Category Archives: Horse Care

How to spend your money – Aperti

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Horse Care, How to Spend Your Money

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You’re lucky if your horse will eat his supplements or meds like candy.  Or if you have a horse that doesn’t require supplements or meds.

If you’re not, you need to know about Aperti (it’s trademarked but wordpress isn’t making that easy for me; I can do it but it looks odd).  With a sophisticated, La Dolce Vita kind of name, Aperti is an old-fashioned, simple product from an old-fashioned kind of company, Horsetech.

Horsetech is known for using human grade materials in their products and Aperti is no exception.  It’s made from the same kind of vegetable oil we use in our own food, with natural and artificial flavors.  That’s it.

I recently had a horse on probiotics who turned up his very large nose at his food until I added a dose of carrot Aperti.  It also comes in apple or peppermint flavor, which your horse might prefer.

It’s also safe for insulin resistant horses.  So now, you and your horse don’t have to suffer because you can’t add applesauce or molasses to whatever your horse needs but tries to reject.

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Why didn’t I think of this?

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Horse Care

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Last night, I saw an ad for a new device in The Horse magazine.

It’s called GaitCheck.  It looks like a walkie-talkie.  It uses sensors to detect and monitor lameness.  And its creators claim that its perception is five times as fast as that of the human eye, so it can “see” lameness far sooner than we can.

I know this sounds selfish of me, but I’m not sure I want to see any more lameness than I already do.  And I wonder whether some of the gait irregularities the device might pinpoint will be considered abnormal when, in fact, they fall within the range of “normal” irregularities for a particular horse.

I can definitely see the use of such a device to establish a baseline for a horse, and to monitor that baseline.  This could be especially useful for a horse considered “serviceably sound.”  By catching the deterioration of the gait sooner, we could take action to address a potentially career-ending lameness sooner.

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Dinner roll

26 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Horse Care

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The 33-year old horse who boards with us is quite the character.  And my Yankee-Irish horse whispering boyfriend has become even more attached to him since I broke my back, and he single-handedly assumed all the barn chores.  (I’m better now, but I still can’t lift a water bucket, much less a muck bucket).

Like any good horseman, my boyfriend has a very good eye.  He observes. And he files those observations away for future reference.

Like me, he thinks that horses understand what we say.  Not just our intent and our thoughts, but our words as well.

Recently, he observed our 33-year old retiree having a bit more difficulty getting up after rolling in the paddock.  We discussed the matter, and our decision to call the horse’s owner to discuss our concerns, all within earshot of the horses in turnout.

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Feast

25 Friday Nov 2011

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Yesterday, as I was preparing our Thanksgiving repast, my Yankee-Irish horsewhispering boyfriend commented on the feast we were going to serve the 33-year-old horse who boards with us.

He gets the same feast twice a day, after the pastures are retired for the year:  McCauley’s Longevity, McCauley’s Alam, Nutrena Empower Boost and McCauley’s (unrefined) rice bran oil, with enough hot water to make a mash.

He has some trouble chewing these days and even our best equine dentist can’t do anything to help him on that score.  But he nibbles on grass and grass hay and polishes off every leaf on the two flakes of alfalfa that he gets fed in a big tub at night, leaving a sculptural lacework of stems for us in the morning.

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