Green Horsekeeping

Wildlife for Insect Control at the stable yard

Encouraging Beneficial Wildlife on your horse's yard will help control insect pests eg:

Birds

Birds are great natural pest contollers.

Many British birds such as blue tits, blackbirds, robins, starlings, great tits, magpies, song thrush, wren, house martins and swallows eat a variety of insect pests. One swallow alone can eat 6,000 insects a day.  

Encouraging birds to your equestrian property by providing suitable habitat, putting up nest boxes, providing water and feeding can reduce the number of annoying insect pests.

If you can attract owls and / or kestrels to your property by providing well designed, properly sited nest boxes you'll also have natural rodent control.

In the UK visit the RSPB for information and advice on attracting birds, siting of nestboxes etc

In the USA visit The National Audubon Society, Canada Bird Studies Canada and in Australia  Birdlife for further information.

Image: Dûrzan cîrano licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

 

BATS

In Great Britain where bats pose no threat with regard to rabies bats can be encouraged as natural pest contollers. All UK bats eat insects eg. a single pipistrelle, the commonest of British bats, can eat 3,000  flying insects a night so they are very useful on equestrian properties.

Many people are afraid of bats mainly due to the (untrue) legends and old wives tales that have accumulated around them over the years. Bats aren't agressive and will avoid humans wherever possible and should not be feared.

Bats aren't rodents so they don't gnaw at wood or eat your horse's food.

Bats won't get tangled in your hair or suck your blood. There are no vampire bats in the UK.

Their droppings  have no known health risks associated with them, they are dry and crumble to dust.

If you'd like to encourage bats to your property you can put up bat boxes for them to roost in, also try to avoid the use of pesticides and plant native trees and shrubs in the hedgerow.

Here is a list of the 18 bats indigenous to Great Britain:

Greater Horseshoe Bat

Lesser Horseshoe Bat

Daubenton's Bat

Natterer's Bat

Whiskered Bat

Brandt's Bat

Bechstein's Bat

Alcathoe Bat

Noctule

Leisler's Bat

Serotine

Common Pipistrelle

Soprano Pipistrelle

Nathusius Bat

Brown Long-eared Bat

Grey Long-eared Bat

Barbastelle

Greater Mouse-eared Bat

If you already have bats on your horse property please be aware that ALL UK bats and their roosts are protected by law. It is a criminal offence to:

1. Deliberately capture, injure or kill a bat.
2. Intentionally or recklessly disturb a bat in its roost or deliberately disturb a group of bats
3. Damage or destroy a bat roosting place (even if bats are not occupying the roost at the time)
4. Possess or advertise/sell/exchange a bat (dead or alive) or any part of a bat
5. Intentionally or recklessly obstruct access to a bat roost.

You can find out more about bats in the UK by visiting the Bat Conservation Trust

In the USA by visiting The Organization for Bat Conservation,

Canada the Canadian Wildlife Federation and in Australia the Australasian Bat Society .

Image: Mnolf licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Dung Beetles Direct

We've talked about the use of dung beetles for horse manure control before now we'd like to intorduce UK readers to Dung Beetles Direct.

Dung Beetles Direct is run by entomologist TV presenter Dr Sarah Beynon  who has been researching dung beetles for nearly a decade, her award winning doctorial thesis covered the impact of wormers on dung beetles. Dr Benyon's aim is to reverse the decline in British dung beetles by offering advice on pasture management (and wormers) and providing packages of native British dung beetles to release onto your pastures. According to the website dung beetles can: 

• Reduce pasture fouling
• Improve horse-sick pasture
• Increase soil fertility
• Increase soil organic matter
• Improve soil aeration & soil structure
• Improve water run-off quality
• Can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock
• Can reduce livestock parasites, reducing the use of chemical livestock wormers (anthelmintics)

Dung Beetles Direct are currently compiling a waiting list for dung beetle packages, to be placed on the list please   fill in the enquiry form or ring to register an interest

For further information please visit  dungbeetlesdirect.com

Image: viaWikimedia Commons licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Shelter Belts of Trees Help Prevent Your Paddocks From Flooding

Here is an extract from an  article by George Monbiot covering  the issues involved in the current flooding situation here in the UK  Drowning in Money

"The story begins with a group of visionary farmers at Pontbren, in the headwaters of Britain’s longest river, the Severn. In the 1990s they realised that the usual hill farming strategy – loading the land with more and bigger sheep, grubbing up the trees and hedges, digging more drains – wasn’t working. It made no economic sense, the animals had nowhere to shelter, the farmers were breaking their backs to wreck their own land.

 

So they devised something beautiful. They began planting shelter belts of trees along the contours. They stopped draining the wettest ground and built ponds to catch the water instead. They cut and chipped some of the wood they grew to make bedding for their animals, which meant that they no longer spent a fortune buying straw. Then they used the composted bedding, in a perfect closed loop, to cultivate more trees(3).

One day a government consultant was walking over their fields during a rainstorm. He noticed something that fascinated him: the water flashing off the land suddenly disappeared when it reached the belts of trees the farmers had planted. This prompted a major research programme, which produced the following astonishing results: water sinks into the soil under the trees at 67 times the rate at which it sinks into the soil under the grass(4). The roots of the trees provide channels down which the water flows, deep into the ground."

Do go over to George Monbiot's website and read the whole article: Drowning in Money,

or if you prefer you can read the article in the Guardian: Drowning in Money: the untold story of the crazy public spending that makes flooding inevitable

Image: © Copyright John Chroston and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Horse drawn manure spreader

Great video of a horse drawn manure spreader:

 

This is what http://www.ChariotSpreader.com - Unlike traditional manure spreaders the Chariot Spreader shreds manure clumps & shavings. This shredded output is evenly spread to offer a nutrient rich fertilizer without smothering or burning the pasture. The process exposes more manure to sunlight which reduces parasite eggs, reduces flies and allows the manure to decompose far more quickly. Quick decomposition encourages a healthy pasture and greatly reduces pasture turn times. The Chariot Spreader™ sets new high standards of safety, ease of use & ease of maintenance. No exposed augurs or rotating blades to injure or fling hazards into the air. No calibration required or levers to adjust, just fill it & go. No moving floorboards or elaborate chain and gear systems to fight with. The Chariot Spreader™ was specifically designed from the ground up to eliminate many of the most common problems found with traditional manure spreaders and in the process added a few great advantages of it's own.

Mending haynets with recycled baling twine

Recycled baling twine rope for haynets

Ropes break on haynets, it's inevitable with all that tugging, but there is no need to throw them away because braided / plaited baling twine makes a great replacement rope. The plaited baling twine is supple and long lasting and as all horse keepers know baling twine is readily available.

Recycle. Reuse.

More uses for recycled baling twine:

Make a haynet from recycled baling twine - video instructions.

The Dung Beetle Dictionary

We wrote about dung beetles and how they help with horse manure control a while ago, you can read the full post by clicking Dung Beetles for Horse Manure Control .

Now we've discovered a rather marvellous online resource provided by Land Care Australia it's a Dung Beetle Dictionary.

You can use the Dung Beetle Dictionary to find out about the different types of dung beetle found in Australia, which beetles can be found in which states, their size, identifying features and much more. A great resource for anyone interested in finding out more about these facinating insects.

"Without dung beetles, we would be up to our necks in dung."

Image:Aboresce licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Recycled Rosette Ribbon Wreath

Here is another great recycling idea for horse show rosette ribbons, a decorative wreath.

This one made by Nancy Pierson of  The Repurposed Rider  is stunning. Nancy also recycles rosettes into keepsake pillows

Using dried horse manure as a fuel

 

Dried animal dung was once commonly used as a fuel for fires, now, with all the talk of rising heating costs, could this be revised ?

Yet another use for horse droppings  ?

Well Stoves Online tried burning dried horse manure in one of their stoves, you can watch the brief video of the dung burning in a stove above. Read about the experiment by clicking here

What do you think? Would you use horse dung to heat your home?

Recyclying old rosette ribbons into cushions

Here's a great idea for all those old winning rosettes :

Nancy Pierson of  The Repurposed Rider has been making pillows out of old show ribbons for about 10 years. She can make a pillow using your own winning ribbons or she'll use some from her own collection if you want a specific colour. They make great keepsakes.

Horse Manure recycled into Sweet Peet Mulch as used by Martha Stewart at Turkey Hill

Sweet Peet reckon they make the best mulch on earth and guess what?

Yes that's right it includes bedding and manure from equestrian properties.   

Other Muck Heap to Money Success Stories :

Well rotted horse manure raising funds for horse charity

Your muck heap problem could be turned into a thrivingbusiness