Removing Strings & Bale Management

First tie a big string to your scissors so you don't
loose them in the hay.
At least that was the theory, mine are out in the
field somewhere,
good thing they are safety scissors...
(dull ends, only half as dangerous
to misstepping animals)

Cut the string and hold it in one hand, try and
get as many of the strings as possible
(less work).
I like to go in a bit of a spiral so I can keep
the strings I have loose and I can free up
more to cut.

Pull & Voilà!
Your bale strings should all
come off together in an easy
to tie bundle

 It's important to remove the strings with horses because they can get caught in them (especially as the bale gets eaten & the string are loose). Also they get wrapped in machinery used in the field. Plastic twine degrades very slowly, if you can use, or have your hay guy use, natural twine it's much better (less likely to hurt animals & it degrades).

It's easier to remove the tight strings right away, rather then being too busy to do it for 2 weeks then going around after the bales are rain soaked and the animals have been eating them.


Of course, if you remove the strings you're going to loose more hay to being trampled on then if you'd left the strings on. So it's a judgement call.

To tip over the bale, pick a nice spot about 1/2' from the top and push, HARD. If you can get a rocking motion going it's easier, but usually if you can't push it hard enough to get it over the first go you probably need a second person. Pushing down hill is easier then up.

Winter Bale Grazing

Check in with me in 6 months to see how stupid an idea this was.

The bales are much farther apart then they are supposed to be but we've got 15 out in the field and we'll have 15 more under a tarp somewhere plus more in the barn; but we're going to start with this and see how quickly all the animals get super fat. The cows look like we blew them up with bicycle pumps!

They didn't have a round bale for 2-3 days (too much rain for delivery) so they were hungry when we put the bales out, but so far so good. They've only taken down one & there is still lots left to it.

I decided to leave the bale strings on for now. The article I cited before even mentioned that strings are a major problem with this system. Either you take them off & the bales are less able to stand up to elements/animals; or you leave them on & now you've got bale strings all over your field. Bale strings get caught up in machinery & animals and trip nice farmers (me!), so they are dangerous. The best option given was to switch to twine which will degrade; we didn't have the option of requesting that this year (barely got our hay as it was - everyone is busy!)

More hay Saturday/Sunday - looking forward to a full barn!

To each their own, stall.

 Whether you want to use straw or shavings depends on a number of factors, the first of which is probably cost. For various reasons, pine shaving prices have been going through the roof lately! Although shavings are the cleanest, easiest to manage, and nicest smelling for horses; there are lots of reasons why you might want to pick straw instead.

One of which is a horse who likes to churn up his stall. Maddie has a little trouble settling down at night, this isn't overly surprising, I've found the same with most "hot" blooded horses. As a result his stall become a miserable mess of manure and shavings. Either we can go through bags & bags of shavings and his stall will always be a mess, or you switch him to straw. I'm using the dry, chopped old straw from the loft in his stall. Every night that he stays in there, I'll go in and pick out any stray poops, and add some more fluffy straw to the top. This gives him a lovely warm bed to lie in, and I don't have to toss out half a stall of shavings every day.

Maddie's Domain

Plus once it's time to clean out the whole stall it goes straight out to the manure pile in a glorious steaming heat of near-compost!





Meg is the complete opposite, she is very tidy, and although she frequently lies in it (oh the joys of light coloured horses!!) she rarely steps in her manure. So for her we have shavings over mats, I can easily pick up the few poops; and every day I move the dirtiest shavings into her "pee spot". I've also swept back the front to keep her hay clean when she eats, I do the same thing for Maddie's stall.

Meg's Home

The horses are rarely in for very long, we've got the liberty of keeping them out as much as possible. Both healthier for the horses, and less money and work for me!

HKH 101 Rain Sheets

Below about 14C, if it's raining outside your horses should really be wearing rain sheets or staying inside. That's just cold enough if they get soaked you're chancing health problems.

I've seen lots of people put on sheets improperly so here are the steps to doing it correctly.

The blankets should be opened and folded correctly before bringing into the stall with your horse. If the horse is skittish or not used to blankets they should be tied properly. Fold the blanket by bringing the back up to the front and the right side over to the left, that way you simply place the blanket at the horses withers, then you can unfold the blanket quietly over to the right, then backwards, onto the horse. This is a far better method then flinging the blanket over the horses back because (1) you can get the blanket straps hung up in any light fixtures on the ceilings (2) even a calm horse can get distracted and then spook when they see something flying at them.

Once you've got the blanket over your horses back, always do the front straps up first! That way if the aliens land, an earthquake strikes, or you horses just spooks at nothing it will remain as-safely-as-possible attached to the horse until you are able to catch and secure the blanket. If it were just attached at the legs or belly when the horse took off you'd very quickly have a tangled, panicked & dangerous horse.

Always check your blanket instructions before getting ready to put a new blanket on your horse, they are all different. When a blanket fits properly you shouldn't need to cross any straps you aren't supposed to (like leg straps), but there are lots of little tricks to get an big blanket to fit a slightly smaller horse. Used blankets can be a real money saver, and little rips and tears can be mended, or sent to blanket specializing seamstress (ask at the feed store). Blankets can also be re-water proofed, and you can find those products on the internet.

Winter Bale Grazing

I was watching FarmGate the other day (don't laugh at me! nothing was on ...) and they started talking about winter bale grazing.

The fields in June before the animals got here

To summarize, feeding cows in an intense area and then spreading the nutrients out on your fields in the spring only re-captures about 1% of the nitrogen in the grass for the following season. Also you've got a hard-pack of manure that takes a lot of labour/heavy equipment to clean out. Versus feeding the cattle out on the pasture during the winter disperses the nutrients from their waste around the field (so you don't have to use gas/labour to move it) and the field recaptures about 34% of the nitrogen. Making a huge difference in the quality of the grass available to the cattle in the next year.

The suggestion is that you could leave the bales out in the field right where the baler spits them out (provided you had a lot of acreage to work with!) and feed the cattle that way, greatly reducing fuel & labour costs.

So... I'm going to have to adjust my plans a little bit! I was really thinking more about big hooves stomping on the ground, but as I learned it's really only going to be an issue in the spring when it's really wet (plus our fields are really well drained, so it may not be a big issue at all). If we fed the cattle by placing their bales all around the field instead of in just one location we wouldn't have anything to clean up in the spring and the whole field would be fertilized.

There are other issues, such as, that the area under the bales can become snow-packed from high traffic and warm up more slowly in the spring. Also if there is a lot of hay left over it can make it very difficult for the grass to grow; and you can be spreading lots of weed seeds into your field.

Also if we wanted to place all out bales out at the beginning of winter and use electric to keep the animals confined to a few bales at a time, the horses couldn't go out in the field at all from the time we placed them (since cow hay is generally not suitable for horses). Buying and placing the hay now would save us by having the bales delivered all at one time, (that also means paying for an entire season of hay at once) and make it easier to get them out in the field.

Last, but not least, my hay guy has dropped off the face of the earth, so I also have to find more hay first.

Either way I've got some more thinking/planning to do before the snow!

HK 101: Leather or Synthetic Tack?

The new-to-us Wintec Western Saddle
(yes the stirrups are upside down in the pic)

I always, always use leather halters on my horses. It's very important if they are out in the field, or in their stall, or in cross-ties and they get hung-up that they are able to escape so they don't break their necks/backs/legs etc.

When it comes to tack, I'm more on the synthetic side. All my bridles are leather but for around-the-farm purposes I much prefer synthetic saddles. They are much easier to care for, and are much less stingy about humidity or temperature.

I bought my Thoroughgood Griffen A/P saddle for around $500 on consignment, and it is a wonderful saddle for schooling! Very comfortable, and has the neat ability to move the stoppers around under the flap so you can "change" it from an A/P to a dressage, etc.

To get the full western set-up will probably be a little less, but we're going to use an english bridle since this is just around the yard sort of riding (or I could just take the nose-band off and pretend it's a head-stall). I'm going to get some Tapaderos, which are stirrup covers which prevent your foot from slipping through; that way our relatives can ride in sneakers when they come up for trail-rides!

Nothing beats a well worn beautiful leather jumping saddle for serious competition, but if you're just riding around at home, taking lessons or showing in schooling shows, why spend the money or deal with the upkeep?

Fly Mask Info

There are lots of stories floating around the horse world about non-equiestrians calling the ASPCA because someone has blinded all their horses and put them out in the field. I've even been asked a few times.

Megs modeling here no-ears variety
Maddie does have covered ears on his mask.

Fly masks keep the flies off the horses face, but they are as see-through as sunglasses for people. Some have ears on the mask, and these are usually very long giving your horse a very strange appearance. Some have funny faces on them.

My guys go out in their fly masks every day during the summer, except if it's going to rain. When it's rainy or dark, combined with the fly masks you can be inadvertently actually blinding your horses. 

Only under special circumstances (blind-ness, eye-injury, sever sun reaction) should a horse be wearing a fly-mask outside at night, and you've got to make sure your paddocks are very safe. All fly masks should come with straps that can release if the horse gets hung up.

A bane for owners who have their horses out with others who enjoy taking off their friends fly masks for entertainment purposes!
(In which case a doubled velcro strap usually puts and end to the shenanigans)

HK 101: Is my equine professional a real professional?

New or seasoned, many people in the horse world have been 'scammed' in one way or another. Your guess is as good as mine as to why this is so prevalent. Perhaps it is the love for these great creatures that blinds us, perhaps it is the mystery in their ways.


There are far clearer reasons as to why there are people that scam. There is a great deal of money to be made in horses for those willing to work hard; and most people who own horses have money to spare and are used to handing it over.

The best way to protect yourself is education. If you're just wanting to get into horses, before you start looking for an instructor, read. There are hundred of amazing books, online articles, magazines, about horses. You can start as simple as the Wikipedia entry to get the basic terminology and let your mind expand from there.

The second way is reputation. Almost everyone leaves a trail, good or bad. You can't be swayed by one experience either way, but if you ask around and find x trainer or vet so-and-so has left a number of unhappy clients behind them, you know to stay away.

If you're new to horses you probably don't know anyone to ask, so please, let me offer you some little warning lights to watch for:

HK 101: What's in my stall? What isn't?

A horses stall needs to be a very safe place for them. Inside a little box is a pretty unnatural place for a horse to be, and although most learn to live in a stall, if something scares them for any reason those natural instincts kick in and some serious injuries can result.

Don't assume because you know horses you know how to build. I have seen some of the worst stalls build by horse-people! Some bad by construction people that are not horse people too. Consult someone who has built horse stalls before and does know what they are doing. You don't want to build something that looks pretty but is going to explode the moment an angry horse kicks the wall because his dinner is late.

HK 101: Nutrition

Equine nutrition is a science, but it's also a little bit art. Balancing what feeds are available to you, with the caloric needs of your horse and costs. Nutrition isn't really my strong suite so I'm happy to defer to the experts, and there are many excellent articles on the 'net.

I can, however, provide a basic over-view of what we do with our animals. If you're new to horse-keeping you should really consult your veterinarian, or local feed store owner.

HK 101: Costs

Horses are expensive. They are expensive and accident prone, and if you do not keep up with the small routine things you will cause huge problems down the road. Every short-cut when it comes to horses, leads to big money down the road. 

Horse Keeping 101: Nes Style

Actual horse for sale in my area

Crap like this makes me so angry I can't see straight. There is NO excuse for the condition this horse is in.  And I sincerely wish it was the only one I'd seen of late.

And yeah there is always a sob story. Health excuses, money ran out, whatever.
I ran into my own bad experience with a lessee with whom things went well for 2 years until she decided to stop feeding my horse (thankfully the barn manager was a responsible, kind and caring woman who stepped in before too much harm was done). Know who I blame? MYSELF; and only myself for my putting my horse in that situation.

No she's not as bad as the horse in the top photo,
but it's different when it your own horse.
This is after 2 weeks back in real care.

That was the reason I had to bring my mare home. I never had a problem boarding her myself anywhere, but it is very expensive. To keep her at home costs me less then 2 months boarding and she gets the exact same feed & care.
I'm the first to admit our place is far from perfect. We havea lot more work to do. But my number one priority has always been the safety & health of everyone who lives on our property. I have been up in a hot, dusty, nasty, dangerous loft for the last 2 weeks because I want to my horses to breath clean air when they comes into the stalls. If you don't have that kind of love for your animals you have no place keeping them in your company.
I think everyone who has an interest should get into horses, it is a liberating, wonderful, accessible sport; but you must surround your self with real experts to guide and teach you. This can be very difficult when you're new to horses.
And so for the next few days I'd like to introduce: Horse Keeping 101: Nes Style
I swear, one day I will be in a position to help each horse like the one in the top  picture when I come across it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day. For now I'll just settle for taking proper care of my own horses.

How to Carry a Chicken

This is the best way to carry your chicken. Create a V with your fingers, slide under the breast and lift. I you've got a flapper you can move your finger tips over the tops of the bird's wings, or place your other hand over them, or put them against your body.

Alternatively, if you've got lots you need to move quickly, or have an aggressive bird you can pick them up by the legs. You should grasp them gently as close to the knee as possible. They generally don't like being turned upside down, but once you get them down they will go into a trance-like state where they won't flap or move (but they do still squawk so I wouldn't believe anyone saying they have a hard time breathing).

I find this is a good method if you're moving birds around at a sale/auction where they might become frightened. Or when you have to get 45 or so birds between the barn and the tractor. Quick trip, won't hurt them in the least, and this is something farmers have been doing for centuries.

It's also probably the way they will be slaughtered. I know Dr. Temple Grandin did a paper which explained that cattle who had been handled were calmer at slaughter and gave better meat. There is no escaping the fate of these birds. By handling them often and exposing them to loud noises, etc.; we'll make every facet of their lives, including the end, just a little easier.

Chicken waterer

Should have been wearing my 'genius at work' T-shirt at the barn... yeah, maybe not. But I did make this nifty water-er for the chickens!

Want Less, Live More has a great DIY chicken feeder, and I adapted it for water.

I started off with the bottom of a dog treat container, you want to make this part fairly deep. I cut two tabs into each end to string it up with, but I quickly wished I'd made four (it wasn't stable enough with one string). Then I took an old ice-cream container and cut the tiniest hole in it and just put it in the dog treat bottom. Then I ran some binder twine through the holes & voila!

The piece of wood floating should
hopefully prevent any chickens from jumping
up on the rim then drowning in the
water; and I can still
fill it up from outside the tractor.

Now it's not fancy, but it certainly gets the job done. Plus now I can move the tractor with out having to first remove the waterer (which always ended up in escaped chickens). I've actually been able to move the whole thing over a few time now with out loosing any chickens at all!

The chicken tractor

There are tons of benefits to having your chickens outside, but per Ontario law, we're not allowed to free-range the chickens (plus with dogs/predators probably not a great idea). We're quite close to the road, with a pretty clear view of the pastures so decided to play by the rules (For now, I'll talk about that in another post).

So hubby built this fantastic chicken tractor!

 The whole thing cost us less then $15 because we built it from all the materials left by former owners. If I had to guess, I think we did it for under $100.


The frame is made by 1x6, re-enforced by L-brackets in each corner, and nailed together. Then we use electrical conduit (really any flexible plastic conduit would be fine, I've read using UV protected stuff is a really good idea) to create the three arches. Then stretched small-gauge wire from one side to the other, and on the ends. There is a door on this end (made out of wire so hard to see). The whole thing is very nice and light! You can see the handle, there are also wheels on the other side so we don't need to carry a dolly.

Right now I've been moving it about 2-3x time a day. Slowly getting it out of the sac paddock and into the main paddock to travel around. The chicks do a pretty good job of chewing up all the vegetation. We're also giving them some feed because we want them to be nice and fat ! Although we may stop doing that, depending on how things are.

This is a slightly smaller coop then you'd want for 50ish birds, but it's a good idea not to give them too much space or they run around and loose all their weight. If it turns out later that it isn't enough room, "we will not be free-ranging them. "

We need to make some hanging water-ers to make it easier to fill them/move the coop. Right now I feel like this song should be playing every time I try to move the chicken tractor...



Gotta be really careful not to run over any of the chickies!

Water Cleanliness

Someone should be able to bet you $10 and you'd drink out of your animals water trough. If that idea makes you gag - you need to scrub your buckets pronto.

This is a cut-up barrel. Not really my ideal water bucket
but it's nice and low so the goats/sheep can get into it

Clean water is the easiest way to keep your animals healthy. All it costs is a $4 scrub brush from TSC and some elbow grease.

I like to do mine every other day in the heat of summer, that way all I need is the pressure-nozzle on the hose to clean all the algae out & it's a really quick & easy job! Plus the grass doesn't mind a little extra watering.

Yes, most animals will drink out of filthy puddles, but they will drink more out of fresh clean running streams.

The nice new bucket, give it a quick spray every other day &
it still looks just like new! 

Livestock must have access to clean drinking water at all time of day. Doesn't matter if they are just going out in the field for an hour or two, throw a bucket over the fence. If nothing else, if something should happen (an animal gets outs, you fall down and break a leg, get caught in a traffic jam) you'll know your animals are out with fresh clean water and you can concentrate on the emergency at hand instead of getting someone home to water.

Basic Fence Safety (Part 4) Gates.

These gates were preexisting to the farm, and I have to say, they are a pretty inexpensive & ingenious way to do internal gates! It's basically a metal tubular frame, with fence wire wrapped over it. They are very lightweight and easy to move. 

Field fence wrapped gate into the cow field. 

Also between the sacrifice pasture
& the back pasture. 

This one had holes in it so we re-did it with a
smaller sized wire. It's the gate out of the
sacrifice paddock.
I have to say, I consider this gate
VERY safe for all my animals

We also have an electric gate.

Little hard to see, but it's sort of a
long springy coil of wire
I know you can get them from TSC
for about $25

I've never seen this type used with horses before, my mare is so scared of electric she won't come within 10' of this thing when it's stretched across. We are going to replace it very soon with a proper electric "gate".

Hubby just put it up
on hinges! Makes getting
in and out of the driveway
a little easier. 

This is the front gate to the property, your typical live-stock gate. They are pretty popular for horse gates, but make sure the tubes are close together enough that your horse isn't going to stick a leg through. This one is also hollow, so I wouldn't use it with any livestock. If they broke a tube it would be a very sharp thing to impale themselves on.

The most important thing about your gate is to remember to keep it closed!

Basic Fence Safety (Part 3) Wire types

The gauge or size of wire you're going to want depends a great deal on why type/size of animal you are planning on enclosing as well as the ages. Consider not only the livestock you have now but what you may have in the future. A little extra money now can save you from replacing the fence before it wears out.

Here is what we have.

Field wire

If you never plan on having babies on property (as in, you own all geldings and are not going to change your mind for the life-time of your fence) a field-wire (cow-sized wire) is inexpensive and combined with electric you've got a pretty good fence. This wire size always works great with cows/calves, but kids & lambs can slip through it, especially if even one wire is missing, creating a gap. 

This is not no-climb, but has a very small hole size.

V-Mesh and No-Climb 

Both are very similar, and are my choice for fence wire. As the name suggests they prevent your animals (like goats!) from climbing the fences with small holes. They also prevent stray legs from going through the fence & becoming entangled.


Chicken Wire

Chicken wire is not only good for keeping chicken (and other poultry) contained, it will also keep wild-birds out of places you don't want them to be.

I can tell you from personal experience, small chicks can fit through just about any other size of wire.

Electric Wires


The gray galvanized wire isn't good for horses because they can't see it. If you put flags on it & keep it tight you're minimizing your risks. I'm not really sure on why galvanized would be more okay with other types of livestock.

Wide-tape is better then thin rope for the same reasons, and white is best for visibility as well. We went with 1/2" up to 1 1/2" poly tape (depending on where it was located). 

How High?

First: Check local by-laws! There may be rules about how high your fences need to be, especially if you have stallions

If you're keeping miniature horses, your fences don't need to be very high at all. If you've got quarter horses, appaloosas or similar breeds (not built to jump), you can probably also get away with a 5' fence. Cows, sheep and non-flying birds, are also fine with a lower fence.

If you're going to house 17Hh Hanovarians, or stallions of any breed, you're going to want taller fences. The general rule is 6" above your tallest horse. Really if you're planning on building a big stud farm you're (1) not reading MY blog (2) already know about external fences and lane-ways.

If I were re-building all our external fences, they'd be 6' high because I know my mare can jump 5' from a stand-still. 

Basic Fence Safety (Part 2) No barbed wire, Please!

You can still see the chunk of some 
animal this wire took off. 

Like most fences, barbed wire is at it's most dangerous for horses when it is loose. As long as it is tight and combined with either 

• A very large acreage (100 acres) so there is little chance of the horses contacting the fence
• Electric stand-offs attached to the barbed wire.

It can be made safe. 

We have a small paddock, and even though we were putting up electric, I did not feel safe leaving the barbed wire on.

I don't want to post any pictures because they can be extremely graphic, but if you're curious google "horse barbed wire injury" and I'm sure you'll be taking it off your paddocks by tonight. 

It is a myth that cattle/other animals can not be contained behind electric fencing and require barbed wire. There can be a problem with "long-haired" animals (sheep/other fibre animals) because their wool insulates them from shock, however you can get a fencer strong enough to get through all that hair. 

Just some of the debris we removed from the front paddock

Loose fences of any material can be just as dangerous as barbed wire. It is very important to maintain your fences & keep them nice and tight. This helps with keeping other animals in as well.

Basic Fence Safety (Part 1) Updating Existing Fencing

Good electric fence will keep your animals
off your fences, but you want to make sure
the fences themselves are safe, in-case the
power goes out

This is what our front paddock started out looking like. All those little bits of wire are a potential scratch & infection just waiting to happen. A lot of time and some heavy-duty pliers and all those little bits have been bent back against themselves.

Horses can find almost anything to injure themselves on, and fences built for other types of livestock are frequently insufficient, even dangerous, for horses.

T-Post cap with electric poly tape wire.

T-post Caps

T-post caps are SO important for horses as they prevent the horse from braining themselves on the posts. If for any reason my mare spooks/tries to escape/whatever from the field and hits a T-post on the way out, she'll be protected from serious injury by these hard plastic caps. There is not excuse for not using them, they are super inexpensive! The one we bought cost less then $1 per. 

Why I like electric

I know some people are a little scared of it, but I think electric fencing is just about the greatest thing ever invented! Installed properly, you can not only use it to temporarily divide paddocks to match your land-management plan. It also keeps your live-stock from rubbing up against your fences; nothing destroys fences quite as a fast as an itchy cow. 

We don't have perfect or beautiful fences,
but I do consider them very
safe fences.

I once saw a mare plow through a "deer" (or "tri-pod") style fence because the mare and a companion were standing underneath a tree, against the fence, trying to get away from the bugs. The companion got annoyed and kicked out, scaring the mare & STRAIGHT through she went. The fence was old & not maintained properly, but string of electric may have kept both those mares from standing where they were, preventing a life-threatening injury. 

Our electric fencer covers 31 miles, definitely more then you need for less then 5 acres, but it delivers a strong enough shock to get through weeds, long fur & give the coyotes a good jolt to make them think twice about visiting us. It only costs us $160, plus all the electric tape, insulators and T-posts. We will probably update all the property's fences for under $400 (not including the post & wire fence we're building). 

A good electric fence also has the benefit of detering human visitors.