HORSES & HORSE MANURE

The Pampered Pet & Substitute Spouse

By Newcomb

At one time, I had three dwellings, at Rancho Arbole Grande, rented to three single women with horses. Each tenant had replaced a spouse with a horse or horses. Each young woman was suffering from rejection. (Even if it had came about by her choice.)

I don’t think that they were aware how alike they were, hating men, all men. They found pleasure in controlling an animal much larger than themselves, an animal totally dependent on their care, from one end to the other.

The women wanted the corral placed as close to their dwelling as possible. Her front room was furnished with the horse’s tack. The saddle was in a prominate place, with her boots and stuff. (She and the horse shared the house, if not the bedroom.) She checked on the horse several times a day. Pulling off a flake of baled hay for his feeder, brushing his coat, cleaning out his water trough and refilling it with clean water.

She shopped for horse food, supplements and medicines. As the seasons change, she has the horse wear a blanket or a fly mask. She has a squeegee blade to scrape off his coat if too wet to strap on his blanket. She provides horse toys to be tossed or suspended overhead. –Horses like plastic traffic cones! They pick them up with their teeth and swing them over their head. Two or more horses will play together with one cone. The cones don’t last long with such rough play. -

She hires a trainer, to teach the horse proper manners and good trail behavior. The trainer exercises the horse, as she almost never rides! Yet, she might trailer the horse with her on vacations.

The farrier comes regularly to remove the horseshoes, trim the growing hoof and refit the shoe.

When horses are worked on the road, -ridden or driven- their hooves would wear too short and split from striking stones. The horse would come up lame. The metal shoes also wear from use but the hoof doesn’t! Now the shoe must be cutoff and the hoof trimmed. –If this isn’t done-, the foot will tilt back increasingly and be damaged.

In a more natural setting, the horse is ‘barefoot’, he moves around enough to wear his hoof about as fast as it grows. These corralled horses didn’t wear out their hooves or their shoes!

Traditionally, the horseshoe man was a black smith. He used a small forge to make or form the shoes for a custom fit. The forge was heated with coal. Handling the coal and breathing the oily smoke, made the black smith, black!

The metal was heated cherry-hot and malleable. The hoof would smoke when the shoe was placed there to check for proper fit.

The shoe is nailed in place. The metal shoe is pierced for the semi circle of nails. The nails are driven up and out of the hoof, about an inch above the shoe. The ends are then clipped off flush with nippers. Nippers are sometimes used to trim the hoof.

The farrier also has a short, stout, knife for the purpose. He wears a leather apron and holds the horse’s foot in his shallow, lap. –He stands with his back to the horse and bends forward to fasten the shoe. – He may hold several nails in his mouth. - There is also a pocket in his apron. (The horse stands on the three other feet and is not hurt or frightened by the noise and smoke.)

If the trim is too short, the horse may limp from a sensitive foot. The semi-circle of hoof makes contact with the ground, holding the foot off wearing surfaces. It is this edge that gives traction by marking the path with horse tracks. The fleshy under-structure is called the frog. Here are spaces that can catch and hold small stones. A responsible rider checks for and clears these objects before and after a ride.

One young woman failed to check her young animal’s feet. He picked up a small, broken- metal, bolt. Eventually it worked itself deep into the foot. The veterinary couldn’t save the horse. She kept the metal souvenir on her mantle and with a sorry face showed it to me. We were all sorry. The little horse was born and buried on the ranch.

Because a horse is so big and strong and beautiful, we don’t see how he could be so frail and vulnerable in so many ways.

The domesticated horse sometimes lacks horse sense. If he tangles a foot in wire or is caught in rocks or a hole, he will destroy his foot in frantic attempts to get loose. If thirsty, he will drink himself sick without stopping.

A horse is eight times more sensitive to poison than a man. (A tenant had his horse’s blood tested for poison after I had painted the corral with black lap-cement.)- To discourage horses from eating the wood. -

Most corralled horses are fed baled hay. Sometimes trash is bailed in with the hay. This may be bits of wire, pebbles and dirt. This shakes out of the flakes of hay when it is eaten in a manger. These should be cleaned out before each feeding. The horse will end up with a collection that stays in his stomach. Caring owners treat this poisoning with an expensive supplement that mechanically congeals these indigestible particles into a mass that helps empty the stomach.

The horse’s legs are much more frail than ours, according to the weight carried. He actually has strength enough to break a leg if misused.

I had occasion to drive my tractor along the outside of the corrals. I was pulling a disc to control weeds. The short exhaust makes a sharp roar and the clanking machinery behind me was turning up small rocks. I was concerned that the horses would be frightened.

Instead, they followed along with the tractor, close to the fence and me.

When I worked on fence posts, inside the corrals, the horses would nudge me, bite my hat and take my tools. I would run them off across the corral. Soon they were back again like curious children.

A horse can find a single stem of grass, behind a fence post. He can move his sensitive upper lip in all directions and pick up the smallest thing. He actually wears off his whiskers doing this.

Some plants are also protected by barbs. These are part of a dispersal system. When held in the hand, the seed capsule will move in a direction to embed itself. This happens in the horse’s mouth! The barb will find a way to a position between the teeth and upper lip. Here the pointed end works itself into a pore and lodges there. The horse has no means to dislodge it! Owners will lift the lip to find a serious accumulation. The horse will usually allow you to clean out the soggy mass. Always be careful not to be bitten by accident. He may think you are feeding him!

Our corrals were shaded with ancient olive trees, the shade, an appreciated blessing, in the desert. Their olive pits are small, hard, and dry underfoot. The horses would patiently seek them out. The crunching sounds, resonating in their large skulls, were spooky in the dark.

If you are out alone in the country-quiet, night, you may hear an otherworldly sound that will raise the short hair on your neck! A horse takes a deep breath and releases it as a giant sigh! I don’t think he cares about making the sound; it just feels good to do it.

The whinny, sound is made on purpose. He makes it with his eyes and ears on you. He wants to have your attention. It is horse talk. He uses it with other horses too.

My friend says that his horse loves without condition. But his horse whinnies to me and

I don’t feed him!

MANURE

Horsemen and Women accept horse manure along with the horse. They don’t even think that it smells bad. (Each animal and man has a distinctive smell that marks him.) Country people know which way the wind is blowing just from the smell! County rules have this in mind when they only allow one horse to each 2½ acres.

A permit for a well, properly, requires separation from roads, corrals and septic systems.

The standard horse is a large animal. He eats a lot and the digested hay accumulates. Owners and corral men have their own notion of a clean up schedule. One trainer cleaned the corral twice a day! That is one extreme.

The other extreme is never! I visited old farms in the Midwest where the corrals were never cleaned. The dried manure was pounded beneath the hoof traffic until only 1/8^th inch bits of chaff were left. This blew about and was pushed out of the corral, piled up, mixed with dust and became part of the path we walked on.

Sometimes there are signs offering manure for sale. Sometimes the signs say it is free. Sometimes free delivery is promised! It all depends on availability.

For the most part, I could use the manure on the ranch and orchard. I used the tractor to disperse and disc in the manure to mix with the soil.

One tenant rented a dumpster just for manure. This was a metal box about chest high. (The special trucks pushed Hydraulic arms into channels to lift the filled dumpster and hoist it overhead and into the truck bed.) This man and his son would use my aluminum, paint-scaffold/plank to run a wheelbarrow up the steep rise to dump into their dumpster. It was dangerous and difficult to run the load up to the lip and stop quickly enough to not lose the wheelbarrow into the metal bed.

I talked with the truck driver first, then suggested that a pit be dug to park the dumpster halfway under ground. The lift arms were about at ground level and worked there with no problem. Now the ramp was half as steep, and twice as easy to use. The son objected to the father’s order to dig the pit, even though it meant less work!

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Maybe this will change your mind about manure being so unspeakable and offensive-

“When the weather is colder, horses are fed food that digests more slowly!”

Think about that for a moment. The rotting manure, inside the horse, is what keeps him above room temperature. (That means alive!) Naturally your second thought is, could this be true for us, too? Yes. Beautiful people in beautiful clothes are dependant on the decaying food within them to stay alive! We don’t say WASTE because it isn’t wasted.

This is the purpose for which food is eaten! (Throughout our life we are chained this close to the compost pile!) Remember the quote, ”You are what you eat”? I think that it applies here also.

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Almost daily, the three women put on their little gloves and raked and shoveled horse manure. The most attractive of the three owned a stallion. (Because she hated men, she hated males!) - Even her own male horse.- She said, “He has all his brain between his hind legs.” She was polite enough not to say what she thought of me. But she wanted me to know anyway.

We notice that when the economy is bad, we see fewer horses. Like pleasure boats, vacation vehicles and mountain cabins, people cut back on non-productive expenses.

(Just west of Corona is a corral complex that fills with many horses, only to be empty again. Horse lovers fear that the surplus horses are sent overseas for human consumption. We don’t know. ----------------------

We end this horse talk with these warnings.

DO NOT FEED OTHER PEOPLE’S HORSES

The horses may like it but the owners don’t. Common grass cuttings can cause and have caused death. Horses’ teeth can damage the person feeding them. He might not know where the carrot ends and the finger begins! People have been stepped on when hand feeding a horse. The, metal, shod hoof can break foot bones.

Note: Cut, green, grass, when left in bulk, generates heat in decomposition. Mold and toxins are formed that can be fatal to grass eaters. Properly dried and stored it is called hay and is preserved and becomes a healthy food.

Don’t toss garbage or parts of your lunch and its wrappings into a corral or pasture. Strangers see all the dirt and manure that they aren’t used to, and think that the land is dirty. Country people see the land as clean, but the litter as garbage tossed aside by visitors, as a dirty trick!

Do not get into the corral or stall with a horse. Do not scare the horses or try to make them run, you maybe trespassing, and become liable for any injury or damage or lost property.

When horses are being worked or loaded, stand back and watch from a distance. This is safe and appreciated behavior. Don’t try to help unless asked.

Loose horses, standing in a field or corral, are still expensive private property. Ask before touching.

If you have reason to cross a field or corral, carefully close and secure all gates behind you. Horses may be quartered in areas of dry grass. Don’t be careless with matches or smoking materials.

Be a Good Neighbor, even if you live somewhere else.