Carolyn's Footing and Bedding Blog

Everyone that rides horses has probably been in a dusty indoor or outdoor arena. Like the ones where just walking into the arena kicks up dust. Whenever I work a horse or ride in an arena like this, I notice that I continue blowing dirt out of my nose for the next four hours. It got me thinking, if I’m inhaling that much dust, how much is the horse I’m working with taking in?

While doing some research I found out some really interesting information. The average adult human consumes roughly 19 liters or 5 gallons during light activity such as lunging and light riding. To put this into perspective, the average gas can (like the ones you fill up lawnmowers with) are 5 gallons. Meanwhile, while a horse is in a walk, they consume 50-70 liters (13-18 Gallons) per minute depending on size. They’re consuming roughly 3 times the amount of air that we are. During a heavy workout such as running a race or playing a sport, a human consumes 80 liters per minute (21 Gallons). This amount could fill a commercial size garbage can. When a horse is at their peak, let’s say a thoroughbred running a race, they consume 1350 liters per minute or 356 Gallons! An average bath tub holds 60 gallons, the amount of oxygen that a horse uses per minute when galloping equals almost 6 bath tubs full of oxygen!

After trying to comprehend these numbers, as mind blowing as they are to me, I realize that it is crazy that we allow our horses to breathe in this dust. It makes us uncomfortable, so why do we let them breathe it when they’re taking in much more than we are? Horses have hairs inside their nostrils, just like us, to filter out debris. Further in their repertory system, they have moist mucus membranes that help to capture and filter foreign material. This membrane lines the twists and turns of the airways of the horse. If the dust is captured in this part of the airways, it will be pushed back out through a sneeze or a runny nose. It can get pretty thick inside their nose, which is when you can notice a horse sneezing often when riding or trying to push it out. If some dust gets past this, it will go further into the respiratory system. If it surpasses this defense, it will go into the tracheal and bronchial tubes, where it will either be sneezed out or swallowed; this is why your horses sneezes much more in an indoor arena. It can however end up deep into the lungs, which can cause major issues.

Next time that you’re lunging or riding your horse in an arena and feel your nose fill up with dust, think about how they feel. For your health and your horse’s it’s important to look into a dust free surface. Fighting dust is a big, uphill battle. You can try virtually everything to limit dust, but the best way to limit dust is to purchase a footing that is a dust-free footing. All of the footings at IGK Equestrian are dust-free, you never have to water them or maintain them to keep them dust free. Keep your nose, and more importantly, your horse’s nose free of dust, so that you can focus on training your horse, and not worrying about his/her health.

Summers are the best time for horses. You can train almost every day in the summer and do work around the barn without wearing fifteen layers of clothing. Another thing that comes along with warm weather: flies in your barn. These pesky, annoying pests are very common around stables, barns, and outdoor arenas.

You can probably find a few different species of flies in your barn, including the house fly and the stable fly. The main difference between the two is that stable flies are blood suckers, and will often attack the flanks of your horses, which causes them to stomp or kick at themselves. They’re very aggravating to your horses, and can also carry harmful diseases that can be transferred to your horse when they bite.

Horse barns are the perfect habitat for these insects. They provide food, moisture, and the perfect breeding grounds for flies, so you could end up with a lot of them. You will probably be constantly scratching your head on how to get rid of them or at least decrease the population. I’ve made a small list of a few tips on how to help reduce the population.

• Reduce their breeding grounds, get the manure out of their stall as soon as possible and store your manure pile as far away from your barn as you can.
• Store your feed in tightly sealed containers so that flies cannot get into your feed.
• Use fans to blow down and out of your barn, this can prevent flies from entering the barn in the first place.
• Looking into purchasing Fly Predators, these are relatively inexpensive and can get shipped right to your door. An example of a fly predator is a small non-stinging wasp. You would dump the container that they come in on your manure pile around dusk, both the wasps and wasp larva feed on the flies and fly larva.
• A more expensive approach is to install a horse fly spraying system in your barn. These can be custom configured to your barn and sprays a light insecticide mist in your barn 24/7 and are relatively maintenance free.
• Install fly traps or sticky glue around your barn, (Where horses can’t reach them) to collect some flies. The numbers of flies on these traps can also help to determine if you need to boost up your pest management or if you are doing well in maintaining low fly numbers.

IGK Equestrian’s SuperStall is very helpful with aiding the fight to decline the flies in your barn. Deep warm bedding in stalls along with manure in stalls are a fly’s favorite spot to lay eggs. When SuperStall is installed in stalls, you’re only using enough bedding on the surface to soak up urine and manure, therefore stopping the possibility of breeding in deep bedding.  By eliminating the deep warm bedding for the flies to breed, you tremendously decrease the fly population in your barn.

How do you combat fly problems?

This week, from the 11^th to the 13^th, we will be at the Empire Farm Days in Seneca Falls, NY! The Empire Farm Days is the largest outdoor agricultural trade show in the Northeastern United States. It showcases all of the latest farm equipment, dairy industry innovations, live animal seminars and more than 600 exhibits! We will be there showing off our dust-free arena footings and SuperStalls along with our father company: North Brook Farms. North Brook Farms sells SuperStalls for Dairy Farms with the option of a few different topcovers to choose from. So come and find us on Make-A-Buck Lane, booth 317 and stop by and say hi! We’d love to meet you!

Who loves spending hours and hours taking care of a horse stall? Not me that is for sure. I think the biggest issue that takes up the most time with mucking a stall is the horses that love to spread their manure around the entire stall. These are the types of stalls where you have to go through every inch of the stall with a pitch fork to make sure to separate the manure from the 3 inches of bedding. A few different barns that I have been in have either rubber mats as the flooring, or just a dirt floor. These types of floors normally have a few inches of bedding on top of the floor or mats; which can lead to hours of your time trying to differentiate the manure from the bedding.

I think my favorite part about SuperStalls is the fact that you save so much time! You only put in enough bedding to soak up the urine. You don’t have three inches of bedding to sort through to muck out the stall. You literally go right into the stall, pick up the wet bedding and manure and you’re done! SuperStalls need at the most, an inch of bedding. The topcover of our stalls are soft on the hocks so that there doesn’t need to be deep bedding for your horse to lie down in this stall. By having less than once inch of bedding, you will notice a huge difference in how much bedding you use and the time spent going through and mucking the stall. You’ll be saving tremendously on time and labor!

I recently caught up with a customer that installed our SuperStalls in the fall of 2014. She was telling me that her gelding loves to lie down in his stall. After she installed our SuperStall, she noticed he no longer had lesions or sores on his hocks and ankles. She said how much her horses love the SuperStalls and spend more time lying down in their stalls than ever before. It truly was great feedback to hear.

We love to hear from our customers on how much they, and their horses, love our SuperStall! What is your favorite part about your SuperStall system?

We are happy to announce that IGK Equestrian is going to Switzerland, well two of us are! Grant Kyle, Senior Vice President, and Ian Kyle, VP of Research and Development were both invited to represent IGK Equestrian at the Fédération Equestre Internationale Headquarters, located in Lausanne, Switzerland. FEI establishes the rules and regulations for all events in Dressage, Jumping, Eventing, Driving, Endurance, Vaulting and Reining all across the world.

A meeting of footing manufacturers, footing experts and scientists all around the globe were invited to Switzerland to discuss the introduction of an FEI seal of approval for arena surfaces for Jumping. Being invited to such a prestigious meeting of the minds along with 40 other experts in the field was truly an honor. It will be great hearing about what was discussed and accomplished at this meeting. We can’t wait to hear all about it when Ian and Grant return and of course to see pictures of the beautiful country of Switzerland!