We have our very own treat dispensers in our pastures. Yes I said it.
We get snacks all day long whenever we want, as much as we want. There is a glorious abundance of snacks.
UNTIL MOM RUINED IT
The snacks come every year as the sunlight gets shorter and the temperature cools down. This year it seems they came earlier than normal.
They come from trees. They are red and juicy; sweet yet tart. There are three trees in out barn pasture and a few up on the hill but we share those with the deer. We have two moms and three babies that enjoy the snacks too and we don’t mind.
AND THE SNACKS ARE SO TASTY.
The man came out and cut a ton of the branches off during the snow season. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I think it had something to do with why we have so many good snacks this year. Last year the snacks were gross. They were tasteless and bitter and I didn’t even want them.
This year one of the trees started giving us snacks early. I got to a bunch of them when mom wasn’t looking but she saw the tree too. All of sudden a new fence appeared! What the heck, mom?
The fence was pretty flimsy….just a ribbon with the plastic and fiberglass step-in posts. PSH. I’ll show her. I hopped in and had a feast. I thought she’d appreciate my help in fertilizing the trees but she shows gratitude differently than I’d expect. The next day the fence bit me! Just zapped me out of nowhere.
Most days mom kicks us out into the paddock with NO snacks. NOT COOL.
She also collects all of the snacks in buckets. She puts the good snacks in 5 galon buckets and drives them away. She scoops the gross snacks into out manure cart and dumps them in the manure pile.
WHAT A BUZZKILL!
NOTE FROM MOM:
Hey guys! I usually let the horses take the reins the first Thursday of every month but thought I’d butt in for a quick note.
When we bought our home we had to set up all of the paddocks. The apple trees all posed a major concern for me because I didn’t want them to gorge on the apples and get sick…but cutting them down wasn’t something I wanted to do either. Fencing around them also would have cost a lot more money and taken away a lot of paddock space.
Apples are only an issue when the trees are fruiting, so a few months each year. I chose to fence the trees into the paddock for more pasture space. When apples begin to drop I use temporary fencing to block out the horses. This year I had to electrify it. Some apples roll under the fence and that’s okay, as long as they don’t get ALL of the apples.
I also remove the dropped apples a few times each week if not daily. Currently the one early tree (which was just pruned last winter) is dropped 15 gallons of apples per day. I save what I can and bring them to my friends’ farms to share with their horses. The rest get dumped in the manure pile (or in a separate pile in the woods for other critters).
This adds more work but it’s worth it. The horses DO have a small paddock without apple trees but ti doesn’t have shelter any longer so they go into the barn paddock when forecasts call for rain.
That’s my two cents! Thanks again for stopping in. I know Tiger and Nahe appreciate it!
The Green Horseman 