Meet Pearl, New Horse

baymule

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@flowerbug there is no way I am going to try to compost 1,000 pounds of dead meat or the other one weighs in at 1200-1300 pounds. Not happening. You must be freaking nuts.

@ducks4you She is getting Bermuda hay, a good grass hay-all she wants. I started her on 2 cups of pellets, then 3 cups twice a day and this morning stepped her up to 4 cups of pellets. The pellets are 14% and are what we have fed our horses for years. The two old horses have done very well on them and the little chestnut gelding we bought almost 2 years ago is roly-poly, fat and sassy. He was thin, but nowhere near this poor and skinny. I have a bag of alfalfa cubes and she got 2 cubes, flaked apart this morning. She won't get much of that, just a few each day. She was starved nigh slap to death. She will need time to build muscle mass. I have her in quarantine for 45 days to keep her away from my other horses. I may keep her separate even longer than that just to make sure she doesn't get picked on in her weakened state. She will go to the vet too.

@bobm you told it exactly like it is. On the large farms and ranches, dead animals are dragged off to a boneyard, then used for coyote bait to shoot the coyotes. On our 8 acres, I don't see that happening.

We have explored all our options, carefully considered everything and made the decision that is best for us and our old friends.
 

bobm

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@bobm you told it exactly like it is. On the large farms and ranches, dead animals are dragged off to a boneyard, then used for coyote bait to shoot the coyotes. On our 8 acres, I don't see that happening.

On a 5,000 acre cattle ( over 200 brood cows ) ranch , just 0NE mile from our Cal ranch. The owner invites family and friends for a week in Dec. for a coyote hunt every year. They usually bag between 50 to 74 coyotes every year. :ep We usually have on average of a dozen coyotes at dawn and dusk for a community sing in the pastures within yards of our house there. Country living at it's best !:th
 

flowerbug

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@flowerbug there is no way I am going to try to compost 1,000 pounds of dead meat or the other one weighs in at 1200-1300 pounds. Not happening. You must be freaking nuts.
...
We have explored all our options, carefully considered everything and made the decision that is best for us and our old friends.

fine with me, it's your life after all...

just sayin' there are other options for those who may want to go a different route. for me, if i had poor soil i surely wouldn't be wasting valuable nutrients by sending them off-site if i could avoid it in any possible fashion.

wood chips are not very expensive around here. if i had enough room to keep an animal that big i'd also have enough area to compost one if i needed to do it.

cheers, etc. i do wish you the best luck with her and your other animals... always. :)
 

flowerbug

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In our area of Cal. , it is illegal to bury your dead horse on your own property. Cremation costs $800+ . Taking them to our nearest rendering plant costs $150 , that is IF they will take the dead horse. leaving them to rot in the lower 40 ... a few dozen buzzards and a few dozen coyotes will devour the body in a few days , but the stench or rotting flesh is overpowering for a mile or more if the horse expires in summer when our temps are over 100* - 115* + for weeks on end. Then when only bones are left, and you have attracted the coyote hordes from miles around, they will then kill and devour your cats and dogs or any other livestock that you may have. A terrible price to pay, don't you think ?

i think if you keep large animals and are reaping profits from keeping them then you should also be dealing with their death in a responsible manner. using them to bait wildlife is pretty dispicable.

composting an animal isn't the same as leaving it out to be picked over by buzzards and coyotes, but i'm ok with that too. you know, i've heard the refrain from pig/chicken/etc. mass market farmers where they have a stench and they say, 'that smells like money!' well... sometimes they need to figure it out at the other end too... the stench of death is a part of a normal life cycle in any functioning ecosystem. if you can't take that then perhaps you'd be in the wrong business...
 

baymule

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fine with me, it's your life after all...

just sayin' there are other options for those who may want to go a different route. for me, if i had poor soil i surely wouldn't be wasting valuable nutrients by sending them off-site if i could avoid it in any possible fashion.

Valuable nutrients? You have no idea how gut wrenching this is for us. These two old horses have earned their place here. We love them dearly and have grieved over trying to select what would be best for them and what to do with them when they are gone. We have had them for many years, have a lot of memories with them and they are a hell of a lot more than compost to us.

i think if you keep large animals and are reaping profits from keeping them then you should also be dealing with their death in a responsible manner. using them to bait wildlife is pretty dispicable.

Dealing with their death in a responsible manner? What the Hell do you know about animals anyway? Go pet your effing worms. And bobm isn't the one who said animal carcasses were used to shoot coyotes over-I was. Despicable? Again, what the Hell do you know? Do you even have any idea what devastation they wreak upon livestock, not to mention pets? I applaud bobm's neighbor for having a yearly coyote hunt to rid the area of an overpopulation of destructive coyotes. We have very good fencing and two Great Pyrenees to protect our sheep or else we would have no sheep. The coyotes are bad here too and it is open season on them. They howl all around us.
 
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