• Easy and inexpensive to maintain when you compare them to more conventional pets. Yes chickens are easy to raise and take care of once you’re past the first two weeks of age. Chickens just need a safe place to call home, like a coop or pen, fresh free choice feed and water and some attention from the family. They make great pets for a kid that wants a pet but does not want a lot of responsibility.
• Eggs that are fresh, great-tasting & nutritious. Most laying breeds of chickens will give you about 5 eggs a week and will lay from six months of age to about 4 years.
• Chemical-free bug and weed control. Chickens love to roam around there home, and the good thing is they don’t need a leash. Just teach them where there coop is and then open the door they will naturally roam and eat weeds and bugs and then return to their coop as evening approaches. Just make sure neighborhood dogs and predators cannot get at them easily.  
• 
• Manufacture the world’s best fertilizer, cleaning the coop can be a dirty job but take the muck and add to your garden or compost, you will have free fertilizer every month.
• Fun & friendly pets with personality, each chicken has its own personality and you will notice that each chicken has its own way of doing things. Generally people come in for a few chicks and then return shortly to expand their flock because they love them so much.

So stop by the store and purchase your Christmas chickens, start raising them now and by spring you will have fresh eggs for breakfast!

Do you have tail envy? The majority of horse owners are all seeking a common thing and that is a nice think long tail on their trusty steed. So today we are giving you a few helpful hints on how to work or your broom tailed horses.

First you need to make sure your horse is up to date on his de-worming schedule and that you are providing a complete balanced feeding schedule. A couple of things that can be added to your horses diet for more tail growth is Biotin or Flaxseed, please talk with your veterinarian on what the best supplement would be to compliment your current feeds.

The horse’s tail is flexible and strong, the horse’s tail is part of his spinal column. It is made up of approximately 18 vertebrae with some horse’s possessing more and others have less. The bones get gradually smaller from the root of the tail to the tip with the last one being pointed. Tail movement is managed by portions of the muscles that extend over the horse’s rump and attach to the vertebrae. Comprehensive movements like twisting and carriage of the tail are assisted by muscle-fiber bundles located in the tail itself. There are only two arteries that pump blood to the tail so circulation is not efficient resulting in injuries that tend to heal slower.

A product known as M-T-G has received great reviews from horse owners everywhere. It has proven a great remedy for growing a horse’s mane and tail with the application of the product. Publicized as being “Miraculous”, Shapleys Original M-T-G formula has provided fast, proven results for over 69 years, according to the manufacturer. Effective at both relieving skin conditions, and promoting hair growth, users report up to 3 inches of new growth on manes and tails in a single month.

However most horse owners agree that the most important part of growing a horse’s tail out is time, keeping it clean and not brushing it and damaging the hairs, here are a few ideas that horse owners have suggested to get some growth on your horses tail.

First, wash the tail really well. Then use some Mane and Tail diluted down like 10 to 1. Don’t use a brush or comb on it, it will break the hair. Instead, pull the hairs apart a few at a time. It shouldn’t take too long since her tail is short, but it can take an hour to do this.
When her tail is nice and smooth and dry, take three long strips of old sheet. They should be about 4-6 inches wide and twice as long as the tail. Knot the three strips together at one end. Now, starting at the end of her tail bone, section the hair into three parts. Wrap each one with a strip of sheet. It helps to have another person help with this part. And braid the whole thing.
Wrap the braid so it’s reaches her hocks and leave some sheet strips hanging to help with swatting flies. Now wrap the whole braid with vet wrap, but still leave the sheet ends to swat with. Don’t take her tail down until you’re ready to give her a bath and go through the whole thing again. Do keep the tail itself clean. You can carefully wash the boney part of the tail with out getting the wrapped part wet. Use baby wipes to keep her bottom clean. Horses will rub if they get dirty under there and will rip out they’re hair.

A lot of people suggest adding baling twine to your horses tail to ensure he can still swat flies if needed.

With time and patience you will soon have a long lustrious tail according to those that have put these methods to the test.

Horse slaughter is back in the United States.

10% Off Tack, Equipment, Supplements & Topicals

15% Off Tacks Sets

25% Off Discontinued items

$1.00 off Hay & Pellets on Saturdays December 3rd, 10th & 17th

We will also have a special in person visit from Santa Claus on December 3rd from 10am-3pm. Receive one free 8 1/2″x11″ picture, bring your kids, dogs, horses anything that wants to meet Santa!

This weekend we are attending the 2011 Southern Arizona Horse Expo at the 77 arena in Oracle. It will be a fun filled weekend that involves great horse presentations, booths with valuable information, and a community of horse enthusiasts. Stop by our booth and check out the sale items, bring this blurb by and receive 25% off one regularly priced tack item at the horse expo. For more information please visit:

http://clayharperhorsemanship.com/southernazhorseexpo.html

We look forward to reading your suggestions!

Vaquero Staff

Last year I received a great suggestion from a wonderful customer. She informed me that there was a breed of chicken called a Minorca and that she believed that it would be a great Arizona bird. I researched the breed and found it to be a heat tolerant white egg laying breed that is not broody and fairly active. Sounded great for our customers here at the store.

I brought this breed in several times throughout the year and they sold great. So the question from me to you is what breeds do you like? And what works best for the Arizona climate? I can read all day but I’ve found that personal experience results in a better more positive outcome than just assuming the result. Tell me what you like when it comes to chicken breeds so I can place my order for fall babies and ensure they find great homes.

The reasons why horses have this vice are not fully understood. Some believe that the action releases endorphins into the horses system, others believe it is a sign that the horse anxious or board. Ultimately it’s not known what causes cribbing in horses.

There have been stories that if a horse cribs, other horses will  watch and eventually copy the behavior, becoming cribbers themselves, however these claims have been not been proven. Horses that crib are also thought to have a higher risk of colic and/or ulcers. Although investigation of various cases confirms the observation, the research suggests and supports that these cases have an unnatural feeding regime of high concentrates in combination with the cribbing. Therefore the idea has not been proven as a fact. The premier health concern for a cribber is the individual’s teeth. The constant grinding of teeth against wood, plastic or metal wears them down at an unusually swift rate. A chronic cribber can grind his front teeth down so low that a gap is created between the upper and lower teeth when the jaw is closed. This makes it very difficult for the animal to graze properly.

Options to try and treat or prevent this vice? There are a few but each cribber is different and each owner will see results for a multitude of changes and preventative measures.

Distasteful  Topicals: Painting the objects where the horse bites to crib with an approved topical may be enough to deter the horse from cribbing, especially when united with a more gratifying environment like pasture time or free choice grasshay.

Hot Wire: If your horse cribs on fences, putting electrical fencing along the top of the rails can prevent this.

Cribbing Collar: A specifically designed piece of tack that is fitted around the neck, preventing the horse from arching its neck to suck in air.

Medication. Some owners have also reported good results with calming medication. It is unknown if this is because of the stress reducing aspects of such medication or whether it is because they replace to some extent the endorphins associated with cribbing. Pleae see your vet before admisntering any medications to help with a cribbing issue.

Muzzle: Fitting the horse with a grazing muzzle, which still permits the horse to eat, will prevent him from grasping the rails.

Surgery: In excessive cases, there is a surgical procedure; one would normally resort to this only after other solutions have been unsuccessful and the vice was a major health hazard.

Remember, the unfortunate news is there is no magic spell to defeat a cribbing dilemma, what works for one horse may not work for another, its all about trial and error.

So what is equine conformation? And why is it important to understand?

Basically equine conformation evaluates the degree of correctness of a horse’s bone structure, musculature, and its body proportions in relation to each other. This does not mean that a horse with faults cannot perform well or at a high level it just means that there are certain horses closer to the “perfect” horse, conformation wise, than others. Personally I learned by experience that a horse’s conformation is good to understand but does not limit their ability to pour their heart out for their owner.

            I grew up blessed with horses and a family that supported my addiction to the best of their abilities. I was very active in 4-H and learned all I could, which included horse Judging (evaluating a horses conformation). Since then I’ve become very critical of how horses are built and was always comparing them to the most ideal structure of the perfect horse I had been taught to find through the Judging competition.

Several years ago we sold a mare to a family in Utah and they paid us to deliver her. When we arrived the new owner of the mellow, trustworthy mare wrote a check and told us that she would like us to have the buckskin gelding in the far pasture…..if we could catch him. Of course my husband took that as a challenge and spent the next ten minutes looking over the wiry three-year-old form a distance. With a grin he walked right up to that horse and threw a lead rope around his neck, walked him across the soggy pasture and into the stock trailer. The young ladies mouth almost hit the ground as he latched the gate behind the free gelding and asked “What do you call him?”

His name was Koda and he was an ill mannered, disturbed, and unruly registered Quarter Horse that had not taken to training well. Of course all I saw was another mouth to feed and a pretty colored, horrid array of conformation faults. I thought this horse would be nothing more that a trail horse that we would have to baby with bell boots, joint supplements, and special saddle pads.

What I learned two years later after some selected training and a lot of trust building that is this geldings attitude for life and willingness to please outweighed his conformation defects and made his worth more than four perfectly built horses. He will tenderly carry our five year old down a trail, he can run barrels five times in a row with teenage girls that have no horse to call their own, he took our nine year old through her first year of 4-H, he can jump three foot jumps with ease to crave my jumping addiction, he can pony vigorous race horses at the track, and does all of this with perky ears and delighted eyes.

            If you look at Koda from a conformation point of view you will find he has a ewe neck, a long back, a goose rump, and he’s sickle hocked. Huh??? What does that mean? He’s part sheep and goose and gets cold easily? No not at all, there are several horse terms that explain a conformation fault that are right out funny and learning what these terms mean will increase your knowledge of horses and how they are built.

Let’s start with Kodas conformation faults:

Ewe Neck: A neck with internal structure that causes it to bend upward instead of down in the normal arch. In Kodas case this is cased by him holding his neck high (stargazing). Stargazing makes it difficult for a rider to control the horse, who then braces on the bit and is hard-mouthed. This fault hinders the horse’s ability to collect and results in rough transitions, as the horse only elevates its head and doesn’t engage its hind end. The horse’s loins and back may become sore

Goose Rump: When the angle of the croup (rump) is too steep and resembles the downward side of a mountain. The angle of the hip and croup do not necessarily correlate. But it is desirable for a horse to have a square to slightly pear shaped rump. A horse can have a relatively flat croup and a well-angled hip. Once a horse is developed, the croup should be approximately the same height as the withers.

Long Back: With the back measured from peak of withers to peak of croup, exceeds 1/3 of horse’s overall body length. The horse’s ability to engage back depends on its ability to elevate the back and loins, requiring strong back and abdominal muscles. A long back is flexible, but harder for horse to stiffen and straighten spine to develop speed or coil loins to collect and engage the hindquarters to thrust rear limbs forward.

Sickle Hocked: The hind leg slants forward, when viewed from the side. The cannon is unable to be put in vertical position. Also called “curby” hock, as it is associated with soft tissue injury in the rear, lower part of the hock.

Other faults of the back include:

                                                                                                                                                                                         Sway Back: When the span of the back dips noticeably in center, forming a concave contour between the withers and croup. Usually causes high head carriage and stiffness through the back. Associated with a long back.

Roached Back: When the back and loins join the croup there is an upward convex curvature of the spine. Often a result of a short back, or injury of the lumbar vertebrae.

Other faults of the croup (rump) include:

Flat Croup: When the top line continues in a relatively flat manner to the dock of tail rather than falling off at sloping angle at the hips.

Jumpers Bump: When the horse has an enlargement at the top of the croup, caused by the tearing of a ligament at the top of the croup.

Other faults of the hock and cannons on the back leg include:

                                                                                                                                                                                     Long Cannon Bones: When the cannon is long between the hock and fetlock, making the hocks appear high relative to the overall balance of the horse. This can increase in tendon/ligament or hock injury.

 Camped Out: When the cannon and fetlock are “behind” a line dropped from point of buttock down to the ground, associated with upright rear pasterns. Makes it difficult for the horse to engage the back or haunches, so it is hard to do upper level dressage movements, bascule over jumps, or gallop efficiently.

Post Legged: When the angles of the hock and stifle are open. The tibia is fairly vertical, rather than having a more normal 60 degree slope. Rapid thrust of the rear limbs causes the feet to stab into the ground, leading to bruises and quarter cracks

Cow Hocks: When the hocks deviate toward each other, with the cannon and fetlock to the outside of the hocks when the horse is viewed from the side. More weight is carried on medial part of hoof, so it is more likely to cause bruising, quarter cracks, and corns. The lower legs twist beneath the hocks, causing interfering

            In conclusion I leave you with a simple task of seeing if you horse or one you know is balanced. How do you do this? Take a look at this picture and notice all the longer lines (neck, shoulder blade, girth depth, back, tibia) match perfectly in length throughout the body and all the short lines (head, shoulder depth, pelvis, humorous, pelvis, cannons, femur, hind depth) match perfectly in length throughout the body. This horse has exceptional balance. Try this with your trusty steed and see how balanced he/she is, but remember conformation is just an ideal to measure each individual to perfection. As I learned from Koda, a horse’s conformation does not reflect his personality or willingness to please, it just sets him aside from the perfect standard, and in my book Koda’s faults make him a unique and distinctive buckskin gelding.

Many horse owner’s question which salt is right for their horse? There are several different products on the market today but recently equine enthusiasts have embraced the particular needs of the actual Equine species itself. Most horse’s owners purchase a block of white or brown salt at the local feed store and provide it to their animal’s free choice in a salt block holder of some type. However these blocks were manufactured especially for cattle and their specific needs and horse owners rarely think about the fact that these two species are very different.

Salt blocks for cattle serve a great purpose.  They hold up to the environment and can be left out in the open where cattle graze.  They are compact; in fact most people don’t believe that they weigh fifty pounds.  In climates where there is a lot of rain, a salt block will hold up all year long.  But there’s a problem with the salt block when it comes to all livestock, it was intended for cattle and not horses.  Because it is handy it has become the main method in which salt is given to horses.

The issue with this is that cattle have rough tongues and have no problem licking salt from a salt block.  Horses don’t have a rough tongue and have great difficulty in getting as much salt as their bodies require from a salt block.  Look at most salt blocks that’s offered to horses and you’ll see teeth marks and scrapes in it.  Sometimes a horse can’t get all of the salt he needs from just licking a salt block, and sooner or later the horse will try and chew off more salt.  This is hard on the horses teeth and jaw and definitely an indication that your horse is struggling to get what he needs from the salt block. If you notice your horse honestly trying to eat his/her salt block then it may be time to offer free choice salt or a soft rock salt to allow your horse to maintain his/her levels at a more efficient rate. Animals are great regulators of what their bodies need.  If your horse is after the salt block constantly, and you are seeing teeth marks in it, then he really needs more of it to help balance his body.  He needs it to help his cells function and to keep his electrolyte system in balance.  Look at most electrolyte formulas and you’ll see one of the main ingredients is salt/sodium. Your horse is depending on you to provide good nutrition.

Due to this reasoning we are now stocking a product called Redmond Rock salt. If you feed your horse a balanced diet there still may be one thing missing: essential minerals. Redmond Equine products provide the electrolytes and trace minerals necessary for your horse to get the maximum benefit from his feed.

Many recommend providing free choice salt for your horse, but salt alone contains only two of the minerals your horse needs. A natural sea salt like Redmond Rock contains sodium and chloride like other salts, but also magnesium, calcium, potassium and dozens of trace minerals – in just the ratio nature intended. These macro minerals are critical for strong bones, high energy levels, and strong muscles. If your horse’s feed is like fuel in your truck, macro minerals are the spark that creates energy from the fuel.

Trace minerals like iron, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium and others are critical for enzyme and vitamin function. These minerals, though present in only tiny amounts, are essential for vitality, balanced health and rapid recovery from strenuous exercise. Redmond Rock is a unique trace mineral sea salt supplement that provides the macro and trace minerals your horse needs to be at his best, and because they are 100% natural, you can be sure you’re giving your horse nature’s perfect blend of minerals.

A new natural rock salt product to balance out your horse’s nutrition is just a step away, stop by and see us or call for pricing and more product information.