Where's the Farrier?

Trimming and shoeing horses' hooves is hard work. I guess that's why there are very few people who are willing to do it these days. The muscles of the back, arms and legs get a workout while doing this. My nearest farrier is 72 miles yonder, so when I get him to come, we usually try to do ten to twelve horses in a day and that day's work costs me from $300-400, depending on how many are trimmed and shod, plus lunch. I don't usually keep them shod, though, so I have been trying to do all my farrier work myself to save money.
When you have 15 horses, though, that is a lot of feet to keep trimmed. When I first quit my cushy town job and moved back to the ranch, I could only manage to trim one or two hooves a day, at most. A while back, I trimmed six feet in one day! I am getting tougher.
I usually try to wait until after a rain or other moisture to soften up their hooves before I attempt to trim. It makes the job a lot easier. We had a long dry spell after all the rain that fell in May. It just shut off and there has only been about an inch or two that has fallen since. So after a rain, I have my work cut out for me. They all need trimmed three or four times a year.
It is better to have someone hold the horse while trimming, rather than tying them up, but that is usually not an option for me. I did have some hunters staying at the ranch the first part of September, and I had one of them hold a couple for me while I trimmed. He had filled his tag on the way in, so he had a lot of idle time while waiting for the other two to get their game.
I learned a little trick from my trainer that helps a bunch when they don't want to stand still and keep trying to take their feet away. You just lunge them (make them run around in circles) until they decide it is easier to stand and let you work on their feet than it is to do otherwise. Works like a charm and it also is good for their minds and training. Usually only 15 to 20 minutes of lunging is all it takes, but the more stubborn ones take a little longer, some up to 45 minutes.
A friend asked me if I was not afraid of getting kicked while trimming the back feet. The back ones are actually easier to trim than the fronts. You just sort of bend your knees and balance the foot on one knee with an arm over the crook of their leg, while standing slightly to the side of them. That way, if they try to kick, you can hold their leg steady if you are strong enough, and if not, it will toss you back and out of their line of fire. The front feet are more of a problem because you have to brace them between your legs so that you can use both hands to trim. You have to lean in slightly under their bellies, and if they try to jerk one away, you have to be quick to get out from under them. I have had their feet get tangled in my pants leg a little and have ripped more than one pair of pants, plus their feet can come down on the top of your foot if you are not quick enough.
I have a pair of very large palomino paint horses and one of them did a number on the top of my foot while I was trimming her last summer. She jerked her foot away, and it came down right on the arch of my left foot. It is still a little tender in that spot. Lady is almost 17 hands and probably weighs around 1,200 pounds. At right is her offspring, King, and he is slightly larger than Lady, but he's a teddy bear and never tries to take a foot away.
You have to be careful not to trim their hooves too short. They can be crippled that way. First you take your hoof pick and clean out the bottom of the foot. There is usually a little rim where the hoof wall meets the sole. It is best to try to trim the hoof wall even with the sole, then trim up the frog (the rubbery, v-shaped thing in the center of their foot) so that they are not putting too much pressure on it after you have trimmed the hoof wall. Then file down the freshly trimmed hoof with the rasp to make it all smooth and avoid cracks later.
Simple, but hard work, and I recommend you hire a farrier if there is one closer than 72 miles! Oh my, it looks like rain, where are my farrier tools?

Fall Work

The temperature has fallen abruptly and that reminded me I have several tasks that need to be done. First on the list was to get some wood cut and split when I seriously thought I would awaken to a blanket of snow the next morning. I lit the furnace and promised myself I would cut some wood the next day.
I began the woodcutting by working over my old chainsaw. I sharpened the chain, but it didn't want to run after being stored all spring and summer. I put fresh gas in, then pulled the spark plug. It was fouled, so I cleaned it and put it back in, not having a new one. The saw then ran for about an hour; enough time for me to cut about three days' wood. The wood was a little damp from the rain that fell the night before, so I decided to wait another day until the wood dried out a little.
The saw still didn't want to run when I went back after the job, so I decided it will have to wait until I get a new spark plug and also a new chain. I have sharpened the one I have so many times, there isn't much left of it. But these items probably can't be found in the nearest town, which is 30 miles away. I will probably have to travel at least 60 miles and maybe 100, or more, to get them.
Abandoning the wood cutting, I turned to roofing. The wind has taken most of the roofing off the west sides of my barn and a couple of sheds. It is a job I have put off as long as I can. The snow and rainstorms of this spring certainly pinpointed all the trouble spots with a vengeance.
I have quite a collection of galvanized steel that has collected here through the years from buildings torn down in the oilfield and used mobile home skirting, so I decided to put it to use in covering the holes in the roofs. I don't particularly like getting up on a very steep roof anymore. I used to like climbing around on roofs as a youngster, and would even leap off a low-hanging edge to the ground. My agility level has gone down dramatically as I age, however, and I no longer relish the thought. Yesterday as I teetered around on the steep roof of one shed, I almost knocked my ladder to the ground. "Don't do that, you dummy," I told myself, thinking that poor Nacho wouldn't know what to do to help me get down.
Today I made blisters on my hand using tin snips to cut the metal, and where the hammer rubbed against my forefinger as I hammered many, many nails through steel. Although the outside Farenheight temperature was only 65 degrees, it got hot up there on the roof in the afternoon, so I came down. I will go riding for awhile, then try to finish the first shed before dark.
Well, I went riding, but I didn't quite finish the roof. I got sidetracked by going after the mail, then unloading the wood I cut yesterday. That's the beauty of being self-employed. There's always tomorrow, and you don't have to explain to anyone why you didn't finish the job.

Watching Mustangs

I attended the Wyoming Mustang Challenge at the State Fair this year. I have never been a big fan of mustangs, but I gained a whole new appreciation for them at this contest. I had two friends in the competition, so my butt was glued to the bleachers for the duration of the two-day affair.
Area horse trainers were given the opportunity to test their horse training skills against others on a young horse that had never before been handled by humans. They were assigned a mustang through a draw pot and had about a hundred days to work with the animal and teach it as much as possible. The nice young man who starts colts for me was in the competition and I was asked to write a recommendation for him to be included. Another fine young man from the ranch I grew up on was also involved. They didn't win the competition, but their horses were some of the best trained and actually some of the high sellers in the adoption "sale" that followed. I kind of felt like the folks who voted with their dollars maybe saw some things the judges missed.
The horses were all three and four year-old geldings that had probably only been touched once before at the time they were castrated. This, of course, would not have been a positive experience with humans for them. So the trainers started with a large animal that not only had a disturst of humans, but probably also a fear.
It was simply amazing what they were able to accomplish with some of these animals in 100 days. Several of them had their mustangs jumping and nearly all of them could work cattle and even rope and stop a cow from their horse. One girl actually had hers jumping rope. Several of them could stand up on their mount's backs and one guy would do a back flip to get in the saddle and then do a front flip on his dismount.
I only saw one mustang buck with his trainer. He bucked so hard the rider's boot flew off. The guy was one of the older trainers out there, and he stayed astride. He was laughing as he rode out of the arena after retrieving his boot and getting back on. He tipped his hat. The next day he explained the mustang's behavior somewhat, saying he had neglected to warm him up properly, then gave him a "rude spur." The bucking exhibition rather hurt the horses price in the adoption, however. It brought nine hundred dollars, which was more than I thought it might.
The high-selling mustang brought $5,000. He was a large, high stepping bay ridden in a tight tie-down, and I didn't think he was one of the better trained horses. They had noted that he could be registered with the Pinto Association due to some white spots he had, and I think that is what caused his price to go up. The one I thought was the best trained brought $4,100 in the sale. He was doing high jumps while his owner shot a pistol and would drag a kid around the arena on a plastic tarp at a full gallop. His trainer said he started riding him the first day he had him home. He was the overall reserve champion in the competition.
Some of these "Mustangs" didn't fit the typical body and bone structure type of a feral horse. Many of them looked like typical Quarter Horses, and I suspect some are closely related to domestic horses that have been turned out on the range to run with the wild ones. At any rate, the Mustang Challenge Competition was a stroke of genius by someone to promote the training and adoption of these animals which are too plenteous and posing problems on the public range.
For more information, see http://mustangheritagefoundation.org/.