Noticed at the Farm

          

  Thus far, it has been unnecessary to shoot any other foxes.  The doubling of the dog guard of the ducks has prevented any additional attacks. The duck who fought beside Stretch and survived, and who had some injuries on his face and beak has healed completely. They SEEM relieved by the true watch dog I have stationed just outside the duck pen.

             I have also learned that too many shredded pine flakes on a concrete barn floor is unwise.  Sometimes you will see deep shredded pine flakes at an exhibition with horses, and this is indeed the way I started, but I am finding it to be unwise.  When the shavings are too deep more time is spent rifling through looking for horse stools and extracting them with tools. People are less likely to change all the shavings.  I use much less in terms of shavings now, and once they are wet, I remove them all, and then mop the wet area using water and Simple Green.  (Which I buy in giant bottles from Sam's Club)  Interestingly, changing a modest amount of pine shavings daily keeps the flies down, and this keeps the horses much happier than perhaps anything else I could do, except perhaps feeding them.

            It has been cooler this week, and this has translated into fewer horseflies, fewer white faced hornets, and generally happier horses.  We had three family birthdays this week, and one of my sons came to help me with the mucking on my birthday.   We finished in record time !  Hope your week and your weather has been wonderful.

For our purposes here, large shavings work better.  Our horses tend to urinate outside the stalls, so finer shredded pine isn't really needed to absorb the urine from the stall floor, and to prevent slipping.

 

 

                                 

This weeks revelation should help us to contain costs a bit on the shavings.  You have no idea how many of these I use !