This is our field. Lately it's been too long for me to walk through, so I can only enjoy it from the edges. I regularly let Baasha eat the little bit of the field that is inbetween the gate and one of the grazing-stripes we made for him. Just so if we ever need to reach him from the gate, we don't have to wade through armpit-high grass to do so. Armpit-high grass full of TICKS! Ew!
In the closeup you can see it's Timothy hay.
None of the ticks get on Baasha, though, he's protected with permethrins, that spot-on stuff that you drop on your horse every 2 weeks.
*I'M* not protected by permethrins, so I find ticks on me just from visiting him.
The neighbors like to stop and talk over the gate. I love that people are friendly here. Today, the teenaged girl who will be taking care of Baasha when we're in America dropped by. She had little to say, she just wanted to hang out with us for a bit.
I took a picture of the grazing stripe that was rotated from today. I hope I didn't wait too long. I've been alternating grazing areas by 2 weeks each, but this stripe seems to get eaten down closer each time. The books say 4 inches for grass height but it's pretty variable - do they mean 4 inches average? We've got that: )
The purple rhododendron bloomed. I told Baasha to go stand next to it for a photo, so I can have a horse+rhodie picture, but he wouldn't. Even when I tossed some carrots on the ground in front of it. He thought it must be a trick. Finally he was coerced over there. I love how he won't eat this particular ornamental plant.
This is our field. Lately it's been too long for me to walk through, so I can only enjoy it from the edges. I regularly let Baasha eat the little bit of the field that is inbetween the gate and one of the grazing-stripes we made for him. Just so if we ever need to reach him from the gate, we don't have to wade through armpit-high grass to do so. Armpit-high grass full of TICKS! Ew!
In the closeup you can see it's Timothy hay.
None of the ticks get on Baasha, though, he's protected with permethrins, that spot-on stuff that you drop on your horse every 2 weeks. 
*I'M* not protected by permethrins, so I find ticks on me just from visiting him.
The neighbors like to stop and talk over the gate. I love that people are friendly here. Today, the teenaged girl who will be taking care of Baasha when we're in America dropped by. She had little to say, she just wanted to hang out with us for a bit. 
I took a picture of the grazing stripe that was rotated from today. I hope I didn't wait too long. I've been alternating grazing areas by 2 weeks each, but this stripe seems to get eaten down closer each time. The books say 4 inches for grass height but it's pretty variable - do they mean 4 inches average? We've got that: )
The purple rhododendron bloomed. I told Baasha to go stand next to it for a photo, so I can have a horse+rhodie picture, but he wouldn't. Even when I tossed some carrots on the ground in front of it. He thought it must be a trick. Finally he was coerced over there. I love how he won't eat this particular ornamental plant.
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10 comments:
Hi in case you didn't know just a few leaves from a Rhododendron can make a horse very sick and they could also die. I'd keep him far away from that plant.
Hi, I was wondering who'd take care of Baasha while your're gone. Forgot to ask last time. It's great that you found someone. By the way, I'm going to order that tick stuff you recommended. They say there are lots of ticks where my horse lives, so it'll be very useful.
What a stunningly beautiful horse you have.
Anon - have you heard of any cases of Rhodi poisoning? I'm from the state of Washington, and Rhodies are our state flower, and I've never heard of that happening. I'm interested in learning which plants are poisonous, and I've been learning, but more precisely which plants are poisonous and horses actually would eat. We also have a big walnut tree in our field, but even full of toxicity, there is very little risk of it hurting my horse just being there.
Laddie, if you see ticks on Laddie this year, I ask on his behalf that you do indeed try a Permethrin "spot-on" formula. (The type I have is "Equi Spot" by Farnam.
Sonya, I just spent the morning on your various blogs, and left lots of comments on some of your older posts (remember your aldi post?). I don't know if you'll get them, cuz I don't think you moderate comments. Oh well, nice to meet you! I may have to come to the NL for some maple syrup...
I live in Washington State also…in fact I met you and your husband at a CMO summer before last. It was at Elbe and I was riding with Brandi. My name is Desiree and I have an Arab mare named Missy. Small world. Anyway about Rhody’s and other poisonous plants, I found some web sites for you to find out some more information. While is true that the horses usually won’t eat some poisonous plants there are times that they do and with some of those plants it doesn’t take much to do harm. I don’t want this to get too long so here are the sites. This one is the best, go to “search plant data” then find and click the plant in “common name” then hit search. http://www.vth.colostate.edu/poisonous_plants/ I had gotten some hay that had a toxic plant in it that made Missy sick and this was one of the few sites that had info about that plant.
As far as the Walnut tree, if it is a Black Walnut then that is one of the other big no no plants as far as I’m concerned. You can find out some more info about that on these sites also.
These other sites have some more information in them.
http://www.naturalhorsetraining.com/PoisonousPlants.html
http://www.understanding-horse-nutrition.com/poisonous-plants.html
Warning this site has music but good pictures and info. Click on the alpha letters to get to the plant info.
http://www.angelfire.com/pro/realm/PoisonousPlants.html
Here is my email address if you want to talk some more about this. sahara4d@hotmail.com
Anon and Lytha: you're both right. Rhodies are poisonous. Horses don't eat them.
Here in WA state (i.e. the Swamplands) there are several plants that are poisonous to horses, and I've never heard of a a horse here eating ANY of them:
* bracken fern (NOT sword ferns, those aren't poisonous although they aren't ideal food either)
* red maple
* rhododendron
* rhubarb leaves
Alas, blackberry vines aren't even vaguely poisonous but horses won't eat THOSE either, at least not in any useful quantity. Dang.
Anon - how did you find my blog? I remember you and your horse, your horse was gorgeous!
I read every one of those plant websites you send - interesting. I will have to take a closer look at a baby maple growing here, it might be the bad kind. The site told me how to identify the bad kind.
Thanks again.
Wish I was in the orienteering game still,
~lytha
Was Anon, I figured that I should sign in if I was going to keep leaving comments…can’t be Anonymous forever. I found your Blog while I was Blog Surfing…I think it was from Fantastyk Voyage’s Blog, not really sure as I was bouncing from blog to blog. I started from one of the other horse blogs that I follow and went to the side bar where their blog list is and picked a blog to go look at. When I saw the title of your blog I thought “I wonder if the is that gal that Brandi knows that moved to Germany” and sure enough it was! Pretty strange how that worked. I have only been reading you blog for a few weeks and I think that it’s pretty cool that you flew your horse over to be with you. I guess I would be called a lurker as the comment that I left on your blog was the first one I ever left on any of the blogs that I read.
Glad to hear that you are getting some good information from the sites that I sent you. I can spot tansy from ten paces away. LOL!!
I have only done one CMO ride this year on someone else’s horse…Missy had a foal in April and I’m still saddle training my 3 year old gelding. I hope to be out riding soon, it’s starting to warm up here. Thanks for the complement on Missy.
I checked out a link on Grey Horse's blog about dangerous plants and I noticed that Rhodies are poisonous. Also plum trees (leaves, bark, plums, seeds), too.
I wonder if you need to worm more often and with stronger stuff when feeding fresh grass?
We mostly only feed dry hay and don't have much problem with worms, even though the vet checks every few months, we just don't see any. So, we don't have to worm as often and not for all worms.
And because we don't have much grass, we don't have many ticks.
But I tell ya, you are so lucky to have so much grass. I envy that you don't have to spend so much on hay, like we do have to do here. Timothy hay is the good stuff and can run $15-$25 for a two string bale.
Alfalfa and orchard grass runs between $6-$12 a 2 string bale.
~Lisa
Aarene, funny, a lot of horses snack on bracken fern, but it doesn't seem to bother them. Unless that wasn't really bracken fern? Hm!
Sahara, I hope Missy's foal turns out as pretty as she is. She took my breath away when I saw her - I instantly wanted her, and I remember telling you she needed a much fancier name!
Cool that you found my blog through the online community and not thru mutual friends!
Brandi and my mutual friend Barb had a horse die from eating Tansy and I'll never forget that awful story. Usually horses don't touch it even when its' all around them, but this particular horse did, and suffered terribly.
I went out to dinner with a botanist this week and asked about a few other plants on our land. We're lucky, besides some buttercups (also poisonous) our pasture is practially weed free. We have a couple oak trees we'll have to section off, and the neighbors have a chestnut tree we'll have to watch.
Did you find the post I did on Brandi's horse Cody?
You'll have to start up your own blog I think, to tell us all about Missy and her baby.
Lisa, I read this week that plum trees are also dangerous, but i remember watching the horses eat plums and spit out pits at one place I boarded. I wonder if it made them sick? Our apples are not as far along as yours, but I did run out and check as son as I saw your pictures.
My man woke up with a big, awful tick on his this morning and I had a heck of a time gettin its mouth parts out of him. DISGUSTING. We worked in the field yesterday and were too exhausted to check ourselves for ticks. I think I got lucky. Hate them!
I don't understand why hay is so cheap here. You would think it would be way cheaper in America where there is so much space. It's only 2.50Euros per bale! (OK, a tiny bale, but it takes Baasha a week to eat one).
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