Karen Chaton’s Musings & Endurance Ride Stuff

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Rides coming up

Dave riding Rushcreek Okay to mark trail around the Cima Dome

Been busy so haven’t had time to post much lately. Leaving in the a.m. to go down to Mountain Pass to help get the trail marked for the Eastern Mojave Scenic ride which starts next Friday.

The ride is four days this year, Friday through Monday. 50 miles each day. I’m bringing Chief and Bo and don’t know yet what I’ll do with each of them. I think I’ll ride them both marking trail before deciding. Toying with doing the 20 Mule Team 100 at the end of the month, so will have to keep that in mind when deciding. If I get time I’ll post more at the ride once I’m down there.

If you are planning on coming to the ride and have not entered yet, you can do so here: http://xprides.com/RideEntry.html If you have entered and can’t come, let us know! Thanks.

Dave Rabe is leaving tomorrow too, and bringing two horses, including Tigger! I always love seeing the little guy. (I’m talking about the horse, lol)

I hear camp is really nice and has had some improvements made. I’ll post more on that later, hopefully with photos. Looking forward to seeing everybody, especially Jewels, Lily, Boogie…and Bob!

Sign Up Now for Land Advocacy Webinars

I’m posting this press release from the Americans for Responsible Recreational Access group. I think that all trail users need to find ways to work together to solve some of the problems we are facing with trail access. It is getting harder and harder to get permits and permission to use trails to put on endurance rides. I’ll be posting more on this topic in the future. Karen

NOHVCC is holding another round of Public Land Advocacy webinars during this winter season. The distribution of these Land Advocacy webinars has been made possible through a grant from the Yamaha OHV Access Initiative. The content of the webinars has been made possible through funding from the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC), the Specialty Vehicle Institute of American (SVIA), and the Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association (ROHVA).

These webinars compliment the highly popular Public Land Advocacy DVD series. The webinar series will help you understand and be effectively involved in OHV management and agency planning processes to help you promote and preserve OHV riding opportunities with topics such as, writing effective comments letters, working with land managers, the agency process for designating routes, etc. There will also be information for land managers such as who are the enthusiasts and how to provide trail systems riders want to stay on. They also include topics addressing why high quality OHV trail system are needed, the design elements and principles of OHV trail systems, trail maintenance, monitoring, and signing. And more. While you participate in the webinars, you will have the opportunity to ask questions of the presenter and to interact with other participants.

These webinars are full of interesting examples of how things work and how things fail. Plus we have time to cover some topics more in-depth that we are able to on the DVDs.

Don’t forget that these sessions qualify for Continuing Education Units. You must register for both the sessions as well as the CEUs to receive the credit. Registration for these sessions and CEUs can be done on our website. This is the last set of currently planned webinar sessions, so be sure to register for these sessions!

Module 1 – Feb 16th at 5:00pm central

Module 2 – Feb 25th at 5:00pm central

Module 3 – Mar 16th at 5:00pm central

Module 4 – Mar 25th at 5:00pm central

For more information regarding the webinars or to arrange a custom session, contact NOHVCC staff at trailhead@nohvcc.org.

Tevis Video – lots of footage from the 2009 ride!

Products with multiple uses – duct tape, hay string, etc.

Endurance riders are usually pretty resourceful when it comes to figuring out how to get stuff to work. Or when we need to fix something. Most of us could easily make a top ten list of things we’ve fixed using duct tape, hay string or bailing wire. Recently I ran across some information on WD-40 and while I haven’t used it as much as I have the other items I just mentioned, it has multiple uses.

I’ve used WD-40 on the zippers on my bale bags. I’ve also used it to lube squeaky doors.

For years I rode Rocky with an S-hackamore that had the chin strap covered in duct tape and the chin strap was made out of hay string. When the drive train fell out of Dave Rabe’s truck on our way to Utah, we used bailing wire to hold it up while using 4WD so we could get to where we needed to in order to get it fixed.

When I need to anchor my awning down at rides I often will use hay string to tie the corners down to a bale of hay, or my extra propane tank.

Anybody who has used hoof boots for any length of time has probably discovered more uses for duct tape.

What other useful and resourceful uses have you found for items like duct tape, hay string, baling water or even WD-40?

Continue reading Products with multiple uses – duct tape, hay string, etc.

Mud, mud and more mud…always something to fix

By looking at the first photo you’d think, wow, it looks so nice and pretty with the snow. This is all that’s left since it’s been melting off.

This snow came on top of quite a bit of rain. Which came on top of a lot of other snow. The freezing temps have not helped. The ground was thoroughly saturated making the problem worse.

The problem, in case you were wondering….is the mud and frozen ground in the horse area behind the barn stalls.

I knew something wasn’t right because there was just way too much mud outside of the stall doors. Not just mud, but big puddles. Turns out that the rain gutters on the barn aren’t working properly. There are a couple of spots on seams where they are joined together that are allowing water to drip through. There are also some roof shingles where the gutters meet up next to the roof that need to be repaired so that the water will run all the way down into the gutters.

This is something to fix before the next storm comes in in another day or two. That’ll definitely help. We have enough mud without adding to it.

The horses haven’t been amused by the mud this winter. The mud itself isn’t really a big deal — it’s the fact that the water has puddled up outside the horses stall entrances and then each evening it freezes solid. The horses are doing a good job getting through it, very carefully.

I tried walking through the mud yesterday and my Sorels were getting sucked off. The mud is really sucky! I wormed all three horses and also took these photos. It is getting better each day. I’ve had mud or snow here since early October. The moisture is good for the horses feet but the freezing hard ground each night is hard for them since they are going back and forth from soft footing to rock hard footing on a daily basis. They all see to be toughened up enough.

I remember years ago my farrier at the time gave up trying to pull shoes in the winter on Weaver because he would run around on the frozen ground at night barefoot and then be footsore the next day. He might have been okay if kept barefoot year around. None of my other horses have had this be a problem for them. Trust me when I say you don’t want to be trying to put hoof boots on your horse in this kind of mess.

When things do finally dry out we’ll work on getting some new material brought in to help improve the drainage in this area. It used to drain better but the horses definitely alter that after awhile. At least once the horses come into the stalls they are standing on rubber mats and can get out of the mucky mess for awhile.

I’ve asked a few friends their thoughts on using pea gravel in my climate and the consensus is that it would be a huge mess after a season or two. So we will probably stick with using DG or sand or some sort, which is what we’ve used in the past. It would be nice to be able to fill some areas in with pea gravel but other peoples’ experiences with it in climates like mine is not good so I’ll stay away from it. I’ve got enough of a mess without adding to it.

This has been a wetter winter for us in terms of the ground staying saturated for so long. I remember last year at this time we were having gorgeous weather and the footing was dry so I was riding almost every day! I think it’s probably been ten or more years since we’ve had this much mud. The sun is out and it’s a gorgeous day today….mud, mud go away!!

Figuring out how much salt my horse needs each day

My horses go through a lot of salt. I offer it to them in two ways – 1) salt blocks and 2) loose salt. I buy the loose salt in 50 pound bags at the feed store. It’s labeled as “taxidermy salt” and sells for about $7 or $8 for 50 pounds. The bag does say “feed free choice to livestock”. If your horse’s diet is balanced, this plain white salt is fine. You don’t need to use mineralized salt. If you aren’t sure, check with a veterinarian who is familiar with equine nutrition.

My horses don’t normally use the salt blocks and some of them are several years old. The only horse I’ve ever had that has done anything with the salt blocks is Bo, and he munches on them like candy. He’s just that kind of horse – he plays with everything and gets bored fast. Most horses will NOT get the salt they need from a salt block. Salt blocks are great for cattle because they have rougher tongues, but not so great for horses.

With three horses I’m going through 50 pounds of loose salt every three or four months. I put a cup or two of loose salt in the horses feeders or buckets that are in each stall every few days, or when I notice that it’s gone. When I travel and are competing in endurance rides I add more salt into the horses feed as well and will go through it at a faster rate then.

I did a search online to find out exactly how much salt a horse needs on a daily basis. The National Research Council recommends 25 grams per day of sodium chloride per day for maintenance. That works out to 1.4 tablespoons per day. Sodium + chloride = salt.

Sodium and chloride are electrolytes essential for many bodily functions. Both are lost in sweat and must be replaced in what you feed your horse. Salt is also the only essential nutrient that is not naturally present in grasses and grains, at least not to the degree necessary to keep your horses needs met. Horses have a natural appetite for salt and most will consume what they need if given the opportunity. However, you do need to watch out for horses that may be bored (like my horse Bo) and over consumes salt (say by munching on the salt blocks like they are candy).

Research suggests that heavy work could increase the sodium requirement eight or ninefold. That equates to providing 200 grams or sodium or more to your horse. 200 grams of sodium works out to almost 12 tablespoons, or about 3/4 of a cup.

If your horse is doing a moderate amount of work he may need about 55 to 65 grams of sodium per day. That is around 3.8 tablespoons per day. When I am traveling with the horses this is close to the amount of additional salt that I put into their feed, broken up into multiple feedings.

To really know what your horse needs you need to first figure out what your horse is already getting. Check the nutrient contents on the labels of your grains and other feeds to help you calculate how much additional sodium you need to provide.

At the end of this post is a link to a salt conversion table so you can calculate how to measure it out by tablespoon, cup or other measurement based upon the above recommendations.

Table salt amounts conversion

What happens when endurance horses get bored!

I’m not sure if I should call my horses giant beavers or monkeys! They are apparently getting bored playing in the mud and the snow.

This is what they do at night when they have nothing better to do. They morph into gigantic beavers!

Actually, it is but ONE of my three horses that has a fetish for chewing on wood. The other two just follow along, kind of like monkey-see-monkey-do. The stall with the least amount of chewing damage is Chief’s. The other two horses switch back and forth in the other stalls but rarely spend much time in the middle stall (that belongs to the BOSS, lol–hey, he got his name for a reason).

I got the Chew-stop stuff out this morning and plastered it all over the wood. Then got a hammer and made sure there were no nails sticking out in the spots where trim had been pulled down. I could hire Bo out as part of a demolition team!

I hope this works. If not, I’ll reapply it and if I have to will lock the horses out of the paddocks and barn at night. They don’t chew anywhere else because the fence is hotwired.

The horses have several chew-logs (kind of like horse tooth-picks) out in their field that they also chew on. Maybe I’ll put some new ones in the stalls for them so they get the hint that it’s okay to chew on that but NOT on the barn door and trim pieces!

It’s not like the horses haven’t been doing anything. They have been getting worked and move around quite a bit. It has been three weeks since their last endurance ride though. Bo seems to need to keep his mind busy I think…going places, seeing what’s around the next bend….I dunno but till I got him I never had a horse that has done such a good job trying to tear the place apart. Bo really likes playing with stall mats too!

I’ve got stall toys in each stall for the horses to play with, plus balls and their big chew-sticks.

Years ago I remember using creosote to stop these gigantic beavers (aka horses) and that worked really well. I don’t have any more of this stuff, and haven’t needed it….till I got Bo.

It’s a good thing there are rides on the schedule soon.

Endurance riding goals for 2010: no real plans + what I learned in 2009

Karen and Chief at DVE. Photo by Lynne Glazer (original coming soon)

I’m a little slow with this post but haven’t had a lot of time to really think about planning what I’d like to accomplish this ride season with my two horses.

What have the rest of you come up with – anybody have anything to share? Please post links to other endurance riders who have posted their plans for the coming season! What did you learn this year?

The 2010 ride season for AERC started on December 1st, so really…I’m a couple of months behind with putting down in writing my goals for 2010.

I have already ridden 300 miles – 200 of that on Pro Bono D (Bo), and 100 on Granite Chief (Chief…aka “Cheefy”).

Our 2009 ride season turned out to be pretty good. I ended up riding 2375 miles.

Things definitely didn’t go as planned in a few areas yet we still managed to make lemonade out of the lemons. In fact, it probably turned out to be one of my better ride seasons. Fun, fun, fun!

It’s hard to say which seasons have been the best, better, or least productive and rewarding. Last year was the first time I’ve finished both 1st (Chief) and 2nd (Bo) in my weight division in the West region. We were able to get a lot of points because I rode both horses somewhat faster and even got several top tens and placed well in my weight division. We still also rode fairly conservatively, especially considering the level of conditioning that both horses have.

Chief also placed in the top ten in national mileage with 1305 miles completed. He’s won that award a couple of times so it’s nice to know that he still has what it takes after all these years to “go the distance”.

The biggest accomplishment was having Chief reach 9,000 lifetime miles. That happened in spite of his terrible eyelid injury which resulted in a total of six minor surgeries to get it put back right and fix the scar tissue complications that we had.

Another exciting thing that happened is that Chief made Gold Medal XP horse for the third time. He is a really great multiday horse, the best I’ve had in that category.

Other lemons thrown our way was having Bo get a slight ligament strain when he fell on ice with me in April. Fortunately the rehabbing of that injury went well. However it did require our entry withdrawal from the Tevis. I went and volunteered and worked it instead. That is always fun. I’ve been riding, crewing or volunteering at that ride since the early 90’s.

More lemonade!

I also managed to complete two one day 100’s. In February I did the 20 Mule Team 100 on Bo. We had a near perfect ride, finishing 11th out of 28 starters. During the ride I reflected on the previous 100 mile rides I’ve had on this course on my other horses – Chief, Rocky and Dream Weaver. I felt Weaver’s presence the most and as it turned out that is the night that he passed away. It was kind of an eerie feeling. Weaver was the first horse I ever rode on a 100 mile ride. He left me with a lot of great memories.

I missed going to the AERC NC ride due to a death in the family.

Later in September I was able to ride Tigger on the Virginia City 100 where we finished 10th out of 42 starters. The ride only had a 43% completion rate so it was terrific that we finished. Dave Rabe has done a tremendous job with Tigger and it was super nice of him to let me “borrow” Tigger back for a day. I would like to do more one day 100’s if they fit into the schedule. The problem is that they often don’t and I would rather ride multidays.

Bo's bare hoof after finishing both days of Git-R-Done barefoot!

It turned out that the rehab process for Bo’s ligament strain resulted in a lot of bonus benefits that I wasn’t expecting. I was riding Bo every single day for about an hour and a half, most of that at a trot. Barefoot! This really helped to slowly strengthen and develop his feet since we initially started with a half an hour of walking and worked our way up. Boy did those hooves toughen up, and self-wore so much that I was able to do almost no maintenance trims and also was able to see just how nice Bo’s feet were capable of becoming…and did become.

By the end of the season I was able to remove all four of Bo’s Renegade boots and rode him both days of the Git’r'Done ride totally barefoot. It worked so well that I have been continuing to ride him on sections of rides (where the footing is good) barefoot. I want to keep his feet this tough and healthy! I will still use boots on both horses the majority of the time but will put more effort into keeping the horses hooves healthy enough so that they are comfortable in all footing types without any type of hoof protection.

Chiefs hooves december 16 3009 023 300x225 Endurance riding goals for 2010: no real plans + what I learned in 2009

Notice the stress rings growing out.

On the plus side, Bo’s feet were turning out great while Chief’s were taking a turn for the worse. Chief didn’t handle all of the drugs and medication that he needed from the eyelid injury. Which resulted in a bit of laminitis or what you see later on as stress rings growing out on his hooves.

Karen Chaton and Pro Bono at the Death Valley Encounter endurance ride

Karen and Bo at DVE. Photo by Lynne Glazer (original coming soon)

Fortunately I was keeping a close eye (pardon the pun) on Chief and learned that by giving him a probiotic in advance of medications that he didn’t seem to be as reactive. It was a fine line for awhile keeping him on bute or banamine for the swelling of the injury and the higher hoof temps….and controlling the probiotics, feed and sensitivity that he was exhibiting from being medicated.

It was during this time that I learned how highly sensitive to drugs and meds that Chief is. During the entire time I’ve owned him I had never given him any drugs other than what the vets administered to do his teeth and when they gelded him.

Now I know that Chief is “druggie” lightweight and if I do need to give any kind of meds to him in the future I will get him on the probiotics right away and really keep a close eye on his hoof temps, overall demeanor and watch him like a hawk.

During this last season I learned that no matter how much I’ve learned previously from doing high mileage seasons that things change and there is still a lot to learn and experience.

I learned how to successfully rehab a suspensory ligament strain. In the 25,000+ miles my horses have completed in AERC this was my first suspensory injury.

Next time I will pay closer attention to that small nagging feeling that something isn’t right even when nobody else, including vets can see anything. If something doesn’t feel right, when it normally does feel right….don’t be stupid and ignore it! (guilty as charged)

I learned that I don’t like gluing hoofboots on my horses feet. I’d rather strap the horses hoof boots on– that way when we are done riding they can go back to being barefoot. Their hooves stay healthier that way, and it’s easier on my back too.

I learned that there is a reason why horses shouldn’t be competing even on trace or minute amounts of drugs that might still be in their system. Not because of performance enhancing reasons but because it isn’t worth the risk of what might be going on internally with a horse.

Riders should be less concerned with specifics relating to the AERC drug policy and instead realize that if a horse needed drugs a week or two prior to the ride, that it won’t hurt to give that horse a break. It’s easier to miss a ride, than it is to miss a horse.

I learned that if Chief suddenly starts pulling and acting obnoxious for no reason in situations where he didn’t before, that I need to figure out what the problem is. This time it turned out that he had sharp points on his teeth and needed dental work. Now my horses get their teeth checked even more frequently. Once a year is not enough.

Most of all what educational topics that were reinforced to me in 2009 is that an endurance rider needs to be flexible and have the ability to improvise. Just because you think you know something, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done or accomplished in a way that is different from what you “know”.

Chief being obnoxious! He was just showing off for Lynne Glazer (the ride photographer). See, he still needs to learn a few things!

There ain’t nothing wrong with making lemonade out of your lemons! Anybody thirsty?

Sometimes things work out the way they do for a reason even if that reason isn’t obvious at the time.

I missed getting to do the Tevis but got to do Virginia City. Bo’s injury kept him from doing some rides but really helped benefit his hoof health.

Having Bo miss a few rides gave Chief the opportunity early on to do enough mileage to place him 1st in my division, top ten in national mileage and also garnered us our 3rd Gold Medal XP award…as well as helping with the lifetime mileage goals.

Chief’s subsequent eyelid surgeries near the end of the season gave Bo the opportunity to prove himself on a couple of two day rides which gave him the points he needed to place 2nd in my division, behind Chief. I feel it’s better to look at what we did accomplish rather than what didn’t happen.

For now I need to kind of take a wait and see approach to how things are going to go for us in this new ride season. I would like to do at least one 1-day 100 this year. I’d also like for Bo to reach 2,000 miles. He’s at around 1700 right now.

The circumference of our planet is 24,901 miles. I’m not too far away from riding that many miles in AERC competition. Actually, I’d like to reach both 25k and 26k mile in 2010.

Ultimately I’d like for Chief to achieve 10,000 miles. He’s at 9175 right now. I’ve never had a horse reach this kind of mileage before. Weaver made it to 6300 and Rocky to 7600. So I don’t really know what to expect or what the future holds for us.

I’d love to be able to keep riding Chief simply because I love riding him so much, and also because I think he needs some more practice learning how to behave like I would for him to!

Finally – the best lessons that I took away from the 2009 ride season is not to take anything for granted. Appreciate every minute and every mile with each horse. Learn from the downsides and negative things that happen. Keep a positive outlook and no matter how important it seems at the time, no ride is worth it if it causes harm to your horse. Listen to your gut feeling if something doesn’t seem right (when you know what right feels like) even if there are no other signs. There will be other rides.

When you can — Go Ride, really ride! Then come back and have a nice big glass of ice cold lemonade!

Ride photos on this page: Grand Canyon XP: Steve Bradley. Virginia City 100: Merri Melde. DV Warmup/Coso and DVE: Lynne Glazer.

I made some new headers; website updates for Sunrise Ranch; kitchen remodel getting closer too!

Been getting a lot done this week though not as much as I would have liked. I did a bunch of updates on the sunriseranchrides.com website. From looking at it you probably won’t notice. Where it’s going to be noticed is on the back end when we receive the ride entries they are now going to come in formatted exactly how they need to be to reduce the amount of work that it previously took. That is a relatively small website. Later when I redo the XP site THAT will be a huge project. Best saved for later, when I have more time (which I don’t right now).

The kitchen remodel is nearing completion but will still need another couple of weeks probably. They expect to finish the stone floor today and may do some of the granite tomorrow and finish it up on Monday and Tuesday. We quickly grew tired of eating out so haven’t been…lol. We’ve been bbq’ing (yes, even in the snow!) and microwaving. Which is much better than eating out very often especially during the several snowstorms we’ve had this week.

I’ve also gotten a quite a bit done on some articles I’m working on for publication. The horses have been having a great time in the snow playing, rolling and romping about in it. Each day the snow melts quite a bit only to be covered up again in the afternoon or evening by several more inches of fresh white powder. The horses have all rolled enough to get clean. That won’t last once it warms up as there’ll be some really gnarly mud. Hoove are all looking good, staying nice and clean.

I also managed to create some new headers for my blog. These were all taken in the last ride season and are from these rides: Eastern Mojave Scenic, Bryce Canyon XP, Mt. Carmel Xp and the Virginia City 100 (that’s the camp shot). I experimented with a few others, but they didn’t make the cut.

Hoof Tougheners and Thrush Prevention

I try not to post too often on ridecamp. I think I’ve probably exceeded my allotment for the week, so will answer the question about what I use to toughen feet and treat thrush here in my blog. I’ve covered this stuff before, sometimes the posts get buried because they are a year or more old. You can do a search in the top right corner if you’d like to read more.

Even though I live in a climate that has seasons, I don’t generally have a problem with thrush in my horses feet. I usually clean their hooves out fairly regularly when it’s muddy just so they don’t end up with manure packed in there. It’s okay if it’s mud that is packed in the hooves, but unless you pull it out you don’t know that. So I pick their feet clean at least two or three times a week.

Over this last ride season I have talked a bit about thrush (see here) because it can be an issue for riders who are gluing hoof boots on their horses for an extended period of time. It’s not such a big deal if the boots are only on for a weekend or even one week for a multiday ride. However, once you start leaving boots on for weeks and weeks there is a good chance that some thrush will develop. It seems like that particular type of thrush can sometimes be a little bit different than what most of us view as regular thrush. I know my horse has thrush if I can dig out black goopey stuff mixed in with white flakey stuff, and it smells. The thrush that you may encounter from having a hoof sealed up for a few weeks may or may not smell and there may not be any visible signs other than your horse is tender footed. And again, if you pull the boots off and put your horse up then don’t ride right away or put boots on to ride you might not notice the subtle difference in hoof sensitivity. I tend to ride and work my horses pretty regularly barefoot and feel that leaving boots glued on for three weeks caused them to go through a couple week transition back to barefoot — even though when their shoes were pulled that didn’t happen. Go figure!

There are many products on the market that can be used to treat thrush. Do a google search and you’ll be overwhelmed with choices. I like to keep things fairly simple, and usually when something works I stick with it. That’s not to say that I won’t try to find something better, just that in the case of thrush I’ve found solutions that work well for me so I’m sticking with it.

For regular maintenance of the horses feet I simply clean out the frogs well like I mentioned before. I like to make sure that there isn’t any manure or rotting material stuck in there. Keeping things aired out helps a lot. Right now that isn’t going to happen as we have had mud nonstop for months now. Well, nonstop mud except for when we’ve had snow. Once I have the hoof clean I spray in apple cider vinegar. I purchase it by the gallon at the supermarket and it’s fairly inexpensive. The ph of the cider vinegar kills the thrush as does exposing it to air and removing any and all gunk that is in the foot. Most of the time this is all I need to do.

If it looks like I have a more obvious case of thrush then I get more serious. I use iodine and spray that into the frog crevices. (click for Jeffer’s gentle iodine spray) I don’t like to use iodine very often because it can be very drying and caustic and is hard on the soft tissues of the frog. I know some people will probably choose not to use iodine because of that. I don’t use it very often because it will dry out and harden a frog. It’s a catch 22 between keeping the hoof healthy and not causing any additional harm to it. Spraying iodine usually does the trick after just a couple of applications.

The next thing I use to treat thrush is also a good way to harden the feet up. It’s called Durasole. Here is a previous post that I did on it. I apply it with a toothbrush and coat the bottom of the sole with it as well as get into the frog crevices if I think there is thrush in there. I *do not* coat the entire frog with Durasole because it is also very drying and while I want tough feet that are thrush free I don’t want rock hard frogs. (though in the summer sometimes they get pretty hard anyway) Just be careful not to over do it with this stuff, a little goes a long way.

The best way to keep thrush at bay is by keeping poop and goop out of your horses feet and keeping the horses active and moving about in a variety of terrain. The methods that I have mentioned for thrush treatment work for me well enough that I don’t feel the need to try anything else. I like using the apple cider vinegar the best.

I always rinse my beet pulp well and pay close attention to sugars and NSC levels as a way to keep my horses feet from getting sensitive.

Also on the topic of hardening up hooves I’d like to make sure everybody understands that a lot of what you see in your horses feet comes from what went into your horse as well as what their environment is like. It would be ideal if our horses all could live in large enough areas so that they never had to step in their own poop and could get to dry ground often enough while also going over pea gravel and a variety of terrain that would help keep the feet in good condition.

I can do all the right things to the outside of my horses feet (keeping them clean, good trimming, etc.) and it won’t amount to a hill of beans if I feed them the wrong kind of feed or do something else management wise that can make their hooves sore. Having good hard feet that are free of thrush requires an overall management plan that involves so much more than what kind of products to apply to the bottom of the feet.

So what exactly is that icky smelly stuff called Ichthamol really good for?

Lots of horse people have a tub of ichthamol in their tack room somewhere. I know I do! I recently used the stuff which got me curious about what the other uses are for it. Ichthamol isn’t something that I have used very often.

Ichthammol is a black, tarry substance that is extracted from rock schist (also known as oil shale). It is known to have antiseptic properties and may also be effective as an anti-inflammatory, antibiotic and anti-fungal. It is safe to use as a topical treatment and is most commonly found as an ointment. The ointments usually also contain an oily substance, such as mineral oil or beeswax, which helps the active ingredient of ichthammol to penetrate the skin.

At Death Valley when Chief felt a little footsore going over the rocks during the ride I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to pack his feet with ichthamol later that day and put boots on him overnight.

I’ve had numerous horse people tell me that ichthamol is great for healing various hoof ailments and works great as a drawing agent. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with Chief, just that he is normally not hoof sensitive. I’ve known for some time that there were stress rings (caused by separating laminae) growing out on Chief’s feet that were caused from the stress of multiple eyelid surgeries, antibiotics, etc. and that it might catch up with him.

I cleaned Chief’s feet out really well then smothered the entire bottom of both front feet, including the frog crevices with ichthamol. It’s messy and it stinks! Then, I threw on a pair of Epics. I knew doing this wouldn’t hurt anything, and if he was brewing an abscess or just a little sore, maybe from a case of deep thrush that wasn’t readily visible – it might really help. Ithchamol is a drawing agent and it is also antiseptic. I left the boots on overnight and the next day. During the time I kept checking to see if there were any other signs of what the problem might be. There was no swelling anywhere, his legs stayed nice and tight and he didn’t appear to be sensitive anywhere. Chief was standing square, alternating resting diagonals like normal. He wasn’t trying to get off of any part of his foot and didn’t exhibit any signs of anything bothering him, other than not being ridden again.

The next day we trotted Chief for Kristen (vet) and she said she didn’t see anything in a tight circle either direction. I don’t know if the ichthamol helped but it certainly didn’t hurt. Not riding him again didn’t hurt anything either. No use making a minor problem into something more serious, right?

Still no heat anywhere, no swelling or signs of anything being wrong. Chris Heron put hoof testers on both of Chief’s front hooves and got no reaction at all. Which is what I would normally expect. I think that the problem might be a little higher up and in the area where the stress rings are.

No signs of an abscess to date. So far (knocking on wood) I have never had a single abscess in a working endurance horse. One of these days it might happen!

I put the boots and ichthamol back on Chief’s front feet and left them till we got home. By then it appeared that Chief had recovered. At least enough to be able to trot soundly barefoot over the gravel in the driveway without a single flinch. Since then I’ve kept him barefoot and have treated for thrush plus put some Durasole on the bottom of the sole a couple of times.

I think that I’ll take it easy with Chief while his damaged hooves grow out the rest of the way. I will be more careful about riding him in rocky terrain and will be more careful in selecting which rides, if any, that he does. I may also use boots with pads on him until I am able to feel confident that he is back to having his solid footed and not sensitive feet back. I am also going to get a couple of radiographs taken of his feet just to see if anything else might be going on in there. It’ll be nice to see where everything is inside those feet, and also get an idea of how thick his sole callous is. I’ll post more about this later.

Back to talking about ichthamol and what other things it’s good for. I did a quick search online and found that ichthamol has many other uses:

Use ichthammol to draw out splinters (like wood or glass) from the skin. Cleanse the affected area and then put some ointment on it. Cover it with a bandage and check after a day to see if the splinter is at the surface of the skin. Use tweezers to pull out the foreign object.

Treat boils, carbuncles or abscesses with an ointment containing 20 percent or more of ichthammol. A staphylococcus infection causes boils, which can swell and have pus. Draw the pus out by applying some ointment to the boil; let it form a head, lance it and then let the pus drain.

Relieve the discomfort of painful bites and stings with ichthammol ointment. For bites or stings from bees, wasp, spiders or other insect, apply some ointment to the area. Be careful with insect bites, as some people can have an allergic reaction to these and may need medical attention.

Apply a 20-percent ichthammol ointment to animals like horses with wounds, dry hooves, inflammations or skin irritations. Use ichthammol ointment once or twice daily on the area.

This is on the jar of ichthamol:

* Topical salve for horse wounds, dry hooves, skin irritations, and more
* Soothing ointment also acts as a topical antiseptic to draw out infection
* Convenient and economically priced 14 oz jar saves you time and money

Relieve skin irritations. Treat dry, cracked horse hooves. Versatile topical wound ointment contains 20% Ichthammol. Use on wounds, minor skin irritations, hooves, inflammations, and more. Works as an emollient and mild antiseptic. Relieves itching and helps draw out infection and pus from open sores and wounds. Simply apply to affected area twice daily with or without a bandage. Economically priced 14 oz plastic jar is a must for any stall, barn, or stable. Salve is black colored.

Has anybody else had good luck using ichthmaol? Is there anything that works better?

What are the best headlamps?

Anybody here have any recommendations? I still have my old original blue Petzel headlamp that is probably a dozen years old, or more. It has 5 LD lights on it that can flash or be solid. It is “okay” for doing barn chores in the winter, but is just not very bright. I use it every evening this time of year. It is not really that great for use on a 100. It is not bright enough to read a map in the dark (tho might be if you are half my age and have perfect eyesight) and definitely not real great at finding trail ribbons on bushes in the dark. I have some other headlamps that I got from Ebay that are brighter, but they are not very reliable, bump them the wrong way and they quit working.

I would love to hear what others like or used for headlamps or have used that they though worked well, and lasted long enough to be worth the $$?

Tigger on the Virginia City 100, September 2009. He finished 10th!

I don’t know that I’ll need a headlamp for very many 100’s this year but I definitely need headlamps on a daily basis at home this time of year. I can also use the headlamps at winter rides for a few months during the year. Last year I only did two one day 100’s, so I’m not really a big one day 100 mile rider. Some years I do less than that. There just aren’t that many to choose from.

It’s not that I don’t like riding 100’s, I just don’t find them to be that much of a challenge compared to doing multidays, and…there aren’t that many 100’s to choose from that fit into my schedule.

I may do the 20 Mule Team 100, possibly Tevis. Everything else seems to conflict with multiday rides, which I prefer. I need more horses/time/money in order to fit in more one day 100’s. Last year I did the 20 Mule Team 100 and the Virginia City 100.

I have the light up glo-bars that are battery operated that I got from campmor and they are fantastic. Love them! I use them on the horses on 100’s, and also to hang out at night in camp if I have a friend arriving in the dark. They are solid or flash and work for literally hundreds of hours – way better money spent than on a regular glo-bar.

Comment below or email me with your recommendaitions for headlamps. Thanks!

Organic Selenium & Horse Guard Vitamins – Save 15%!!

Read all the way to the bottom to get the discount code!

In the past I posted about what I feed my competing endurance horses, including Mega Dose vitamins (more on that here, too). I’ve been really happy with these vitamins and especially like that everything my horses need in a vitamin is included in the formulation – they get all of these things (copied from their website):

What Mega Dose does for your horse

Mega Dose contains the complete balanced vitamin mineral supplement of Horse Guard. Additionally it provides Mega doses of certain nutrients that horse owners often have to add to their normal supplement to accomplish the higher doses required in special circumstances.

This product is appropriate for all classes of horses including pregnant mares, foals, growing horses, performance horses, and older horses. The vitamin mineral portion offers protection from deiciency. Avoiding deiciency is an important step in maintaining health and maximizing performance. Intense farming practices have provided feeds that are often deicient in important minerals. Storage reduces many vitamins to less than half their harvest levels. Intestinal problems are prevalent in horses.

1. Biotin, Methionine, and Zinc are “mega dosed” for the horses that are being supplemented especially to promote hoof strength and suppleness. Most products contain little or no biotin that is by far, the most expensive vitamin. Biotin is recognized in the ield of nutritional science as a B
vitamin that has been proven to strengthen hoof structure and reduce irregularities that reduce hoof strength. Three studies have indicated that the treatment dose is 15 mg/day to a 1000 LB horse. There is 16 mg/day provided in the Mega-Dose formula. The prevention dose is the 4.5 mg /day available in Horse Guard or Super Gain products.

2. Vitamin E and Organic Selenium are “mega dosed” for those horses that do not respond to average levels of selenium supplementation. Vitamin E is synergistic to selenium making both nutrients more effective.

3. Mega-Dose provides 3.0 mg. of selenium and 5000 IU of Vitamin E per day (It is safe at this level for all horses.)

4. Yeast Concentrate is “mega dosed” improving digestion and vitality.

5. Bacterial and Yeast inoculants are included. The Bacterial and Yeast Inoculation increases health, eficiency and disease resistance in the gut. These living microbes are part of the living gut. They are critical to health, growth, and strength. These individual inoculants are given to horses to prevent disease and make the horse capable of enduring stressful situations. When you feed Mega-Dose you are inoculating 100 million “good bacteria” and 4500 mg of Yeast concentrate daily.

6. Added Lysine- Horse Guard, Mega Dose and Super Gain provide 700 mg per day. Lysine is the
only amino acid (protein building block) the National Research Council lists a daily requirement for horses.

7. Balance-Approximately 6 trillion nutritional-chemcal reactions occur in the body every second. Each reaction is inluenced by others. The balance and the form of vitamins and minerals are critical.

Click here to read more about organic selenium, or watch the video below.

I’ve also got some exciting news to share – HorseGuard has graciously given me a discount count that I can share with my friends and blog readers. If you’d like to order ANYTHING from their website you can get 15% off by entering this code when you get to the check-out section: endurancefromkaren

So if you need a mega-vitamin for your horse or a specific supplement in particular, check them out. I have used the MegaDose vitamins on my horses for the last few years and have been really happy with the results. I like that these vitamins come in pelleted form and I can feed them by themselves without having to mix in with additional feed. The horses eat the pellets right up too! It’s great that everything my horses need is in one vitamin including the organic selenium, support for healthy hooves and probiotics to help them handle the stress and rigors of travel and competing in endurance rides.

Also, worth mentioning – Chief was drug tested at the finish of a three day 155 mile pioneer ride while being fed HorseGuard MegaDose vitamins daily with a negative result. Which is good news, nothing in these vitamins is illegal for AERC competition!

2009 DVE Results are up!

Check: http://www.sunriseranchrides.com to download the .pdf files.

If you spot any errors let me know. Thanks!

Organizing my tack room. What was old is new again!

Here is my new (old) tack room! It is basically the same but there is more storage in it now. We pulled out the existing cupboards and cabinets and replaced them with new (old) ones. The new cabinets came out of our kitchen and are 22 years old. My tack room now looks a lot like the inside of the house used to look (but not anymore, lol). It worked out really well because now I have quite a bit more storage space and can stay even better organized than before.

It can be difficult at times to stay organized and keep things neat when you have as many things as I do for each horse. I keep extra sets of tack at home that will work with each horse so that I can ride any of them without needing to pull tack out of the trailer. This keeps me from arriving at a ride and finding out that I left something important at home!

Most of my tack is still the original things that I started with. For example, I am still riding in Weaver’s original Sports Saddle. I am also using the first sets of reins that were purchased for each horse. Biothane really does last forever and most of it is still the original stuff that I got for each horse.

In addition to my tack room housing a lot of my tack, it is also a feed room. Each of the four white feed containers you see can hold two bags of horse feed. That works out to eight bags of feed, which is a lot and more than I really need. I rarely feed my horses grain or even beet pulp in between competitions.

There are also two five gallon buckets with screw on lids in the corner behind the feed bins that can be used to store additional feed. Right now I am storing extra horse sheets in them. There is one more bucket with a screw on lid which is where I keep the loose salt. I highly recommend getting feed containers that can be sealed to keep bugs and rodents out. I really hate when mice get in the tack room! They won’t find food in there but will nest and can do a lot of damage to my tack and horse blankets. This is why you see everything placed into sealed containers.

Here are some of the things I’ve done to keep such an enormous amount of tack under control.

1) Bridle bags. A few years ago I made up a few dozen bridle bags. I gave a lot of them away to friends and kept a dozen for myself. The cost worked out to be really inexpensive per bag, only a couple of bucks each. I was able to make them in multiple colors so that I could keep each horses tack in their own colored bridle bags. The bags also work great to store things such as girths, fly masks and extra halters or ropes. Plus they can each hold an entire set of biothane – bridle, breastcollar, reins, crupper, girth, etc.

2) Rubbermaid type storage containers. I have one larger one that is like a tack trunk. In it I store leg wraps, protective leg boots, extra saddle pads, horse blankets and sheets. I have another smaller one that also contains horse blankets and rump rugs. These kinds of containers come in all different shapes and sizes. Be sure to get ones with lids that snap tightly shut.

3) Large trash containers. These also work out well for storing larger winter horse blankets and also bale and crew bags. You can also use these kinds of containers to put feed in.

4) Feed containers with screw on lids. These are really great for keeping out rodents and bugs. They are square on the bottom so make it easy to store several easily. I also use these in the horse trailer. I don’t always need to keep four different kinds of feed for my horses so will sometimes put other items in them to store – such as blankets, bale bags, etc. The kinds of things that clutter the room up quickly.

5) Wall hooks. The pine peg bridle hooks came with the tack room. I did take down one row on the side of the room where the new counter and cabinets went and placed it up near the ceiling on the side where I was already hanging bridles and ropes. This makes these items a little high for me to reach so I placed items that I don’t use as often but still might need from time to time. I try to always keep enough halters and ropes at home for the horses that they can be found easily if I am gone.

6) Door organization. On the inside of the tack room door I also have blanket bars. They aren’t really big enough to hang heavy blankets on but work okay for a fleece sheet or a saddle pad. I also have an organizer that hangs in the middle of things that I want to access while working in the barn and the door is open. This keeps me from going in and out of the room and tracking up the floor.

7) The floor is carpeted. I know it would be easier to maintain something besides carpet, but I really like the warmer feel of having the carpeting in there. I have an extra scrap over the entry way and a larger utility rug in the center of the rug so maintenance usually means shaking those items out and then vacuuming everything else once in awhile.

8) Saddle covers. I keep some sort of a cover over all of my saddles. This keeps the dust off and protects them. I made some of these covers to match the bridle bags. A plain old bath towel will work just as well.

9) Cabinet storage. I try to keep the items that I might need the most often in the easiest to access cupboard. I have medications separated into their own space, hoof care items are also in their own area, as are supplements.

10) Shelves. Items that I need to use regularly or that are shaped so that they won’t fit well into an actual cupboard go on the shelves. I try to keep in mind that the more stuff I have ‘out’, the more work it will be to keep cleaned.

Years ago I tried to hang my horse blankets. That doesn’t work well in my climate. I found that almost any kind of horse tack (biothane excepted) or blanket will fall apart faster or wear quicker if it is exposed versus being sealed and protected. You’ll notice in the photos that I do not have any leather items exposed. Those items are all in the bridle bags or the plastic containers.

Items that are temperature sensitive are stored in the house so they won’t be exposed to temperature extremes. There are lots of products that mostly suffer from it’s packaging falling apart. It’s no fun to find that everything in your cupboard is sticky or glued down to the shelf so be sure to keep that in mind if you live in a climate that has a lot of temperature changes. My tack room isn’t heated so it can get very cold out there.

I have outside storage lockers that are tall where I store additional items like more buckets and hoof boots. I also use more rubbermaid containers for that kind of stuff and keep everything labeled with duct tape and black markers and stack them in the hay storage area. I had an idea for better organizing my hoof boots but haven’t had the time to work on that yet. That is something that used to be a lot easier too but now with most of the boots having materials on them that will disintegrate if exposed to heat, sun, cold or whatever – they now also need to be kept out of the elements as much as possible to ensure their longevity.

Here are all of the photos together in one gallery:

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