A Dive into Mountain Trail

This past weekend we attended the last of five Mountain Trail Challenge events in our local winter series. We don't attend many shows but the mountain trail events are more of an obstacle course challenge and I really enjoyed participating in them. It was fun to see how our horses progressed in their skills and also to get two rather uncommon breeds out for people to meet and interact with.

Our interest in mountain trail started a year ago when I was looking for fun things to do with our youngsters to start teaching them skills while they are still too young for formal riding/driving training. I also needed something to motivate me to be out working with horses even when the weather wasn't my favorite! We began with just a few simple obstacles in our round pen but as we started practicing Dehan took charge and researched and built all kinds of fun obstacles for me. Soon, I had a teeter totter, water box, and scary pool noodle curtain among other more common obstacles! Our first event was supposed to be in March 2020, but fell victim to Corona cancellations so we had to wait until November to finally get in the ring...

In November we attended the first contest of the winter series at a local rodeo arena. The turnout was incredible! I think a lot of horse people were feeling the lack of events in 2020 and looking for a way to get out and enjoy their horses and the horse community. Before the classes started, we took part in an educational clinic to learn about how the classes are set up and scored and to get some practice time in the arena. Our girls did well with the obstacles but were clearly not sure about being in a new environment- questioning things like the banners hanging on the arena fences and the people on the bleachers outside. I entered our girls in the Novice division classes (the simplest on the agenda) and we gave it a go. On a whim, I also signed Funfetti up for the high point awards in the Novice division. The first event was incredibly educational and after the classes we were able to pick up our scoring sheets and see where we had room for improvement.

Over the next four months/challenges I took a variety of different horses along to get the arena experience but always came back to my core pair of Funfetti and Plum. I typically entered Funfetti in the Novice classes (since she was working towards the high point scores) and would stay for the day so that Plum could compete in the more complicated Adult classes. As it turns out, Plum would have been a good choice for a high point horse because once we mastered trotting in hand partway through the season she really shone in her classes. Regardless, the girls were able to get a lot of practice time in and we saw a lot of improvement over the course of the season. At the final event, Funfetti was recognized for her third place score in the high point division which was something I never imagined she would achieve.

We owe a huge thank you to all those who helped us in this new adventure. The crew at Sundance Arena and running the Mountain Trail Challenge series were fantastic. We learned so much and had a wonderful time participating. Dehan was our obstacle builder, brainstormer and at-home support. The number of crazy new obstacles he dreamed up for us is amazing! And Roberta was our biggest cheerleader and Funfetti's second show partner- entering a couple of classes through the season and really seeing her skills with Funfetti grow both at home and in the ring. The new friends we made along the way really kept things fun and we are grateful for all the interest in our unique horses even when we stick out like a sore thumb among the quarter horses and gaited breeds! There are quite a few summer mountain trail challenges scheduled and I'm hoping we will be able to attend a couple of them even with our normal summer craziness. It's been an adventure and I have a feeling the real fun has just begun.

It Wasn't Supposed to be this Hard!

One thing we've wanted to be able to do for a long time is to ship semen on our stallions to other breeders. Unfortunately in our area there aren't any facilities offering collection and shipping services without driving 2 hours both ways, which becomes a bit unrealistic in the busyness of summer. And with as many mares as we cover here on our farm we need the boys to remain close, not ship them off to a breeding facility. Which leaves us with the option to learn the skills and do it ourselves- exciting, but one more thing to figure out!

This will be our third season collecting stallions on the farm. Over the years we've increased our own knowledge base and skill set as well as adding pieces to simplify the process, such as our designated teaser mare. I thought we were finally getting close and in anticipation of using March to prepare ourselves and the boys I placed a few large orders for supplies and got our teaser mare set up for her job. But when you're working with 1200-1700 lbs of freight-train muscle in a testosterone fueled stallion you really can't predict how things will go and each of our boys has decided to present us with a unique challenge...

First we have Ash, our imported blue roan Brabant stud. Everyone, and I mean everyone, wants to breed their mare to Ash! Which is amazing and we would love to share him. If only he would learn how to collect. He has had far and away the most practice, having been collected to AI our own mares for the past couple of years, but he's just flat out terrible at it. It often takes several jumps and nearly an hour to get him to actually be excited enough to 'give up the goods' which is frustrating for both stallion and handler. Unfortunately, his live covering skills are no better so we need to use AI in order to know that the mare is actually getting bred. Ash was doing fairly well last summer and we thought we had him figured out, even if it was a less elegant process than most stallions. But this spring it's like he's forgotten everything he knows about breeding and has no interest in the mare at all... and there's certainly no way to force a 1700 lb stallion to jump! I'm hoping he's the type of stallion who simply knows that the mare is not truly in heat and therefore is not interested in breeding her (rather than having forgotten all he knows). This would likely prevent us from shipping semen on him but would mean we can continue to collect off an in-heat mare for our own use on the farm.

Our senior Gypsy stallion, Jack, has a very different problem from Ash. He's quite excited about mares and aside from the times he is so excited that he can't focus on his job (usually after watching his herd mates go off to collect and being made to wait on his turn) he's actually easy to collect. The challenge here is that I've yet to analyze a good semen sample from him. Some of this can be due to timing- stallions need to be collected several times in the spring to get rid of accumulated dead cells- but even in the midst of summer breeding season I've noticed the poor motility in his collections. Which is very odd to me, as he is consistently settling mares both in-hand and in a pasture breeding scenario. We'll continue to collect and analyze Jack through this pre-breeding period in hopes of finding a schedule that works well to maximize his counts but if that's not possible we may have to accept that he's a great on-farm breeder but not much of a candidate for shipping semen.

Fig is our 75% junior Brabant stallion. He had at least one 'surprise' foal at the farm he came from so we knew that he could breed mares in the pasture. When it comes to training for collection the biggest issue that we've had is that he's smart enough to know that the dummy is not the mare and he wants to jump the mare! This is an issue we've worked with on and off the past few years, but with only being able to practice with a mare in heat (often after she's already waited for Ash to do his job) training has been sporadic at best. Now that our teaser mare is available we have done a lot more practice on dummy training and Fig is improving. He still wants to go for the mare but we can usually re-direct him onto the dummy. We're still working on getting an ejaculation from him as he has a weird habit of trying to do his job while standing as far back from the dummy (or mare) as possible which means his balance is terrible and he often falls off before finishing. I think with more practice we'll get him figured out but it is going to take time and a few good jumps.

And finally we have our new Gypsy stallion, Boone. Boone has been primarily a pasture breeder at his past farm, although we did see him collected (off a tease mare) when we took a mare up to breed to him. I wasn't quite sure what to expect when we started to train Boone to the dummy. The first round he really impressed me and did his job in just two jumps! After that, well, things have been a bit rougher. He jumps the dummy fairly well but we're still working on figuring out his exact preferences to complete the collection. We always get there in the end but I'm hoping with additional practice he will be easy to collect. His numbers look great so maybe, just maybe, we'll have a stallion to ship on.

There is so much that goes into shipping semen. After collection comes semen analysis, test cools/freezes to see how well they will ship, and the mechanics of figuring out a process for ordering and shipping semen to customers. Collecting stallions is not without it's challenges, but it's not supposed to be the major hurdle... isn't this what they were born to do? For me, the most frustrating part is how frustrated I get when what should be easy and exciting for them (at least to my mind) requires so much effort and troubleshooting. I believe that with consistent practice and a few successes most of these boys are going to figure out what to do and enjoy it, but once again we're not quite there yet...

Words From the Wise- Always Pay the Vet

My grandfather was a dairy farmer. He weathered the ups and downs of agriculture for many years and was always eager to share his wisdom with those of us who pursued a life in agriculture. One piece of advice, in particular, has been on my mind lately. Grandpa would tell me that when times are tough and money is tight you always make sure to pay your vet and the feed mill because no matter how hard things get you need those folks to keep coming in order to keep the farm running. (And as a former employee of an ag lending company I have to add my own caveat that the mortgage payment is also important...)

There have been a lot of social media posts lately seeking to bring awareness to the high suicide rates in the veterinary profession. The causes are many and complex- far more than I can relate here- but some often mentioned are the challenges of caring for animals that can't be cured, crippling student loans from vet school, long hours, and difficult clients. Many of these concerns I can't do a thing about. But I can certainly control how I interact with our vets and that goes far beyond just making sure that our bills are paid on time.

We're blessed to have excellent working relationships with three vets- partly a consequence of dealing with multiple species spread over two different counties- and this week I had been in touch with all three of them by Tuesday, including an emergency farm visit to tube a colicky mare. I am beyond grateful for the knowledge and skills our vets possess and their willingness to guide me through care for our critters or offer a bit of reassurance when we're dealing with problems on the farm.

So how do we repay our vets for their excellent care? I certainly don't have all the answers but here at AKH it looks a bit like this... For starters, we do try to always send the vet home with a check in hand and without arguing over the bill. Large animal vets are few and far between, and they certainly aren't getting rich treating farm animals, so the least we can do is to compensate them for their time and expertise! We also seek to be respectful of their time and availability. This can get a bit tricky... vet calls are expensive so we don't want more than we need, but some things just can't be diagnosed and treated without an exam. My initial call to the vet often goes something like this "Hi Doc! My pony seems a bit off today. I've noticed that xxx is happening. I've tried xxx to help her out and the results were xxx. I'd love any advice you might have for what else I should try, or if you think that we should set up a visit for you to check her out." As a side note, it helps to be educated about general horse health so that you can provide as much information up front (temperature, heart rate, etc) for the vet to best understand the situation. Although we often communicate with our vets via text message (and they have a pretty good idea of what treatments we are capable of performing on-farm) I leave the door open for a farm call if they feel that would be helpful. It's also great to give the vet a heads-up if someone is feeling off rather than waiting until 10 pm to call and expect them to drop everything and head your way. Emergencies do happen, but when there's the ability to communicate early and often it helps everyone with planning their days.

In the end, mutual respect goes a long way towards a good working relationship. I was a bit surprised once at our vet's reaction to how well one of our horses responded to treatment, until she pointed out that very few of her clients actually take her advice and give the horse the supplement she leaves! I'm not perfect at this and I certainly don't advocate the horse owner throwing their own brain out the window when caring for the animals in their barn. But we do pay the vet an awful lot to know their stuff, so we had better take their advice seriously, ask questions when we have them and seek to do the best we can for those in our care.

How about you- what practices do you have on your farm to promote good relationships with your horse care team?

Grandpa Woods in his 90s still putting in time on the tractor!