Monday, November 2, 2009

L@@K At The State Of My Poor Horses........


Finally it has stopped raining, however, I have never seen the ground so saturated!


I've been feeding the girls' their hay out in the pasture so that at least they spend the majority of the day out on relatively dry ground, but.....................

we end up with "burr bangs" and obviously muddy, muddy horses.

Bill, my hay guy, promises me a delivery of hay and straw tomorrow.........You can see the deep muck in the paddock and arena. I will spread the ten bales of straw tomorrow as soon as it comes and probably go and get more........... I have to soak up some of this crud........... In the mean time, I will feed them their morning hay out in the pasture.........I have never seen so much standing water and muck! Good Grief! I know our local farmers are cryin' because the corn is still 30% to 40% wet, which makes it expensive and hard to dry and sell..........It's been and awful October.............Hopefully I'll get somewhere with the straw spread. I have a feeling, I'll be getting more than ten bales and needing it! Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!

10 comments:

Gail said...

Wet everywhere here. The floods are down and the damage is showing.

Anonymous said...

We've had the same - mud everywhere - yuck!

Mrs. Mom said...

I hear you- now you can really get a decent idea of how wet it was in May out here on the coast. (Back when Sonny and Rock Star Pony were looking for water wings.) At least we drain well, with the sandy base. Sure hope you guys can dry out soon up there. Or at least freeze and cover it up with a hard cover!!

And Callie, a Happy Horse is a DIRTY Horse ;)

C-ingspots said...

Yikes!! Looks like the Pacific NW. So far we haven't had our rains begin, but do I ever know exactly how your feel. Don't be surprised if the straw doesn't make it worse...sorry, but we've tried everything and straw does not soak up water. Eventually, it will recede and soak in. If you can keep your horses out of that area until it dries out, and then add gravel, pack it and add either sand or pea gravel on top of that...that will help. I will send up a little prayer for a drying out season for you.

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

Yikes! Look at your Muddy Puppies out there. lol! I always call me mare a muddy puppy when she's covered in mud. Silly, I know!

Bummer about how much rain you've been getting. Too bad you can't share some. We've had a terribly dry year so far and my fear is that we'll get our moisture in snowfall instead. Not as nice. bah!

I hope you all can get everything dried out soon.

~Lisa

Grey Horse Matters said...

We've had lots of rain here too. I can only hope this dries out soon, this boot-sucking mud is killing me.

Jeni said...

Rain everywhere! I told my farrier that if Bonnie's shoes got sucked off, he was coming out and pulling all of them so he better put them on tight.

So far so good!

I hope it dries out for you before the snow flies

Paint Girl said...

I totally understand! Our horses are up to their fetlocks in mud. It will be like this until May! I hate this time of year, I hate mud and I hate rain! I am so miserable!
I hope it quits raining for you. Have you ever tried hog fuel for the mud? We have and it works for awhile, you just have to reapply it every so often. The best thing to do is what C-ing Spots says, gravel and sand. We have had to put gravel down in one pasture, and we need to do 2 more pastures, but will have to wait until the mud goes away before we gravel those ones.
Good luck!!

Michelle said...

Wow! You aren't kidding about the mud! Hope it dries out soon.

Callie said...

Actually this highly unusual to have so much standing water......I have completely scraped the paddock and layed ag lime with a layer of lime gravel over it a few years ago. Thanks for the advice, but it's too late in the season for me to mess around with a bobcat and so on. In the spring, I use my power grader to spread and dry it all. It's actually too wet for me to that, so I've used the piles and piles of straw before and it helps. I dont want mud compacted gravel inside hooves. I may have to consider a different approach in the spring and scrape and re-lay the gravel in the paddock, but not the arena and since the arena doubles as a place for them to move around in the winter, I don't like sand, soft dirt, I can grade. Sand, I worry about sand colic. they spend too much time in there, I prefer not to close it down from them & only use it for riding, because I don't ride enough to. Right now I'm feeding them out in the pasture and I'll start spreading straw by the piles today, It's helped before. thanks all for the advice, though, may revisit it in the spring.... ;)