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altivoOr rather here. A load finally arrived this morning. This should be enough to get through the winter but we'd like this much again. And I can't afford to buy this much again right now. At least, not at $8 per bale. The hay is good, but has a high percentage of alfalfa which throws my feeding calculations off and will force me to rework everything.
Meanwhile, the horses are now eating beet pulp as if they always had it with their food. In fact, the two boys eat theirs first, before touching the hay. Tess is a bit more tentative, but she's been eating real grass the last few days and I'm sure mashed beet fiber hardly measures up to that. Her feed tub was nonetheless empty this morning, with lick marks on the bottom. I expect the same tomorrow.
It's darned good that we got rid of those sheep when we did. Otherwise, things would be looking really bleak here.
The little barn is starting to look like a test kitchen or some kind of laboratory, with work bench, sink, measuring implements, and galvanized cans of ingredients. Each horse has a white plastic "lunch bucket" with a lid that can be used to soak beet pulp and then measure grain and supplements on top. Then we carry it to their stalls and dump it inot the permanent feeders there. All the equipment was already here, scattered about in two barns and the garage. The plastic "sink" is a laundry tub on legs that we had intended to use to replace the old concrete and cast iron double tubs at our old house in Chicago but never got around to doing it. It has been sitting in the arena here for 14 years, unassembled. It works nicely in the little barn, where we have an on-demand water heater and good lighting. We could prepare complex rations there even in winter, though using the house kitchen will be more convenient once it gets below freezing out. I'll probably move the grain and fiber bins into the garage then and make "lunch boxes" up at the kitchen counter each morning.
Tomorrow, the farrier...
Meanwhile, the horses are now eating beet pulp as if they always had it with their food. In fact, the two boys eat theirs first, before touching the hay. Tess is a bit more tentative, but she's been eating real grass the last few days and I'm sure mashed beet fiber hardly measures up to that. Her feed tub was nonetheless empty this morning, with lick marks on the bottom. I expect the same tomorrow.
It's darned good that we got rid of those sheep when we did. Otherwise, things would be looking really bleak here.
The little barn is starting to look like a test kitchen or some kind of laboratory, with work bench, sink, measuring implements, and galvanized cans of ingredients. Each horse has a white plastic "lunch bucket" with a lid that can be used to soak beet pulp and then measure grain and supplements on top. Then we carry it to their stalls and dump it inot the permanent feeders there. All the equipment was already here, scattered about in two barns and the garage. The plastic "sink" is a laundry tub on legs that we had intended to use to replace the old concrete and cast iron double tubs at our old house in Chicago but never got around to doing it. It has been sitting in the arena here for 14 years, unassembled. It works nicely in the little barn, where we have an on-demand water heater and good lighting. We could prepare complex rations there even in winter, though using the house kitchen will be more convenient once it gets below freezing out. I'll probably move the grain and fiber bins into the garage then and make "lunch boxes" up at the kitchen counter each morning.
Tomorrow, the farrier...
