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Remember me saying that Provo managed to truss himself up
like a chicken on his nice horse-tier-upperer?
Well, this was our modification to solve that problem. And it works. And I can use the sticky out end to plonk my saddle on. |
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What we see when we look out of the front window.
When the horses are good (which, admittedly, isn't often), they are allowed out to graze on the nice grassy slope next to their paddock. However, after the last running around event, they are now only allowed out in ones. That's me, in red. That's Provo, in orange. |
 After
inspecting numerous different horse feeders and trying to figure out
what would work best, we came up with these beauties... $3.50 Rubbermaid
tubs from Wal-Mart, tied onto the railing with bale string.
Now admittedly, they aren't the strongest horse feeders ever made... but, on the other hand, the other options included two plastic feeders at $65 a pop, or a rather fine free-standing metal affair at $250... which would mean we could buy over 70 of these plastic bins for the same price. They come in green too! I'll get green ones next time. The other thing pft came up with, was to fasten a spare-gate-we-had-lying-around in the middle of the shelter. This serves to divide up the area and prevents Provo standing sideways along the wall and monopolising both eating areas. This works quite well because he can't pull such good faces at Mouse and it gives her time to run out of the shelter when he decides that *that's* his food too, along with this food, and that food, and that bit of food over there. This weekend we discovered something interesting. When we dress Mouse up in her double layer of winter blankies, she is able to take no notice of Provo and his bitey teeth - being well insulated against them. He pulls lots of interesting faces and she more or less ignores him. |
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I did had to drill holes in the bottom of the bins to keep them from filling with water. Provo likes to wiggle his face in them until all the hay falls out so he can get at the good bits in the bottom, but they usually snip up all the leftover bits of hay off the ground (until this weekend of three days rain and snow, where there are now large puddles of slop in the shelter. Disappointing, but then the weather has been rather over the top...) |
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The other thing we did, was take the side off the chicken coop and clean it up (two wheelbarrows-full of very old chicken poop. Yum. My favorite), line it with tarps for sanitary purposes and put a fine tarp cover on the outside (OK, so the large blue tarp isn't *that* sightly... I'll swap it for a nice subtle brown or green one next year...). This will hold 8 bales, which is better than just having them stacked on pallets under tarps outside. Once I burrow under the tarp, it's very cosy in there. |
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I also tipped six bags of wood chips on the bank opposite the feeding area. The bank, having been denuded of vegetation by pointy horse feet was pretty muddy and unpleasantly slippery. The wood chips helped... a bit... |
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Pic to go here showing brown tarp wall snow panorama.
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 Having
put the brown tarp across the back of the shelter to keep the worst of
the rain out, the next "brilliant idea" we came up with, was
to build a tunnel into the back entrance - to try and block off some of
the wind/rain that whips through there.
On Sunday, when the snow stopped briefly, pft and I went out there and erected a marvellous piece of construction with a green tarp and copious application of tie-wraps, bungees and a spider bungee. It worked great... except for the fact that we had to leave a large hole for the horses to walk through to get in there. (Here you see Provo about to demonstrate how to walk through it). When the bad wind came a couple of days later, we were chuffed that our edifice stayed up and secure. The brown tarp across the back, OTOH, was whipped to shreds, with most of the grommets down the sides tearing out. It whipped so loudly and excitingly that, by the following day, the horses refused to stand in there and I had to feed them next to the shelter instead of inside it. |
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