I Can’t Think Of a Title for This Post

Sadly due to unforeseen circumstances my instructor couldn’t make it, and believe me when I say unforeseen. So I will just show you some more of the things I bought. Here is Niko’s nice new Bartl girth sleeve, it really is nice, it’s so soft, it is quite warm which is perhaps not so good but come to think of it I did go out on a hack and did a lot of cantering and there was no sweat on Niko’s girth area, anyway I was happy with it.

And I brought this Bartl noseband cover which is very soft, I got both of these in black as they didn’t have the girth sleeve in natural where I was buying them and I wanted a matching set. I was very happy with the noseband cover as well, I had a noseband cover before which was good but I wanted a Bartl one after having used one of their grooming mitts because I realized just how soft Bartl sheepskin products are.

I also brought this new numnah not as interesting as the Bartl stuff but still nice, I like its piped edges.

I really like that it has Velcro straps, I have only used numnahs with straps that you have to slip the leather into before and I found the Velcro straps were easy to use and allowed more freedom, I could adjust the straps so that the numnah sat well on his back but was also very secure.

I still have a few more things to show you all but that will have to wait for another post.

In news regarding my instructor and my lessons I will if all goes well be having my lesson tomorrow and they will be riding Niko as well, like we arranged before. Then afterwards my instructor will take me back to their yard and they will ride Spike and then show me how they get there horses ready for shows, so let’s hope nothing else goes wrong but you never can tell so I will just have to wait and see.

Stopping a Cribber

Niko hurt himself recently, we think he must have pulled something in his shoulder, I don’t think it’s anything too serious, however he has been cribbing and making it worse so not long ago, we went to get something to stop him.

Yep that’s right Cribox, we have tried Cribox before with little success, but having said that Niko had not been living out before, when he is in a box he is surrounded by things he can crib on like the door and parts of the walls, but when he is in the paddock it is a much larger space, so he has longer to walk before he can crib.

So I set about applying the Cribox paint to the tops of the fence posts and a little of the way down the post, I really had to use a lot of Cribox for the first coat to give it a good covering and let some of it soak into the post. I now give them a quick do every day to make sure the post has a good covering of Cribox, if the posts are not repainted frequently the Cribox will not be strong enough to stop the horse cribbing.

And here is the finished result of all that painting, I have given the post a thick coat of Cribox on the top where he will grip the wood with his top set of teeth, and a slightly thinner coat down the side were he sometimes touches the wood with his bottom jaw, this has been working well so far.

It has been working so well that I haven’t see Niko crib once since we started this, and he looks to be pretty much sound, not quite right yet but almost there. He has also been spending more time searching for food and is getting a nicer shape to him, so all in all it is working out quite nicely.

Say Goodbye Mr Louse

We have seemingly eradicated all of Pip’s lice, so maybe he can go in with the others soon, I have been checking him daily for lice and have not seen any on him for quite some time now, anyway here is how we got rid of them.

This is one of the products that we used on Pip, Coopers Fly and Lice Repellent it comes with a pair of gloves and a sponge to apply it with, we used a lot more then the instructions told us to because Pip’s coat is so thick, and this made it hard to apply it properly.

We used it quite a lot of times on him but not every day, because when it is used it will kill any lice that have hatched but not un-hatched lice, so you have to give them time to hatch and then use it again.

And then to finally finish them off I gave Pip a bath using this, Chestfields Equine Products Mane & Tail Shampoo, this killed any of the remaining lice or caused them to come to the top of his coat where he finished them off himself.

And this is how Pip finished off the last of the lice, he rolled in this bonfire site that is in his paddock, the people that took the trees out of this paddock burnt them there, Pip rolling in the ash caused the lice to be smothered.

And we have not seen a louse on him since.

Thank you all for the comments on my last post.

Sherri, yes I don’t think I would want to eat stinging nettle soup, but did you know some people have stinging nettle eating competitions? The stinging nettles still have their sting when they are eaten, it is very odd.

Abby, Murphy will eat stinging nettles before they are cut as well, but this way Madeline and Niko will eat them too so it helps to clean up the paddock, and hopefully the grass will grow where the nettles used to be.

Kritter Keeper, this is the first time we have tried cutting the nettles for the horses and ponies to eat, we read about it long before we tried it but now there are so many stinging nettles we thought we would give it a go.

Muddy Horses

Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, at least not at the moment but yesterday was a different matter. We’ve had sun shine for days now and the horses have been going out with no rugs on, I had just finished hanging the horses hay nets when it started raining, it was not cold so I left them out for a bit longer. I don’t know if it was their way of getting back at me for leaving them in the rain, but they all had a good run around, and then when they were quite wet they all rolled the end result mud! Today they have all had a bit of a groom, I use a curry comb to take the mud off but as the photo shows there is still dust, then I use a Bartl sheepskin grooming mitt to try and get the dust off, it is quite good and so soft that I can do their face’s, oh and I don’t use a metal curry comb on the horse just to put your minds at rest.

Thanks for the comments, Abby, I don’t know about trying for the donkey as where we are moving to has houses nearby and we might have complaints about the noise.

Chestfields Equine Products

Alright time for horsey care. I don't use many products on the horses but when I do I use Chesfields Equine Products. This is probably because I won a set of their products, so they were free, but anyway they are really good. I would like to talk about two in particular: Cut & Graze - This one sadly has had the most use but it works great. Madeline is always cutting herself on the poor fencing and everytime we use Cut & Graze on her. None of her injuries have got infected since we have been using it. Mane & Tail - Now this one is what I used on Murphy when I gave him his bath. As you know his bath didn't go so well but we have used it on Niko's and Murphy's tails and they stay soft and silky for days later. Should probably have taken some photographs of me using them, but at the time I did not really think of it. Anyway here is a nice photo of Niko. Thanks for your comments on my last post and just wondered if anyone else is having problems with spacing / paragraphs on Blogger?