[jaydee]

Please don't insult good experienced hrose people with backyard horse collectors

I didn't see anyone insulting good experienced horse people by comparing them to backyard horse collectors.
What I do see are people recognizing that just because someone makes a lot of noise about being experienced it doesn't essentially mean that they are.
I've frequently found that the one's who are constantly and loudly 'blowing their own trumpet' have nothing to actually show to prove themselves or often have management and training methods that are still rooted in the Dark Ages.
I often follow a UK horse magazine on Facebook, there's a very pompous person on there who likes to make himself seem very knowledgeable but it doesn't take an experienced person very long to realise that he's copying and pasting all of his wisdom direct from other sites - now it doesn't make what he copies wrong and I'm sure it impresses the more easily fooled but it doesn't make him 'experienced'.
I did learn a lot from my grt grandpa but there's also a lot of new studies out there that have taught me that he didn't get everything right - but knowing the sort of man he was he would have progressed with the times himself but some people can't do that and yet still try to force outdated ideas on people 'because they've got years and years of experience'
I think it takes a lot of courage for young people to be able to stand up and say that things aren't right or there's a better way to do things if they know that to be true.
That's how they will become tomorrow's experts.

 

[Hondo]

In past years I had occasions to interact with people working in the various trades, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc.

In variably ever so often one would run across one that continually talked about his "30 years of experience" and on and on.

Sometimes I couldn't resist asking if they had 30 years experience one time, or one years experience 30 times, to which they would usually walk off muttering to themselves.

On the compost: I have a pile in my back yard and the rabbits love to burrow in during cold weather.

 

[Avna]

I have never heard of the deep bedding as being manure. Here it would be a layer of straw and then shavings or just a deep bed of either . Manure is not meant to be stood in, that poor horse .

You haven't understood the basis of the deep bedding technique. The horse is NEVER standing in manure. They are standing on clean bedding. The manure is composting beneath the new clean bedding you add every day. For a good aerobic compost pile, as any experienced gardener knows, you have to create a balance between carbon and nitrogen, and between aeration and moisture. That's what deep bedding does.

What you are referring to is simply extra thick bedding on top of a clean surface. They are not anything like the same thing. Deep bedding isn't poor stable hygiene, which is what you are describing. it is a biologically sound indoor livestock management system.

 

[Caledonian]

None of them are mutually exclusive. But I'll tell you, deep bedding is an ancient, proven, method of keeping livestock warm in cold-winter climes. I even have read that under British animal husbandry laws, deep bedding is *required* in some circumstances.

I’ve never heard of deep bedding being a requirement under British animal husbandry laws under some circumstance. That’s something I’d like to read; or someone else from around here might know more than I do. I live in the colder part of Britain and I prefer outdoors living for horses but any of my stable beds are from what I’ve always called deep litter as the bed isn’t lifted every day, but others have called it a normal bed as I lift the muck.
I use shavings and the manure and wet is lifted once (or more times a day), then once or twice a week the entire bed’s lifted and new shavings added on top. The BHS say that research has shown that deep litter can cause respiratory and foot problems due to the ammonia, especially if the horse already has health issues in these areas.
It shows that we all have our own way of doing things regardless of our years in the saddle and the people who train and influence us.

 

[Avna]

I’ve never heard of deep bedding being a requirement under British animal husbandry laws under some circumstance. That’s something I’d like to read; or someone else from around here might know more than I do. I live in the colder part of Britain and I prefer outdoors living for horses but any of my stable beds are from what I’ve always called deep litter as the bed isn’t lifted every day, but others have called it a normal bed as I lift the muck.
I use shavings and the manure and wet is lifted once (or more times a day), then once or twice a week the entire bed’s lifted and new shavings added on top. The BHS say that research has shown that deep litter can cause respiratory and foot problems due to the ammonia, especially if the horse already has health issues in these areas.
It shows that we all have our own way of doing things regardless of our years in the saddle and the people who train and influence us.

I was a goat farmer then so it was probably goats, or even chickens, that I read about. I have never tried it with horses, my stalls are cleaned daily. I did do it with my goats for many years, and there was certainly *no* ammonia smell (until shoveling-out day) and the bedding was quite dry on the top. Goats are sensitive to ammonia and they get horrible hoof rot if they're in wet dirty quarters, so I would have noticed. However horses have wetter feces, they paw, and disturb bedding just by moving around because they are so heavy, so perhaps it is more difficult to run a proper deep bedding system with horses. Don't know.

 

[boots]

I have heard of the deep bedding technique. I was at one farm where it was used and the horses were definitely cared for and the barn was clean.

I studied it, and knowing my lifestyle, knew I would not be able to commit to the monitoring and work. Very labor intensive, IMO, which may be one reason it is not commonly used. The other being it is misunderstood by most of us. It sounds contradictory to what we all strive for in our barns!

 

[Smilie]

I didn't see anyone insulting good experienced horse people by comparing them to backyard horse collectors.
What I do see are people recognizing that just because someone makes a lot of noise about being experienced it doesn't essentially mean that they are.
I've frequently found that the one's who are constantly and loudly 'blowing their own trumpet' have nothing to actually show to prove themselves or often have management and training methods that are still rooted in the Dark Ages.
I often follow a UK horse magazine on Facebook, there's a very pompous person on there who likes to make himself seem very knowledgeable but it doesn't take an experienced person very long to realise that he's copying and pasting all of his wisdom direct from other sites - now it doesn't make what he copies wrong and I'm sure it impresses the more easily fooled but it doesn't make him 'experienced'.
I did learn a lot from my grt grandpa but there's also a lot of new studies out there that have taught me that he didn't get everything right - but knowing the sort of man he was he would have progressed with the times himself but some people can't do that and yet still try to force outdated ideas on people 'because they've got years and years of experience'
I think it takes a lot of courage for young people to be able to stand up and say that things aren't right or there's a better way to do things if they know that to be true.
That's how they will become tomorrow's experts.

Guess I should have quoted mycat, as to where my statement and 'backyard breeder came from.I do think I did qoute the post the below is taken from, and to which I was responding.
My point being, years alone do not create 'experience;, and you can't take just any example to represent 'experience, any more then you can just take any less experienced person, far as years put in, that are very capable/knowledgeable and have then represent all relatively 'younger/less experienced horse people. Good horsemanship is not directly related to age or experience, just by years either put in or not

Mycat:

'Looking back I can see it for what it really was a back yard breeding operation. Towards the end of my time working there several mares where in foal I had asked the owner when she wanted to pull them off the fescue. She told me that she wasn't going to she was sure it would be fine she was raised on horses and never had an issue. I should have quit right then and there, but being young and nieve I stayed on. She refused to ever let me call a vet 2 ofthe mares redbaged after being a month overdue and they blamed becaused I "stressed them" by moving them to a pasture where I could monitor them.'

 

[jaydee]

I think she was just giving a very good example of how inexperienced people can fall into the trap of thinking someone was knowledgeable because they 'talked a good talk' and had been around horses 'forever'
When you know little to nothing it's too easy to be fooled by those types because you have no clue what's right and what's wrong

 

[farmpony84]

Experience is really hard to gauge. There are people that I have seen at shows that are winning every weekend and even placing top 10 at Congress, but to be honest, I would never leave my horses in their care! The "care" experience that they have is what they do at horse shows. You know, filling water buckets, maybe feeding, a little bit of leg wrapping w/ a poultice? Possibly? The truth is, they pay a trainer a lot of money to ride and care for their horses. The trainer does a lot of the grooming for shows as well so while these people may be horse owners and may have huge trophys... They don't have hardly any experience at all. Now, that's not EVERYONE that's winning big but I would say a good large number of them have a ton of help.

Then again, there are a lot of nice facilities that I wouldn't leave my horses at because the people that own them are CRAZY! The horses in their care are safe and cared for but the people are insane and have strange reasoning.

Then there are the barns that call a vet for everything.

...and some of those backyard owners that don't have a ton of riding experience... I'd let them take care of my horses any day of the week because they can doctor, they can handle a beast, they can care for them... Maybe not good riders but what matters to me, is that they can take care of my babies...

Sigh... the experience thing is so hard to judge.... So hard to judge...

But I do agree... years do not necessarily mean experience....

 

[Smilie]

I think she was just giving a very good example of how inexperienced people can fall into the trap of thinking someone was knowledgeable because they 'talked a good talk' and had been around horses 'forever'
When you know little to nothing it's too easy to be fooled by those types because you have no clue what's right and what's wrong

True, and I touched on this also in one post,where I went into that experience also is needed, to penetrate, for lack of a better word, that inner circle of the horse industry, where one finds out those professionals that enjoy the respect of both their customers and their peers
Unfortunately, this knowledge for the new comers to the horse industry, often has to be discovered through experience in the horse industry and often at the cost of the school of hard knocks
Certainly was the case for me, as I can give examples, before I became 'initiated', of well known breeders who I would never leave a mare with again, and ditto for some well known trainers. Ditto for blindly trusting farriers, because they were shoing for 30 odd years
I am certainly not discounting that fact, Just that there are some, with years of experience, who continue to learn, and then that experience can't be matched by less time put in, as horses are alifetime learning experience, and if you accept that fact, then you also have to recognize my point

 

[Woodhaven]

I started out riding english because it was what most people did in my area, then when I moved to a different area, I thought I would like to try riding western and I bought a nice quarter horse mare, a granddaughter of Poco Bueno and boarded her at a well known stable.
Since I was new to western riding, everyone there was giving me advice on how I should be doing things, often contradictory so I did become confused especially as some advice didn't make sense and I knew better even tho' new to western riding.
I finally just thanked people for their input and only listened to the owners as they were excellent riders and trainers.
The others were all experts in their own minds and I suppose were trying to help but don't listen to everyone even if they have been riding for years.

 

[stevenson]

Avna.. I have never seen that method used in my area. I have been to a few barns in No. CA. that had manure and bedding stacks in stalls and to me it stunk.
I would never use that method. In my area, you would have animal control at your barn as the law is ALL manure must be removed..

 

[george the mule]

Hi Horselovr, All!

Google "Critical Thinking". Apply this process to the things you encounter in life, particularly (and including this post, BTW) stuff from The Internet. Enough said about that.

I will comment that in my experience, you can judge the creditability of a horse person just by watching how they interact with their equines, and (perhaps even more so) by how the animals respond to them.

Steve

PS: I keep the stalls clean; the horses have made their own "poop-pile" outside the barn, and they _do_ seem to enjoy the warmth on cold days.