All the Creatures

Horse owners and other livestock owners should be aware of what plants can kill their animals. For example did you know that just one leaf of an oleander plant can kill a horse in a matter of hours? Yet most unaware horse owners have those plants growing as ornamental bushes in their landscape. I have a friend that almost went ballistic when a neighbor or hers trimmed his oleander bushes and threw the trimmings into her pasture. Her neighbor certainly got educated later that day by her and her husband the deputy sheriff.

If you own livestock, you must educate yourself to the dangers of poisonous plants that your animals might come in contact with. Get yourself a good book on plants with lots and lots of full color photos like, “All About Poisonous Plants.” Most feed stores have them and of course you can find them on sale all over the internet.

Livestock owners that feed their animals baled hays should also be able to identify poisonous plants that have been dried and baled in their hay. Some plants are harmless at certain stages of their growth so you need to be aware of the plants poisonous life cycle.

Protect your animals and get educated about poisonous plants.

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Is it too early to talk about kids halloween costumes? I am not talking about costumes for human children but our friends, the goats. It is summer now and county fairs are in full swing along with 4-H shows and just plain fun get togethers. We always hear about doggy dress-up and if you go to some of the larger horse shows you can witness costume classes where the horse and rider dress up in non-traditional horse outfits. I thought I would just gather a few photos of goats that have been dressed up. I hope you enjoy them -

Cute photos aren’t they? As a side note, my neighbor has a few goats and one of the females gave birth to triplets a few weeks back. They are Boar goats, the all white with a brown head colored ones. Boars are meat goats. They grow pretty big and I have not asked him if he plans on eating them or not. Most of the time he just sells them. I use to have 2 Nubian/Boar cross female goats almost 10 years ago. I got them as 5 month olds. We had them for about 5 years and then sold them to a breeder who loved that cross.

Goats are fun and do make great pets. They also make good companions for horses.

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The title of this post is a question that I have often asked myself over and over again and still not come up with an answer to. Several years ago my elderly parents acquired a puppy. I don’t know why they thought that they could take on a dog that they would never take on a walk. They kept the dog in the house and small backyard until my father passed away. My mother took the dog with her when she moved in with my sister. My sister was no better since they simply kept the dog in the small backyard and rarely let the dog in the house. At the time my sister was complaining that she was trying to lose weight and was on this diet and that. I simply told her to take the dog for a daily walk and she would not need the most effective diet pills she can find but get some exercise and get the dog out of the backyard prison. Well, she never went on those walks and after 9 months of trying to get them to take better care of the dog, my husband and I stepped in and took the dog home with us.  The dog lived on our ranch from the age of 5 years old until she died of old age at the age of 15. She had 10 years of freedom. She roamed our 7+ acres, enjoyed the company of our other animals and had to follow me everyday when I moved the horses from the barn out to pasture. We would go for long walks on county trails.

I enjoyed going for walks and exercising our dogs, so I still ask myself, why would anyone own a dog and not even think to walk them?

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