The Art of Natural Dressage

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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 9:59 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:38 pm
Posts: 81
Location: Ontario, Canada
Thank you for your warm welcome, Josepha! I have a feeling I'll be "talking" to you more in one of the other discussions! :yes: :D

Donald - thank you for the info on the fly predators! Are your horses in the barn summer and winter? How widespread is the effect of the fly predators? The horses where Fanny lives are out 24/7 during the summer, unless some nasty thunderstorms roll through. The barn never really has many flies in the summer, but they are bad in the barnyard and the back field. The manure pile is in the barnyard, and although there is no manure added to the pile during the summer, and I don't see many flies around it, I'm sure there's still a lot of fly activity going on before it decomposes. The back field is eight acres, and even at the very back of the field the Friesians faces are covered in flies. I wondered if it was simply because of their colour. Would fly predators help at that distance? I've never really noticed the flies too badly when I walk out into the field, but as soon as you get close to the horses they are everywhere.

Here are a couple of pictures of the barnyard and fields. They might be hard to see, because even though I don't resize them, this is only as big as they come up :huh:

This is a "close up" of the barnyard behind the barn. The paddock they're usually grazing in is on the upper left, with the trees behind it. The land sort of rolls, so it doesn't look that far, but it is!
Image

This is a wider angle of the same area. The field on the right, behind the barnyard is a hay field.
Image


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 2:45 am 
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Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:10 am
Posts: 3688
Location: Pacific Northwest U.S.
The predators will spread to where ever there is manure that will support fly larvae ... it's their young's food source. They invade and devour the fly larvae from inside.

Horses often will, as you no doubt know, tend to manure a particular area in a pasture or paddock so of course there is where some of the predators should be scattered of the manure.

Flies are now so rare at my place, and I keep building my manure piles year around, that we are sometimes amused to even find one in the house. Same with the barn.

My two girls are in the barn only overnight as this is bear and lion country. But during they day they have a rough forest paddock about one third acre. I don't bother to gather the scattered manure and still no flies. My manure piles sit and age and compost with plenty of time to support a fly population ... it only takes five days from egg to adult for house and barn flies ... so of course I really rely on those predators.

When I ran a large stable of 150 horses we controlled the flies by hauling the manure every four days to commercial vegetable farmers out in the country and a few in the city. Oh how they loved to see me coming with the big dump truck.

We had a fly population but I had the county extension agent come out, entymologist, and he and I established that the nieighborhood dogs around us that we not scooped up after and allowed to toilet just anywhere early in the morning were the cause. Those same people tried to claim WE were the source of the fly population, and were quite embarrassed when I met with the city counsel and presented my witness, the entymologist. That ended that nonsense.

If I'd had fly predators back then, the 1960s, they would have suppressed the flies in the neighborhood too.

Best wishes,

_________________
Love is Trust, trust is All
~~~~~~~~~
So say Don, Altea, and Bonnie the Wonder Filly.


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:30 pm 
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Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:05 pm
Posts: 2888
Location: Natal, South Africa
That is indeed a very, very good-looking horse.

I'm in Africa, and the local people here have a way of doing a lot of thin braids with their hair. I do it on my grey sometimes as he also has a thick mane and it is tropical hot here. I will do it up and take a photo to show you because it will work very well on your mare's forelock without the need for you to cut anything at all :yes: :) ever again. I do think your solution of cutting the bottom layer is very elegant, however, but I am concerned that cutting will result in an even thicker forelock.

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Glen Grobler

Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 3:28 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:38 pm
Posts: 81
Location: Ontario, Canada
Ah, you're right, Donald, about the horses having certain areas in the field that they use as a toilet. I had forgotten about that. Something else I've been wondering about trying is sprinkling diatomaceous earth on the manure pile and in those manure areas in the field. It would be best to do that on a windless day, which doesn't happen very often, at least not last year.

Glen, thanks for your suggestion about the braiding. They would have to be very small braids, because I don't want her to lose her natural fly mask in the summer ;) I look forward to seeing the pictures of your horse with the braids! How long does it take you to braid the forelock? Fanny doesn't really like standing still to be groomed (which is sometimes a thorn in my side), but I'd be willing to try it. I wondered whether or not cutting her forelock would make it thicker, but wasn't sure. Her sire is the Newfoundland Pony in her, and his forelock is so thick, it is almost as high as the tips of his little pony ears.

~C~


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 10:43 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:38 pm
Posts: 81
Location: Ontario, Canada
Stumbled upon this product for flies. Might be a consideration for "my" barn.

http://www.monsterflytrap.com/


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 6:08 am 
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Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:10 am
Posts: 3688
Location: Pacific Northwest U.S.
Cyndi wrote:
Ah, you're right, Donald, about the horses having certain areas in the field that they use as a toilet. I had forgotten about that. Something else I've been wondering about trying is sprinkling diatomaceous earth on the manure pile and in those manure areas in the field. It would be best to do that on a windless day, which doesn't happen very often, at least not last year....

~C~


Concerns about DE: I have seen a few claims that made me laugh, and some that made me think, thus do research.

The calciferous bodies (skeletons actually) of tiny long dead sealife -diatoms- are very sharp. It is safe to use in food because our moist innards can handle a certainly amount of this sharpness - though I wouldn't recommend large dosages.

There is a concern that if you use the composted manure that has this in it it will endagner the earthworm. Never happen, for the simple reason that earthworms are built to ingest all kinds of coarse rocky matter small enough to swallow. And they have very moist outer bodies - thus aren't going to "scratch."

Those insect creatures with a hard outer shell protecting their bodies are the ones that DE will get. Once their cover is scratch sufficiently they will dehydrate and die.... just dry up.

Flies never have a stage, except as an adult, that might succumb. They leave the pupae and fly off and have very little contact with the DE in the manure. They aren't diggers. Their larvae are but are soft bodied. The pupae stage is very short, likely not long enough to come in contact with enough DE (Unless you wish to spend a fortune). A fly's egg to adult cycle is only about 5 days. Warmer weather might even shorten it a day.

I doubt they have much effect on them from DE. Another reason I chose predator flies. They very specifically target the housefly and barnfly larvae at just the right time.

_________________
Love is Trust, trust is All
~~~~~~~~~
So say Don, Altea, and Bonnie the Wonder Filly.


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:51 am 
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Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:05 pm
Posts: 2888
Location: Natal, South Africa
It took me a while, but here are pics of the plaiting I use during the height of summer. I put them in carefully and leave them in for a couple months. It's just so hot here, you see, but if I cut the mane they wouldn't be able to shake flies away ...
Image
Image
the grey has a very thick mane - similar to your girl
Image

Edited to add this:
;) Oh, I nearly forgot - the white chap is terribly head-shy, so we can only do one or two plaits a day. It takes more than a week to get him done. The grey has restricted/claustrophic issues, and we also can only do one or two plaits per session, but I can go back 3 or 4 times a day. You are looking at 2 days work on the manes.

_________________
Glen Grobler



Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 1:17 am 
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:38 pm
Posts: 81
Location: Ontario, Canada
Thanks for the photos, Glen!! It would take me forever to put all those braids in Fanny's mane, but I might give it a try this summer, because there certainly is a lot of heat under her mane in the summer. Her neck is usually quite sweaty. I am finding that I am to the point where I will have to deal with her forelock again, because it's grown so much since last fall. It almost reaches the tip of her nose again!

I've been thinking about putting Fanny's tail in a tail bag (not a braid bag) next winter, because this winter has been so mild, her tail is full of clay and is awful.


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:01 am 
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:38 pm
Posts: 81
Location: Ontario, Canada
I finally did some braiding of Fanny's forelock, so that I don't have to trim it. Here we are, 25 braids later!

Image


Her mane is still really long, so it keeps hanging into her face, but that's okay.

Image


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:24 am 
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Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:05 pm
Posts: 2888
Location: Natal, South Africa
That looks like it works well. The braids I did on my two hippies are mostly still in :yes: :funny: particularly the ones that I sewed closed - so they have stayed in for almost 3 months :clap: and got the horses through the worst of our tropical hot and humid summer.

_________________
Glen Grobler



Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon


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 Post subject: Re: New...again?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:12 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:38 pm
Posts: 81
Location: Ontario, Canada
Yes, so far they are working well. They've been in for about two weeks now. I did have to redo three of them, but that's it so far.


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