle from mine.  Dan had to go, so a little later when the cattle came to drink and check out what Donna and I were doing to set up the irrigation pipes, I let the cattle into the part of the corral without the hay.  Then Donna helped me sort the cattle out.  Sometimes we got one of Dan's cattle through a gate into the part of the corral with the hay; other times we herded some of my cattle back out into the hayfield.  Whatever was easier at the time.  A number of cattle didn't want to cooperate.

I also left my one steer in the corral with Dan's five cattle as I plan to sell the steer.  The sooner the better as it will be one less mouth to feed and because cattle prices are dropping weekly.

My steer

Dan's cattle

One of Dan's cows is a black cow with a white face.  She is 8 years old, so an older cow than the other cows. The only cow without a calf.  I call her "Auntie".  She also reminds me of a Japanese kabuki player.

"Auntie" likes being near Buddy the bull so she often paced the corral Thursday afternoon looking for a way out so she could join the herd, who I now let into the middle pasture where there was more grass to eat.  Thursday evening for over an hour "Auntie" bellowed and bellowed calling to the herd.  Thankfully she got over that and has stopped bellowing.


Adding to the busy Thursday... while we sorting the cattle Donna's dog decided to wander off.  After the cattle were sorted I ended up searching for the dog.  The dog is deaf so I couldn't call for it.  I checked three neighbors' properties and no dog.  Some time later when working on the irrigation pipe I saw one neighbor return home.  Once I got over there I found the dog outside his building/house.  The dog had gotten inside the neighbor's living quarters, ate a lot of his dog's food, jumped up on a bed, threw up, then went to sleep.  My neighbor was remarkably okay about it.  He is a good neighbor.



Friday night Donna and I went to the rodeo at the NW Montana Fair in Kalispell.  When we left for the fair a very strong cold front came through.  The winds howled and blew everything not nailed down.  We had to swing back home as it began to rain with no end in sight.  We had to go back my house for me to get a coat. Of course, recently, the few times it was annoying to have it rain, it rains. 

The rain had let up by the time we got to the fair. But when the rodeo started it began to pour.  The cheap seats seen in the following photos emptied of most of the people.

The rodeo is spread over three days so each of the events (bucking horse, team roping, barrel racing, steer wrestling and bull riding) only had a handful of competitors each night.

A highlight was an Indian Relay Race.  Tonight six teams competed.  All were native American teams.   The race is three times around the track.  Each time around the track the rider rides a different horse bareback.  After each lap the rider jumps off the horse and runs over to another horse another team member is holding for him and jumps on that horse to race another time around the track.

It seems like chaos.

Some of the horses were pretty wild. As you can see in the following photo one horse finished the race without its rider.

Livestock mischief

I tend not to trap pocket gophers in the areas the cattle have access as the cattle are so darn curious they often disturb the traps.  But with so few pocket gophers this year (only 11 so far) I decided to put out a couple traps to get a recent pocket gopher.

I waited until the cattle were taking their noontime siesta under the neighbor's trees to dig the holes and place the traps.  I placed a small metal rod with no plastic milk jug as a marker in the area of (but not next to) the two traps. I tried to set the marker among alfalfa to somewhat hide it. In the evening I found the metal rod bent to one side, one trap covered with dirt by the cattle, and the other trap broken as a cow stepped on it down in the hole.



In all of the large hayfield, they found the traps.  They must have seen me way across the field when I set the traps.

And the cattle would have to step on one of my good round traps.  The company doesn't make round traps anymore, only square ones.  I find the round traps better on the occasions the pocket gophers avoid the square traps for some reason. 

Also, in the evening the horses were up to no good.  I have the gates to the south part of the corral closed.  Coming back from spraying weeds, and finding the broken trap, I found the horses in the south part of the corral.  They somehow had lifted one gate off its hinges until it fell over.  Then they walked over it to get to the south pasture.

The gate was on my list for an upgrade once I finish the nearby well and water trough work (waiting on a new pump).  I chased the horses out of this area, re-hung the gate, and added a temporary wire so it can't be lifted off the hinges.   The horses were right at the gate once I finished my work but they couldn't get through the gate.  I know the white horse masturbates using this gate so that may be how it was popped off the hinges.   The owner says the white horse is not masturbating on the gate, it must have worms and has an itchy butt.  Having an itchy butt from worms is better than having a masturbating horse?

Horses to the pasture

The yard has been eaten down so it was time to let the horses out into the pasture.

Of course the white horse couldn't wait.  An hour before I let them into the pasture she broke a fence board and reached over to eat grass on the other side of the fence.  Another fence to be fixed.

Here is an example of how I protected my yard.  I wasn't worried about the horses eating the bushes - I was worried they would use them to scratch themselves.  I caught one horse doing this a few years ago.

Horses in yard again

Remember when on Thursday July 17 I let the horses into the fruit tree and garden area?

http://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2014/07/fruit-tree-area-for-horses.html

That area is completely eaten down to almost nothing.  So on Saturday morning I let the horses back into the yard.  For two reasons.  First I didn't want them to walk though the NE pasture with the hay bales to get to the north pasture.  Second, the yard grass grew since the horses were last in there.  Usually I only let the horses in the yard once a year, but this year with Tammy leaving I never mowed the front yard to even it out, and the June wet weather got the grass growing again good.

I figure the horses will have the yard re-eaten in three or four days.  Then they can go out to the tall grass in the north pasture.

A difference from last time the horses were in the yard..  now when they take a break they often stand by the house door.

Hayshed gate

A few days ago I noticed the horses pushed against the hayshed wooden gates and broke part of them.  I fixed the gates.   Then I decided to finally fix the north gate's lag bolt hinge.  The lag bolt had come out of the supporting post and board.  Past attmepts to fix the lag bolt resulted in the hole getting stripped out and enlarged.  I had to be careful when opening the gate as the bolt would pop out.

I cut off the bad part of the board and replaced it with a newer one in which to screw in the bottom lag bolt.

I also wanted to have the gate sit slightly higher as the gate would catch on the ground as I opened it.  The top bolt needed also go slightly over to one side so the gate would not track down when opened.  I got distracted talking with the neighbor lady and my brain checked out slightly and I drilled the new hole lower when I needed to go higher as shown below

The gate now opens smoothly and doesn't drag against the ground.

 The horses naturally were interested in what I was doing.  Here one horse inspects my fix.

Daisy kept me company while I worked.  She was inside the hayshed and when I finished she hopped up on the gate.  Here you can see how much I raised the gate.  It used to be even lower than the other gate on the left.

The horses inspecting my tools.

The next photos show how I have to protect my little trees from the livestock.   The cattle especially will chomp on the trees.  That is why the tree below is narrower on the lower half than the upper half.

Other makeshift tree protections.  Some trees are out growing their protection.

Fruit tree area for the horses

Wednesday I did some "horse proofing" in the fruit tree and garden area.

This is the best my rhubarb has done.  I don't know if the weather caused this, the horses eating it down last year, or if digging a larger area around the plants so the leaves don't go into the grass did it.  Now the leaves again grow out into the grass.

In the past the cattle and horses avoided the rhubarb leaves since they didn't like the taste.  But one or more horses developed a taste last year and started to eat it down.  Hence the cage around the plant this year.

Four strawberry plants are all that are left from my patch.  The grass overtook the rest of the plants.  It appears my raspberry patch may be heading that way this year.  I haven't found the time to keep up the weeding.


Thursday morning I let the horses in here to eat the grass down.  Usually this occurs earlier in the year and the grass is not as tall.

July 4th weekend

On the 4th of July I attended a birthday celebration for my neighbor Jan's dad.  He turned 100 years old the end of May.  This weekend the family and friends got together at Kelly's house to celebration his long life. Lots of food.


I got another horse.  The two horses weren't eating the grass down as fast as I wanted them to.  I'd rather they eat the tall grass before it drys out.  The horses are in the NE pasture and haven't even gotten to the fruit tree & garden area yet.  The sooner they eat that area the better.

The owners brought Cowgirl, or as Tammy named her last year: The Bitch.  I left Cowgirl in the corral for the afternoon so the horses could get to know one another over the fence.  Maybe that would minimize the fighting to settle the pecking order once they were all together.

Cowgirl is smart.  When I entered the corral she knew I was going to go over and open the gate to the NE pasture.  There was a little ruckus when the horses got together but not too bad.  The white horse did want to fight and several times she would walk over to and then back up to Cowgirl to start a kicking war but Cowgirl would walk away.  They seem friendly enough today.

Now that Tammy has left I am dropping cable TV and its $75 a month cost.  I only got cable because she wanted it.  No cable means getting out the old outside TV antenna and pole I used before getting cable and reassembling it.  I did replace the old twin-lead (300 ohm) cable with a RG-6 coax (75 ohm) cable.  The antenna is 25 ft high and I happened to have a coax cable just long enough.

To make the project more complicated is that I have a TV, DVR and a home theater (receiver) setup.  Because of how cable TV worked due to the fact they wanted me to use their DVR I had to do a convoluted cabling setup to access the cable TV online guide while still having DVR ability with my DVR.

For a time I split the cable from the antenna to go to the TV and the DVR but I found that splitting the cable resulted in a loss of signal strength and would lose some channels.  I had a signal amplifier but found that picked up a few weak channels but 'overloaded' a few strong channels and therefore 'lost' them.

I found the antenna direction is important as there are two pair of stations where I would get one or the other pair with a small window of getting all four stations.

Finally I figured out a way to cable things together without splitting the antenna cable.  I *think* the DVR will still record TV shows- at least it does when I have everything turned on - I'll see once a timed show is recorded.  I didn't try a timed show as, after last evening and today, I am tired of working on this.

I spent time on the sound until I figured out the sound had been turned down to 1 and that was the reason I could not hear anything.

I was surprised to get 28 over the air channels when conditions are right.  I have almost 20 potential channels once I eliminated the QVC channel and the religious channels.

The antenna is actually old UHF and VHF antennas.   I hooked the TV up to the big top antenna, whichever one that is.  I left the smaller antenna and hooked some old speaker wire to it and ran it down to connect to my short FM antenna wire in the house.  I was hoping this would give me the boost needed to get my favorite low powered FM radio station.  My newer digital home theater receiver will not pick up the station while my old wooden console stereo will.  If I could get another decent radio to get the station I would get rid of the console stereo.

Alas, the extra outside wire had no effect on the receiver.  It may be the wire's fault for when I hooked the wire up to the console stereo the reception for this station actually got a little worse.  Someday I'll find a solution.

My antenna pole is actually a little higher than before.  I added a chain link fence pole left over from my corral rebuild.  To minimize disruption on really windy days I attached a few wires from the pole to the house. 

Cattle and horses

Thursday it was time to move cattle from the middle pasture to the south pasture.  The last few times one of the cattle was off on its own and I had to go get it before letting the herd through the gate.  This time the opposite was true - one of the cattle already was in the south pasture.  It had broken a wire in the fence and crawled through.

The rest of the herd patiently waited by the gate to be let through.

In the south pasture.

Photos of the six calves.  The seventh cow has not given birth yet.

Four of them

Complaining noisy calf

Rose

A short video of the herd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIESyAZinCE&feature=youtu.be


My weed spraying efforts the past few years paid off.  Hard to find the remaining weeds in the north pasture.

Usually I worry about animals breaking out of the corral.  The horses broke the fence from the outside.  Why?  I don't know.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Horses: dirty and fence

We have had rain the past few days.  After the first day of rain it looked like the white horse rolled in the mud.   The next day she was clean.

The white horse has the ability and tendency to eat the grass on the other side of the fences.  She has cracked a couple of old fence boards.  Sunday afternoon she broke a fence post and then boards and got into the NE pasture.  The smaller horse didn't couldn't follow her.  After a bit I was able to herd the white horse into the corral.  After fixing the fence and releasing the horses from the corral they quickly went to where the fence had been broken.

The bottom part of the rotted broken fence post.

Fixing the fence

The fixed fence and disappointed horse.

Horses

I got horses again this year.   Only two horses this time.  Earlier the grass in the horse pasture seemed behind the other pastures so I decided to go with a few less horses for the time being.  I wonder if the horses over ate the pasture last year.

They brought two mares who had been nursing foals.  Bringing the mares here is the start of the weaning process.  So far the horses are not non-stop eaters - unlike the horses last year.  If they stay as light eaters then I could have another horse or two.  The warmer weather the past week got the grass to finally growing better.

The horses are missing their foals.  Occasional whinnying and the white horse runs to the north pasture gate when she hears something thinking it may be her baby.

After the horses arrived I "horse proof'd" the yard so I could let them in the yard to eat the grass down.

Sunday I replaced a gate in the corral. While I worked I locked the horses out of the corral.  Naturally they wanted back in to the corral.