Wednesday 22 June 2011

Thistles in My Paddock


Recently I have noticed that our equines have been enjoying eating the heads of thistles so I decided to try them on a meal of cut thistles. It went down pretty well and so I thought I would do I post about it and how to make them more appetizing.



As these thistles are not in the paddock I had to first of all cut them down, and obviously place them in something to transport them to the paddock, I made sure to try and get the thistles that had begun to bloom as the horses like the blooming heads, Then I cut the thistles up into lots of little more edible pieces.



If you do try this remember to try your equines on a small amount first, as thistles are very prickly and may not be to the taste of some equines, Tipper was not very keen on them, but Niko got stuck in.




After preparing the thistles I delivered them in the wheelbarrow, as you can see they are going down quite well, obviously these are just a treat of sorts, and they all had their normal feed of haylage after the thistles. Please excuse the muddy equines it’s very hard keeping them clean with all this mud.



So there you go just one more thing they will eat, and they really did enjoy them too, but I think I will stick to something less prickly next time, it wasn’t much fun preparing them for the horses and ponies.

Thank you all for your comments on my last post.

Autumn Mist, he will be all mended very soon, it hasn’t taken long to sort itself out, but it is just one more mark that we will need to get the fur back on.

Sherri, yes sorry about the nasty photos, but I wanted to show how it was all coming along, thanks for the comment.

Abby, sadly we don’t have a hose in a suitable place to use on the horses, so we just let it go down by itself. Yes I think you are almost defiantly right about the farrier, I don’t know if he has been shod on all four, but considering he is a racehorse I would think that he has been. It is very worrying because one of Tippers shoes has become lose, and we will need a farrier to sort it out, but Tipper isn’t ready to have the farrier yet as he is still not very well behaved about having his feet picked up, and I don’t know if any of our farriers are likely to lose their temper with him, if so it will set him back so much and we may never sort this problem out. I think one of our farriers should be able to get it done as he has been brilliant so far, but you never know, right. Sadly the weather here is rain on and off one second it is sunny the next it’s windy and raining, still hopefully it will help the grass to grow. I just go on and on don’t I sorry I just had to get that all out like I said it’s all very worrying.





4 comments:

Sherri B. said...

I think if I had to prepare the thistles, they would be a 'rare' treat. This winter and spring, we had so much rain that we had to give up part of our back yard to the chickens because their run and then our backyard too became a mucky, muddy mess. It's not easy seeing our animals in such a mess is it?

juliette said...

Wow! If I only knew - we have sooooo many thistles. I wonder what our boys would say. I also wonder if our varieties over here are safe and similar to yours. I guess they are safe because they are already in our pastures and I am sure the horses eat them. I know the Goldfinches like thistle seeds.

allhorsestuff said...

My mare just loves her some prickly thistle heads! Quite the delicacy. Its hilarious to watch the way they take them on too..peeling thier lips back, cute! A fun post!
KK

RDA Pony Tales said...

Firstly Edward, please don't apologise for going "on and on". I think it is me that tends to go on a bit!
I understand your concerns about the farrier and think you should talk to him/her about it. An experienced and sympathetic farrier should understand and hopefully you will get Tipper shod without too many problems. They do seem to love their thistles don't they. A very prickly job but worth seeing them enjoying their treat. All the rain has made the fields muddy here too, Spotty is so dirty, my heart sinks when I see him covered from head to foot in muck! Abby