Interview with Dr. Travis Beasley

In this episode I talk with Dr. Travis Beasley from the Beasley Equine Clinic.  We talk about a lot of horse related issues, including the importance of quality forage, stomach ulcers, the use of propionic acid and much more.  Check out their social media channels:

Beasley Equine Clinic:
https://www.facebook.com/beasleyequineclinic
https://www.youtube.com/@BeasleyEquineClinic

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just say , Hey , podcast. Now, most , mostly we
talk about business andmarketing and farming and the
equipment and agronomy, buttoday is a podcast that I have
been wanting to do for a coupleof years now. Uh, we are lucky
enough in our community to have, uh, the Beasley Equine Clinic
, um, and they have beenamazing , uh, just amazing in

(00:21):
helping us in our journey ashorse owners going from , uh, a
pony for my daughter to, youknow, a full barn of pretty
dang nice rope horses to, youknow, and, and guiding us and
helping us along the way. Andover the years, I have become
really close friends with Dr.
Travis Beasley, who hasrecently taken over the clinic.

(00:42):
And I just, I just think a lotof Travis and I was really, I
really love talking to him. We,we have a lot of things in
common and so this, thispodcast is gonna be a lot of
fun. We're gonna talk aboutForge. We're gonna, you know,
talk about some of the thingsthat we have in common. So , so
let's get into it. Welcome tojust say, Hey, the podcast
where we talk about whatmatters to small farms, whether
it's business marketing,agronomy equipment, livestock

(01:06):
health. If it matters to smallfarms, we'll probably talk
about it here. So let's getinto it. Welcome to the show,
Travis. Thanks

Speaker 2 (01:13):
For having me, John . Yeah, this is awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah. Dr. Beasley has taken over the, the clinic
that his father started. Ron ,Dr. Beasley. Ron started this
in what, the mid seventies,

Speaker 2 (01:23):
1981.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
1981, yep .

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Doesn't seem building. Yeah. Same building.
Yep . It still looks fantastic.
Yeah. So we are gonna talkabout forage here because as,
as you know, if you listen tothis podcast or watch it on
YouTube, that we run acommercial forage farm. And so
we deal with a lot of horseowners , a lot of them . And
Travis deals with more. So, youknow, we talk to horse owners

(01:50):
all the time and we try topreach the importance of
forage.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's great. They need it , um, from all kinds of
aspects. The calories, thenutrition, and with the
performance horses, we see aton of stomach problems

Speaker 1 (02:05):
And ulcers.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah. Stomach ulcers. And we can mitigate a
bunch of that prevention wise ,just with hay.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Really? By preventing stomach. Stomach
ulcers with hay. Yep . How ,how does that work?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
So the horse's stomach has two different types
of lining in it. The bottomhalf is kind of like ours, that
, that makes the acid acid cansit there and doesn't hurt it.
Then there's a distinct line,and then the top half is the
same lining as like theesophagus and ours. Right. So
horses by design are supposedto just forage all day. Right.

(02:37):
And constantly be eating. Andthat keeps that stomach full.
The minute that stomachdeflates, if a horse stands
around not eating, that acidcan rise up. And as soon as
that top half gets exposed toacid, that's where those ulcers
come from. It literally burns ahole in

Speaker 1 (02:51):
It. Yeah. You and I were talking before the show
that the, the stomach acid,especially in things like the,
like trail horses that aredoing these 8, 10, 12 hour long
trail rides that, you know,you, you had mentioned
something that they could ,that a , a trail rider could do
just moments before they goriding.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So we always preach forage first, and that's
whether you're feeding in themorning or get ready to ride.
Like we recommend two to fourpounds of alfalfa, ideally
'cause of the calcium and theadded buffering of that. Right.
And two to four pounds of thatbefore you ride. 'cause if your
horse goes more than six hourswithout eating your risk of
stomach ulcer increase likefour or five times .

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Really? Yeah. So, you know, by, so by feeding our
horse alfalfa, or at least someroughage, some, some forage
before we do any, any type ofan event

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yep . While you're getting ready to tacking up,
just let 'em eat hay. And any,any hay is better than nothing.
Right. The alfalfa's a littlebit better because of the
calcium in it . That calciumbuffers. Right . The acid.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Okay. So, you know, when, when we traveled a lot so
we would make sure we broughtour own hay. Mm-Hmm.
, you know , uh,how important is it to maintain
a similar hay diet throughoutthe year? So, you know, we
traveled with our horses. Youyou did a lot of the paperwork
for us when we were travelingall over the country. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
The , the consistency is, is big. A lot
of the colics we get part ofthe history is, you know, any
change in diet. Yeah. Weswitched, hey , two weeks ago,
whether it's a palatabilitything or sugar content or
whatever, that's usually acomponent to these horses at
colic. Just really. Yeah. Or ifit's dryer and stuff like that.
So yeah .

Speaker 1 (04:30):
We had a horse one time where we were soaking it
and we, we were soaking ourhead before , uh, that due
course of ours. Mm-Hmm .
, we were soakingthat hay so that he would, you
know, help him with somerespiratory issues. But you,
you see a lot of respiratoryissues.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
We see a ton

Speaker 1 (04:42):
And, and mostly due to bad forage. Yes.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Mostly due to the mold and the biggest culprits
of round bas. Yeah. 'cause theysit out, they're exposed, the
mold grows and the first thingthey do is eat that middle and
they stand there all day andbreathe that. And then they ,
they call it, there's a bunchof names, recurrent airway,
obstruction, eaves , equineasthma, COPD. It all kind of
means the same thing, butthat's the biggest thing we see

(05:08):
mold related wise . And we'llget the few that have that,
like the toxins that can getneurological and get super sick
from that. But the , theasthma's the biggest.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah. Uh , you know, we have a lot of people that
call us call the farm lookingfor hay for their horses and
they want horse quality roundbales. Now, I'm not saying they
don't exist because they do,there are guys that, that focus
on that and they put the hay upin the barn and it's never,
never sits outside. But for themost part, anybody we know that
does round bells that they sitoutside and they grow mold.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yep . Terribly. Yeah . And then unless you've got
enough eaten them fast enough,I mean you're , it's gonna get
exposed out there. Mm-Hmm .
,

Speaker 1 (05:46):
I mean we, we sort of looked at it when we're
feeding , when we were feedingcattle. We've got a a , a small
cattle farm as well. When wefeed cattle, we think one bale
per head per month is sort ofa, you know, just, just rough
math kind of way to think aboutit. Well, if you've got one
horse, one bale one month,that's 30 days of that hay
sitting out in the rain,sitting out just growing mold

(06:09):
and they, they sort of eat outof the center. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (06:12):
And then they , they sit there and just breathe that
mold. Yeah. And that's, I mean,Southern Illinois will get
extremely humid weather andthis August we'll have horses
that can't even catch theirbreath standing there from
really, from the Yeah. We'llend up euthanizing several just
because

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Of that. Just because of the molten Wow. Man.
Tell you , you know, ourhorses, I don't know how
everybody is out there, but ourhorses sort of become part of
the family. Oh yeah. Some of'em you wanna , you know , you
wanna ship off to boardingschool, but for the most part,
you know, they're , they'repart of the family and you
know, by doing something assimple as making sure they've
got quality, quality hay there.

(06:47):
Yep . Now, you know, now we fed, uh, uh, a name brand food for
a while and we fed severalgrain products as well. But we
were always fortunate enough wewere able to provide high
quality forwards there for 'em.
And, you know, you've seen ourhorses, they, they always look
pretty good. Um, what do you,what do you recommend for
people? How, how should theybuy their hay? How should they

(07:07):
look at it?

Speaker 2 (07:08):
The testing's the biggest thing. 'cause they
always want me to look, I mean,it may look good, it may look
like salad, but the nutritionmay or may not be there. Or it
may be too good for certainhorses that aren't doing

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Much . You know, that's , we , we get our dairy
customers that buy alfalfa fromus. They want numbers, they
want numbers. Now, don't get mewrong, they're gonna look at
it, they're gonna visuallyinspect it to Right . They're
not just buying on the numbers,but they're gonna visually
inspect it. But they want toknow the numbers. And I don't
know that we've ever had ahorse customer want the

(07:43):
numbers.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
No. And I don't think too many ask until where
we get a mouse is like themetabolic horses or Cushings or
sugar contents. The , right

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Now we've, we have a horse that's PSSM. Mm-Hmm.
. And so explainwhat, what Forge does to that.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
It depends on , um, what else you're feeding too .
But a lot of it's thepolysaccharides. I mean, they
can't, they can't store it. Sothe , you , you want 'em , a
lot of their calories comingfrom fat or Right . The , the
carbs that won't affect ,affect the vessels as much.
Right. So testing and that's,that's big to know what

Speaker 1 (08:18):
You got. Yeah . We got a call for a , a low sugar
hay last year and I didn't haveany experience growing that and
didn't have any experience whatthey were looking for. And I
turned them on to anotherfarmer that I know that
actually has two or three bigfields that are specific to
that need. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
And that's probably the biggest thing is if you, if
you know, you want your horsesto eat all day, but I mean, if
you've put that good alfalfa inthe blow up like ticks. Right.
So slow feeders, slow feederhay bags . There's a couple
commercial products that are,that sit on the ground.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah. What about like the nets? So like the net
feeders?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, those are good. It depends on your horse
too. I bought one for mine andit didn't

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Last

Speaker 2 (08:56):
It . Yeah . She tore it up. She got mad. Um, but
that's the, you know, the , thereal good hay, if if they eat
like that, they'll , they'llgain too much weight. So it's,
there's a fine line with someof that. So when I say lower
quality for some of 'em, not,you know,

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Not quality of hay , but maybe, maybe lower in the
hot Yeah . The protein.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah. Not the hay that's been sitting out back
for two years. Right. .
Because again, the mold's thebiggest problem we see. Yeah.
We

Speaker 1 (09:21):
See with that we have customers that they want,
when they go they, for theirhorses, they want that second,
third, fourth cutting alfalfa,which when we're cutting it.
Right. Which we try to dothough . Those numbers are
through the roof RVs of 200plus, which I, you know, not
being veterinarian, but I I Imake 'em at least aware that,

(09:43):
look, this is pretty high. Hey,I mean this stuff is a lot of
calories, a lot of nutrientspacked in here. It might not be
what you're looking for.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah. That , and it depends on what you use for
your horse. I mean, if hestands around all week and you
go ride for a few hours on theweekend, you definitely don't
need all that. But Right.
There's a lot of trainers wework for. I mean, the majority
of their diet is just alfalfa.
Mm-Hmm . . Andthe horses look great. They may
add a ration balancer in thereYeah. For supplements and stuff
like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
I know our friend , uh, down the road, he, he feeds
a lot of Alf alpha Mm-Hmm .
. And, you know ,his

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Horses look good

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Too . I, you know, that's something I always
comment, in fact, I think I'mgonna have Larry on as a guest,
but his horses, their horses attheir stable always look fat
and bloomed out. They look justreally muscled up. But they
feed a lot of hay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
They don't supplement too much.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
No, no. And it's oats and something . It's not a
commercial product at all. Theyblend their own.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah. And the other thing with hay, if you feed
that forage first and yourhorse has to chew more than
just gulping down, say a sweetfeed, and that chewing produces
saliva and there's bicarbonthat, so not only do you get
the hay in there to back as amat to keep that acid down, you
get the buffering

Speaker 1 (10:53):
From , and that goes back to that, you know, hay
first Mm-Hmm. ,you know, before you trail
ride, give 'em , give 'em four,six pounds of hay. Yeah . But
also when you're feeding emNow, I never knew that. And we
would allot of times whateverwe grabbed first when in the,
went in the stall first untilwe , you know, now you try to
get that hay in there first. Sothey're eating that hay a
little bit before they gettheir nose in the green. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (11:12):
And then they've done studies where they put
cannulas and horses and pHmeters and as soon as a horse
smells it , their stomach acidstarts going up .

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Well, it's Pavlov.
Mm-Hmm. . I meanit's Pavlov, my, my, my cattle
dog that brides with meeverywhere. You know, the
minute I'd go through a drivethrough , she's salivating.
'cause she knows she's gettinga fry.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
That was the bell guy, right? Yeah. Yeah . Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Okay. Ring the bell.
The dog starts salivate. Yeah .
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
So forge first if you can just remember that, I
mean, before you trail ride,before you do anything, before
you feed grain, that's,

Speaker 1 (11:43):
That's great . Yeah.
That's a , that's a really goodpractical, anybody can do this.
Yeah . I mean, if you'refeeding, if you're feeding hay
and you're feeding grain,remember feed your forage
first. It's gonna stop stomachulcers. It's gonna help prevent
stomach ulcers. Yep . 'causeyou're providing that saliva.
Yep . That's fantastic . That'sreally good .

Speaker 2 (11:59):
And what we tell people too, I mean this is all
that's prevention, but we'llget horses that are symptomatic
and you can't really preventanything that's already there.
So recognizing the signs ofulcers earliest 'cause we'll
have some people call, youknow, my horse, he'll eat his
hay, but he won't eat a sweetfeed . And we use the analogy
of that's like giving a kid abowl of cookies or a bowl of

(12:20):
broccoli. Mm-Hmm .
. And the kideats the broccoli. Right. You
know what I mean? Because ithurts when they eat that acid
because as soon as the carbshit the stomach, the bacteria
in their ferin them intovolatile fatty acids. Right.
Which make the stomach evenmore acidic and the cells can
swell and stuff like that. Sosome horses, if they're smart
enough, they'll learn, if I eatthat, it's gonna hurt. Some

(12:41):
aren't so smart. And they'lleat it and then go down. And so
a lot of the horses we seethat, that get cast and have
injuries from that. Right.
That's the first thing thatgoes in my mind is like, why
did this horse lay down a rollafter it ate ? Right. And
unfortunately, the only way todiagnose ulcers is scope 'em .
And that procedure's not cheap. And the treatment of ulcers
is not cheap to do. It

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Really can't just get prevacid .

Speaker 2 (13:03):
No , we give 'em , uh, the same drug as we
Prilosec, but it's gotta be,it's gotta be the name brand
stuff. Otherwise the, thestomach acid burns up the drug.
Really? Mm-Hmm. .
Hmm . So it's the same drug aslike our Prilosec . It's
omeprazole. Right. But the ,the , like, some of the
compounded stuff it does is ifit hits the stomach, it
doesn't, doesn't get absorbedas good.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
So in your practice, what are the biggest issues
that you see that, that areforage related in our area
here?

Speaker 2 (13:32):
The asthma, recurrent airway obstruction,
the heaves, those ,

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Those

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Are, that's the biggest one we see as far as
that goes. Because yeah , likeI said, it's terribly sad to
see.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
And I , I mean, and don't get me wrong, I mean, I
understand PE why people wantto buy round bales. Oh yeah.
They're cheap. Yeah. I mean, asfar as forage goes, round bales
that sit outside are thecheapest hay you can find. And
for a cow, I know we sell a lotof round bales to cattle
farmers, but that, and when youset that round bale out and you
store it outside properly, thewater runoff of the net wrap

(14:05):
Mm-Hmm . And does a good job ofprotecting that bale. But it's
not the same as putting it in abarn. No . And it's not the
same as keeping the moistureaway from it. Plus most round
bailers that most the peoplethat bale, not the bailers
themselves, most people whoround bale are, you know,
they're using the old fashionedmethods of determining moisture

(14:26):
content. When they bail , theyget out and they twist the hay
or they look at it because theround baler don't have moisture
meters. So they're notconfirming that they're getting
that hay baled in that 16, 15,16, 18% moisture. So they ,
they don't have that mechanicalcheck. You know, the other
thing that we see is, you know,they, they look at the hay as a

(14:47):
dollar, you know, they'relooking at, at that value for
the tonnage. Well that, that,that thatch of hay across the
top of a bale. Well that'swaste. So if you've got two to
four inches of waste aroundYeah. You know, circles get
bigger as they , you know, aswe go out. So that four inches
is the same as six or eightinches in the middle as you go

(15:09):
in. So that's a lot of wastethat happens there, which most
people don't count when theybuy a bale of

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Hay. Right. And, and then , I mean, how long do cows
live? Right? Yeah. Like,

Speaker 1 (15:19):
I mean, you know it , on our farm not very long
Right. You know, mamas livereally good 'cause they, our
mamas get fed well. Right. And,and so do our babies. I mean,
we feed, you know, I laugh,kind of funny. My , my kids
when they were little didn'tlike the idea that we, we sold
our cattle or we ate ourcattle. But , uh, you know,
when it's on our farm, it getstreated with dignity and

(15:39):
respect. It gets fed well. Andbut the reality is , uh, uh, a
cow that you're gonna eat orsomebody is gonna eat doesn't
make it to three. Right.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
And we're Yeah. And we're, I mean, a lot of the
horses we work on late teens,early twenties. Yeah. So
they're living

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah. My stretch horse is, you know, he's ugly.
Uh , he's an ugly horse. Lookslike he's put together by a
committee. But man, he, he's24. He looks good. Five. And he
still looks good. In fact , uh,uh, I , the kid down the road
was roping on him for the pasttwo years. Yeah. Learning to
rope and stretch at 25 yearsold was still back in the box
and still go catch a steer.

(16:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
A lot of the, the horses like the high school
rodeo ones, I mean, that's whatthey're looking for. The
teenaged. Yeah. The horses thatwere old 25 years ago aren't
Yeah. Aren't so, I mean, andthat's nutrition dentistry, I
mean Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Hoof care. Hoof

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Care, everything.
Like, everything's gettingbetter. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
So. Well, you know, I mean, look at, look at people
in the fifties when we started,when the water department
started putting floor ride inthe, in the water. Almost put
dentists outta business. Imean, it's a , I mean, yeah, we
still get cavities because nowinstead of getting bad water,
we, we eat like crap. You know?
But you know, that same thingwith horse care. We know that
we need to have our, have ourteeth floated and checked.

(16:55):
Mm-Hmm . . Weknow these things. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
So it's, it's, it's what was a life expectancy of a
human like a hundred years ago?
50 something. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Mid fifties.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
87 for a female.
Yeah. Something like that. Why

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Do females live longer than us?

Speaker 2 (17:11):
We better not go there.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
I don't know .
Probably. 'cause we're dumb guys are dumb. I know.
'cause I am one.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
It's kind of jump into something else just
because it's fun. Travis and Ihave a, a lot in common and,
and I thought this was funny. Iwent and saw one of the first
times you were up here playingat the, at the restaurant here
in town. I went up and saw youbecause I just, you know, I
said , well, he is , he , he ,we know him. We're gonna go up
and watch him play. I didn'trealize how talented you
actually were.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Uh , I don't know that it's talent. I just go up
there and fake it.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
It's hard to fake talent. I mean, you can fake
personality. You could fake alot of things. You can't fake
talent. And I've been aroundenough of it to know.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, that means a lot coming from you. 'cause you
have been around.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
I've been , i I have been around. That's

Speaker 2 (17:58):
A lot of

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Talent. So, but you know, so let's play, play a
game here real quick. Favoritesong?

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Oh gosh . Currently or like all time. All

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Time . Favorite.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Oh man. There's a , there's an old George Jones
song called The King is Gone.
Yep . And I just love thatsong. You remember the one I'm
talking about? Yeah. Oh,absolutely. Yeah . Where he is
drinking out of the jelly beanjar. Yep .

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Now I love my favorite all time favorite
song. There's two of 'em that Ilisten to. One of them is Ella
Fitzgerald, how High the Moon,1956 recording from Germany.
And she goes out to sing HowHigh the Moon and you know who
Ella is. Right? And she forgetsthe words and she scats the

(18:45):
whole back half of the song.
And the band follows herimpeccably. The story is she
comes off stage crying thinkingthe audience is booing her. And
they are, they are standing,standing ovation. It is one of
the most amazing record . Ihave to look at that one. Yeah.
You ought to look that one up.
Just listen to sit down andlisten to it. It will blow you
away when you realize, when youthink of the story that goes

(19:07):
along with that. And you know,in America, we don't appreciate
jazz as a country, but you goover to Europe and jazz rules
and it's the, oh yeah , weinvented the music here. How
so? Yeah. Okay. Uh , song youlisten to makes you think of
your family.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Uh , man, that's a tough one. BLS got a song, his
dad was a vet and he's got onecalled Talking Veterinarian
Blues. Yep . And it , thatmakes me think of Dad all the
time. Yeah. So that's, that'sprobably the biggest one.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah .

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Corps's a hero of mine. So yeah,

Speaker 1 (19:46):
I , for me, it's an old song called One Meatball .
And my mom is a fantasticmusician. I mean world class ,
world class musician. And whenshe was younger, they would
have a bunch of friends gettogether and I was a little
kid. I wasn't even old enoughto play the piano. And mom
would break that song out . Itwas just a funny song about a

(20:07):
guy , one meatball, onemeatball about a guy who goes
to a fancy restaurant to buydinner. And I think he only has
a nickel. And he says, what canI get for, you know, for this?
And the guy says, you can getone meatball with no spaghetti.
.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
That's awesome. And who , who is that? I

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Don't,

Speaker 2 (20:23):
I mean, various people. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
It's been , I mean this is probably goes back mom,
you know, mom's in her, in hereighties now. And this probably
goes back to when she wasplaying a lot, which would've
been in her twenties.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah. It's like the old cowboy songs and nobody
knows who wrote 'em . Just keepresurfacing.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah. So, so we have a lot of that in common. I ,
you know, Travis, I love totalk music. You came and played
for our friend's birthday partyseveral years ago down at the
barn. Yep . And I mean, thatwas fun. We stayed up, I stayed
up later than I've stayed up along time.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah. That was a good night. Yeah. Yeah .

Speaker 1 (20:57):
So, all right , let's play a game here called
Fact or Fiction. All right.
Okay . Ready?

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yep .

Speaker 1 (21:02):
All right . Fescue .
Hey , bad for horses.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
That is not true.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Now , uh, you know, we buy our fescue is we make
sure to buy end to fight freefescue. Yeah . Because there is
a rare case, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Live with you can get it like the last 60 to 90
days of pregnant mare . Right .
The fes the end of fight cancause problems with milk
production and stuff like

Speaker 1 (21:31):
That. Yeah. I've heard even possible , uh, uh,
of the mare aborting.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah. You can do that. And the biggest thing is
what we call red bag delivery.
Right. So instead of that beingthat there's free mature
separation, there's so when thebaby comes out , it's supposed
to break that sack. Well, theycan't, it's thick. You gotta
take a knife and

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Cut it

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Or a letter opener or something. And that's the
biggest thing. I mean, we'llget people that, you know, they
, if they're not there, theymay come out and then they just
got a dead baby. And that'spreventable. I mean, just you
get the end to fight free stuffor

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Just, and it's, and it's only like 60 to 90 days.
'cause I have customers thatyou say the word fescue and
they're run , you can't seeanything. But they're backside
'cause they're running away sofast because they've heard
fescue's bad, fescue bad.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
No , the only trouble we get it from it is in
that last, some people say 60,we air , we air on the set of
caution. Right. 90 days getsyour mar and it's fescue hay
pasture. I mean Yeah . Most ofthe pasture around here is
fescue.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah. Especially the older pasture. It's that old
field fescue, which is almostentirely , uh, if I'm not say
it's , I think it's Kentucky 31or something. And it , it , it
is, it , there's an end fightinfestation. Uh , we per , when
we plant new fields, we plantedone and we purposely planted
fescue because we wanted that,that resistance to traffic.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
That's why it's so resistance. Right. The, the end
of fight in there makes itstronger. 'cause I mean, horses
are hard on, on pasture. Oh

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah. And that, that , um, you know, no , we buy it
endof, fight free fescuebecause we don't even want to
take a chance with some of ourhorse customers that, you know,
if they mixed their hay up,that that could po even
possibly get to a broodedmarere . Yeah. So, you know,
most of our brood mare arethey, you know, even the brood
marere farms that we deal withsell, they buy pure alfalfa.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, yeah. Which said that last bit . I mean,
getting your mare or condition.
Right. So she gonna have milkand everything and support that
little parasite that comes outYeah. Is important. Right.
Right. So good alfalfas aregreat in the last,

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Now what about, what about good alfalfa for foals ?

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Depends on the age.
Um, some of 'em will starteating super young and if
they're used to that mother'smilk and they get that rich
alfalfa, sometimes they can,can get some little colic signs
and stuff like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
I've got a customer that she, she raises some nice
babies and she does, she puts aa , a bail out there for them
to nibble. Just a

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Nibble. Yeah. Just a nibble. And most of 'em , if if
they're getting a lot of milk,then they don't have to have
that that much, so they'll kindof control themselves. Right,

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Right. All right .
Fact or fiction, proponic acid.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
It , I don't think it's a problem. I think the,
the risk of moldy hay. Well Iknow the , the moldy hay is way
more dangerous than proprionicacid. Yeah . That's the
preservative you use, right?

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah. Yeah. So the proponic acid from my
understanding is being the hayproducer for us, we look at it
because it does two things tothe hay. It provides a , uh, it
makes it just a little bitsofter, more palatable. But it
also , uh, is a moldpreventative. Yeah. And it's in

(24:33):
, in , in horses. It's, theygenerate propionic acid in
their stomachs.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah. I think the, the cecum they can make up to
like 2,500 grams a day. Really?
So,

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah. So it's ,

Speaker 2 (24:45):
I mean it's it's a natural.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah. So they're make , they're making it in
their stomach anyway. Um , we,when I was buying hay before I
started, you know, farming it,we, I wanted propionic acid
because I would much rather,even before I knew that it was
completely safe, I wanted theinsurance of knowing that there
is, that this person, this farmhas done everything they can to

(25:07):
prevent mold.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Right. And can you, I mean, it's so humid here.
Like it's, can you, could youget by a little more moisture
with that ?

Speaker 1 (25:15):
You can. I mean with , you know, the, the companies
will tell you you can bail .
It's like 25%. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Now we , we don't bail thatwet. I mean, 'cause we, we make
dry hay, so if it hits 20%,we're probably not bailing.
Yeah. But we put, we putpreservative on everything, on
all of our hay. Whether it's,you know, whether it's for, you

(25:36):
know, whether we're it's wet ornot. We put it on as a , an
insurance policy for us becausewe wanna make sure we don't
have mold, but also for ourcustomers so that there's less
of a chance, a dramaticallyreduced chance of having mold
in that hay. Because, you know,again, the, the COPD type
reaction that horses have tohay that has mold in it. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (25:58):
And you said it's, it's buffered. Yeah . Right .
Yeah .

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah. It's buffered.
So it , you know, I , under mylimited chemical knowledge, you
know, it's, it , it , it hasabout the same acidity to the
horse's stomach as tap water.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah. No , it won't.
So we're good . Affectanything. Yeah. So I'd say go
for it. Well , I'll, I'll seemore problems with moldy hay
than

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Anything. Yeah. I mean, that's one of your
biggest issues is peoplefeeding those roundabouts. We
were talking about it earlier.
All right . Fact or fiction,trailering to tie or not to
tie,

Speaker 2 (26:31):
If that's a good one, we're gonna have to
default to It depends, I think.
Right. I think it depends onthe trailer. Um, the horse. You
know, if we're hauling a Marinbaby, we'll get a box stalled
trailer and just leave themloose. Yeah . Depends on your
setup too . Some have waters orthey have to reach down and get
Right. So I think it , and thensome of 'em , you know, you

(26:51):
open the slant, they just wannaback out as hard as they can.
So if they're tied, I , I , Ithink that one kind of depends.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah. Now we never tied in our slants, but we, we
had padded slants and, youknow, we would load them in.
And we are , I'm , I was alwaysfanatic. I wanted my horses to
have exceptional groundmanners. Yep . You know, I
don't like a horse that'srunning up on me. I don't like
it. You know, I want a horsethat when I stop walking, I can
hold that. I can just drop thatlead rope over my finger and

(27:17):
when I stop walking, that horsestops with its nose at about my
shoulder. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
Those are the ones I try to buy in the clinic.
. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
They're usually not for sale .

Speaker 1 (27:27):
But, you know, I, I, but I, I worked with ours, so I
loop it around their neck andput a little, just a little
loose tie on it so that itdoesn't drop down. Doesn't get
on in their feet or anything.
But when I open that stall,then they can back out and I
don't have to, or when my kidswere little, they didn't have
to go up in front of that horseand reach up when that horse is
, you know, trying to dosomething. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (27:46):
That's a lot of people get hurt in trailers.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
That's where vets get hurt a lot is helping
people load or unload .

Speaker 1 (27:52):
I saw, I was at a rodeo years ago and I saw a guy
trying to load a horse and Imean, just whipping it. And I,
you know, I didn't know enoughto go over and say, whoa, we
need to back off here. And Ishould have, I look back on
that and I remember that day tothis, watching 'em try to load
this horse instead of beingpatient and ,

Speaker 2 (28:09):
You know, which that is a symptom we see with
stomach ulcers too . Really?

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Mm-Hmm.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
reluctance to load. And a lot
of the symptoms we see, like,unless we sit down and like
interview other people, theymay, if, if we find ulcers and
we treat 'em , they may calltwo weeks later like, Hey, my
horse quit chewing lead ropesin half of the show. My horse
loads. Good. Now you quitweaving. You know ? Why do you

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Think like that ?
Why do you think the loading ofthe

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Treat ? I think it hurts

Speaker 1 (28:32):
The bouncing, I think

Speaker 2 (28:33):
It hurts if , especially if they're stomach
empty. I mean, going down theroad, that's stomach acid
sloshes.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Really? Mm-Hmm .
. I wouldn't havethought about that.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Or, or if they associate that with going
somewhere and getting used andthat hurting. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Huh. That's

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Interesting . That is a common thing with ulcers
of reluctance to load.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Huh. All right .
Here's one. I heard this theother day. Uh, my horse doesn't
travel. I don't take my horseoff of the, off the farm. Now
this is not me that I heardsomebody saying this , uh, I
don't need , they don't need tovaccinate them.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
False vaccinated horses. Where's the
ca vaccinate your horses?
. Especially, there'sfive what they, they call core
diseases. Right. And they call'em that because any horse
anywhere, unless it was livingin here, is susceptible to
Right . And it's rabies WestNile, tetanus, and eastern and

(29:24):
western encephalitis, which aremosquito things. Okay. Rabies
horses are four times morelikely to get rabies than dogs
.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Kennel can equine, rabies transmit to a human.
Yes.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
So you gotta love being around those.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah. So I mean, the fir if we ever, if we get a
neurological horse, that's thefirst thing we ask is it's been
vaccinated. 'cause one of thefirst things we do is bits ,
you know, we look in theirmouth UCUs membranes and Yeah.
Like that. So I don't know ifyou've ever seen videos or
pictures of people or horseswith rabies. It's doesn't

Speaker 1 (29:53):
Terrible.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah . No . And if you have to euthanize your
horse and he's not vaccinated,it's not humane. Really? Yeah.
Because they have to, theyhave, first of all, you can't
get close enough to give theman iv. 'cause if they bite you
or something, if they'redangerous. Yeah. So most of the
time they end up getting shot.
Really. And their head's cutoff for testing.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
Really?

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah. Super said .
Yeah , let's not do that. No.
And tetanus, they'll , ifyou're reading the text, the
survival rate's up to 25%. I'veonly seen one horse survive
from it. It was a huge draft,and I think his size diluted
the toxin. Wow. Um, the peopleat the referral hospitals that
are actually treating horseswith tetanus will tell you
that's closer to 0% survival.

(30:35):
Wow . And that's, I mean, youcan prevent it. There's,
there's a rare case , somevaccinated horses contracting
it, but it's

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Rare. Rare. Super rare. You know, I mean, for
years now, well, I know sinceyou've been at the clinic and
even before then, we, we ha webuilt a relationship with you
guys and every year, I mean, wejust come up on the list, make
sure we give , you know, you'recalling me saying, Hey, when's
a good time to come out and doit and get him on that list,
even if I forget about it. Youremember it because we're on,

(31:05):
we're on that list to get it .
Call your vet or call Travis.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
And horses , uh, we get the question a lot about
most of those vaccines areyearly. Every year they're
gonna be okay. You know, dogswas there three years for
rabies and we're , I forgot howmany years for tetanus, but
horses' immune system sucks.
Like their memory's terrible.
So that's why it's every, every

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Year, you know something , I gotta tell you ,
I'm, I'm a little disappointedin our, in our urban myths and
old wives tales. I mean thishealthy as a horse. They're the
dang fragiles animals that I'veever been around.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah. It's amazing.
I mean ,

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Healthy as species .
Yeah. , I mean, healthyas a horse. I, my horses have
better healthcare than I have.
Yeah. You know , mean , geez .
Healthy as a horse that justdoesn't

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Know maybe a hundred years ago when people were
living in he 40. Yeah. There'sthere the way they're designed.
And a lot of that's our faultis readers too. I mean, yeah .
We pick and choose what we wantand forget about

Speaker 1 (32:00):
The health man . You know, that's interesting. Uh ,
my daughter years ago bought ,she wanted, had her heart set
on miniature AustralianShepherd and they bred these
dogs for the look of anAustralian shepherd, but
smaller and health issues. Youknow, they, they, they have
these, these, these issues thatbecause the breeders are

(32:21):
breeding for a physicalcharacteristic Mm-Hmm.
and not lookingat the mental health and
looking at the physical health,they're breeding for that
physical characteristic.
Sometimes that gets overlooked.
And that happens in the horseindustry as well. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah. It is .
Anytime you try to shrink aspecies, but a lot of the many
horses have the same problemsas the, the dogs with the
stifles. Really? Yeah. The ,the groove won't be big enough.
Their kneecap will go in andout. And then , uh, the
collapsing trachea,

Speaker 1 (32:45):
I hadn't heard of that one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Dogs, the miniature breeds, a lot of 'em will want
to collapse. Like when theybreed, there's the pressure.
Right . And with , with dogsthat go on like a mesh and they
can open it up, but , but minishave that many horses can have
the same. Really?

Speaker 1 (32:59):
I heard , heard that. Yeah. So

Speaker 2 (33:02):
It shrinking stuff's not a

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Good , well, you know, the , there was the, the
guy who in , who bred the, holdon, gimme a second. Here it is.
The miniature herford. He, hehad a sound concept in , in
doing that, is he , his conceptwas that for a family to buy a
steer, you know, if, if youtake a , a steer and raise it

(33:25):
to commercial weight, you're ,you're 12 to 1400 pounds. When
that, when, when that animalis, is ready, according to
commercial standards forprocessing, well, hanging
weight is approximately 61% oflive weight . Um , your actual
package weight is about 75% ofthat 61%. So, but more than a ,
a , a small family will eat ina year. And his idea was breed

(33:50):
a smaller cow. So that one cowequaled one family for one
year. And you know, I I I don'tknow if you've ever looked at ,
um, uh, I think they're called, uh, amus animal mass units.
So you can, you can rank howmany animals can you support on
your ground in an animal massunit. And it'll, it'll scale up

(34:11):
and down from a , a , a mamacow with a calf all the way
down to chickens. Oh , okay.
Because each animal has itsown, or each species has its
own mass unit that you can dothe calculations on. So I
understand, you know , I mightbe wrong. So I I've been wrong
a couple of times. My wifepoints it out, quote , eh ,
that's right. But you know,the, that idea was you could

(34:33):
raise the same amount of cattleor same amount of beef, but
having that processing weightbeing something more suitable
to a small fan

Speaker 2 (34:42):
On that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah. And you know, I've looked at lots of
miniature cattle. I don't , Idon't know why, but I think, I
think they're cute. Everybody

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Does. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
But the Herefords, I've seen the Brahmas and they
look weird little stick legs.
They don't look like the fullsize , but the Herefords looked
good. I wonder if they havethose similar , similar health
issues. I don't know . I don't,I don't know either. But, you
know, that's interesting. That

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Is, I mean, you can't fault that guy for
that's, I

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Mean, that's a sound concept. That's, I mean, that's
the story I read. And he didthis as a four H project. I
wanna say it was like thesixties or seventies. Really?
Huh ? Yeah. And he startedbreeding them down.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
I know they're popular. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah. I got a friend here in town, just bought three
of them . He goes, how manybales will a miniature cow eat
? I don't know. Are theyminiature baes ? Yeah .

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Right . , yeah. The miniature miniatures.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
So that brings up another question we ought to ,
ought to , ought to jump intoreal quick is how much hay
should a horse be eating perday? And also kind of tie into
that, how do you determine ahorse's workload? So, you know,
we had rope horses, we wereroping at, you know, at least
an hour a day on 'em, probablyfive days a week they would get

(35:56):
exercised strenuously. Um, isthat considered a heavy
workload?

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Yeah. I mean, I guess it depends on what your
definition would be. Right? Andthere's not a, we recommend
like one to 2% of body weightto be roughage

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Per day. Yes. So minimum one. So horse weighs a
thousand pounds, that's 10 to20 pounds of roughage per day.
Yeah . Is that math right? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Carry the
one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
So, but it also depends on what your horse is
doing too, right? I mean, yougot guys going out riding feed
lot all day, they're gonna takemore. Right. If it's a backyard
horse that's already gotmetabolic problems, you , you
don't need that rich alfalfa.
You

Speaker 1 (36:34):
May . Right ? So you might want graph , want
something with a little bitlower RFV. And if , if you
don't know, RFV is the relativefeed value, it's a calculation
of all the different nutrientsthat I have never had a horse
owner that deals in numbers.
You know, they, they deal inthe feel and the smell and the
look. They're very visual andtactile buyers. But you know,

(36:55):
what we might be interesting tosit down and talk about is
like, what, what RFV should yoube looking at for, you know,
something that's a heavyworkload horse, like a, like a
rope horse that's gettingactively used and actively
rodeoed versus, you know , uh,you know, and a cutting horses
and the sorting horses andthose horses that are high
energy , high, high-end horsesversus, you know, and I say

(37:17):
high-end, don't get me wrong.
There is, there are, if it'syour horse, it's a high-end
horse. Right. But thinkingabout the activity levels of a
high, high-end working horseversus the activity level of
your , your horse at home thatmight be a pasture ornament and
gets ridden three or four timesa year is a different , uh,
different caloric need. Right?

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yeah. And that's what we have right now. Right.
Like if we fed our little, thatmini or that our quarter horse,
like you gotta feed athoroughbred. Yeah. And they ,
they'd, they'd be founded byborrow . Right. . But,
and , and the breeds make adifference too. I mean, the
thoroughbreds are metabolism'sjust more, we will see a lot of
people that are used to thequarter horses and or stuff

(37:58):
like that. They'll go get a , athoroughbred maybe off the
track or something and beat itlike their quarter horses and
they just start losing weight.
Right . So there's , there's somany variables with Right .
With horses on that. I thinkit'd be,

Speaker 1 (38:10):
But that one to 2% body weight probably a good
place to start. That's a greatplace to start. We always
looked, I mean, I , I'm a , I'ma visual learner, but I always
like to look at my horses. Imean, that's visually, you
know, I could look at my horsesand know if something's going
on. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
The getting a weight tape and then you have to be a
weight tape. Just something tomeasure and keep a trend . If
you see your horse every day ,it's kinda like us too. You
know , you don't realizethey're getting fat until
. But if you , if theydo, you don't see him . But no
. But like , people saylike, I don't think he's gay
that much. And then they comein, they , they look like a
show heifer.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
You know, it's the, it's the frog and the frying
pan. You ever hear that? Yeah .
Yeah. You frog, if you put 'emin a hot fire , man , they'll
jump and don't, don't do this.
It's mean to the frog. It'sjust an old wives tale. But,
you know, if you , if youslowly crank the heat up,
almost sit there until itcooks. Mm-Hmm. ,
I mean, it , it's that slow.
You know, if you do it over andover, it's that first big max .
Not bad. But when you have oneevery, every day for six months

(39:04):
Yeah . Then, you know, then youstart to run into some issues.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah. But like you said, looking at 'em , your
hands on 'em Yeah. And gettinga body condition score. I

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Think it's also important, you know, we, we
deal with a , you know, we dealwith a lot of horse owners and
they, a a lot of them are justtheir pasture ornaments. Mm-Hmm
. . And it's adifferent relationship that,
you know, if your horse is outin pasture, you may not think
about 'em for a week. Right.
You know, where my horses nowmy horses are out on pasture,
over at our , over Larry'splace. But , uh, right now, but

(39:32):
when they're here, they gethandled every day. And that,
that, you know, you know whensomething's wrong with 'em
because they act different.
Right. You know?

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah. And I'm guilty of it too, this winter. I mean,
I saw 'em in the dark when Ileft to go to work and I saw
'em in the dark, but I'd comeout when we'd give 'em a
handful of grains , so they'dcome up there. Yeah. It's ,
it's tricky.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah . So what else do we need to cover here? What
, what , what do you wanna talkabout? I've talked and asked
questions the whole time. What, what do you want to know?

Speaker 2 (40:00):
The biggest question we get, I mean, we get people
all the time. 'cause hey, it'skind of hard to get around
here. Yeah. So they call us,where can we get it? And then
they want, most people are usedto the small squares and
they're hesitant with the bigones. The , the main thing is
the handling. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah . We see it, we get it all the time. Now, I
will say we have never had acustomer come to us for four
small squares. And we say we,we do, we put the full sales
pitch on it because it, itreally is a better deal. But
I've never had a customer whohas switched to big squares go
back. They never even thinkabout going

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Back. Well , how many, how many small squares
are like in a big one? Is that,you know , relatable or it

Speaker 1 (40:44):
Is there , it , you know, the , the big squares?
Well, there's, there's threesizes of big squares. There's
actually a few more, butthere's three sizes that you
generally see here in the usAnd that's the three by three.
The three by four, and the fourby four . And the three by
three is the most common. Andthe mo one, most people want
to, if they're gonna feed largebales, is the one they wanna

(41:06):
deal with. Most people don'thave the equipment to handle
the four by fours. They're abeast. I mean, they can weigh
upwards of 2000 pounds. And thethree by fours are about the
same. They can be, you know,12, 1300 pounds for those three
by fours. They're hard for mostpeople, unless you've got
bigger, bigger ag equipment to,to deal with. The , um, the

(41:26):
three by threes are about 800pounds. And so when you do the
math on it, the small squaresthat you see baed in the new
bundles, you see a lot of 'emeven buying those 21 bale
bundles, well, those 21 balebundles, most producers are
shooting for a 45 to 52 poundbale. The, and because they
sell by the bale, they'retrying to make 'em a little

(41:48):
lighter. Now that lighter isgood. And a lot of people want
that because they're easier tocarry. I, I remember when I was
a kid , uh, bucking bales , uh,for a farmer around here, and
they were two , they were wiretied , you know, two string
wire tied bales that weighed175 to a hundred pounds on ,
you know, as an 8-year-old, Icould barely pick 'em up if I
could pick 'em up. Uh , butthose light bales are, are

(42:11):
convenient, they're easy. Butwhen you think about converting
that to a big square bale,generally 16. Okay . 17, 18 ba
uh , small squares in a bigsquare. Now we built a feeder.
So once a, basically once amonth we'd come in, set a bale
down on our feeder that rollsaround the barn and it's got

(42:31):
little arms on it. And when youcut the strings, they just fall
apart. And then you just pickthe, pick the flakes up. It is
so much more convenient thansmall squares that it made us a
believer. Yeah. Before we everstarted bailing our own hay ,
we had switched to these bigsquares. I'll have to see that.
Yeah. They're, they're prettyneat. The, the , you know, you

(42:51):
don't need a big tractor. Imean, heck, anything that can,
has a loader on it can almosthandle these. Now you're not
gonna want to throw 'em aroundlike we do where we're doing
hundreds and hundreds a day.
But moving one a month, not abig , you know, it's just the,
the example I give all the timeis we had, we would buy 400 or

(43:12):
so small squares a year. And,and this is when we were first
getting into it. And I'd, I'dsit there and we , my kids were
real little as I remember.
Karen will were real small.
They would , we would loadthose bales and stack 'em as
high as you could get 'em inthe barn and it would take up a
bay. So we had a 12 by 24 footbay. And you know , we had four

(43:32):
of those in our, in our, justour storage shed. And it would
take up a bale and a , or a bayand a half of small squares.
Well, when we switched to thebig squares, we did all the
math. So we were getting thesame amount of hay one bay. I
could unload it from the truckload an entire year's worth of
hay in under 45 minutes andmove on to something else. Oh.

(43:54):
There is a lot of dead spacemeasure . There's a lot of dead
space in those stacking . Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating.
Yeah. And you , you mentionedsomething about you get ,
you've got a way to cut 'em inhalf. And we tried that for a
few and we did it for a fewpeople where, you know, they
didn't have the equipment tohandle the big bale . So we got
some of those large , um, uh,bulk bags. And we basically

(44:16):
would put bulk bag , we'd pick'em up with a fork, put bulk
bags on both ends, split thestrings, have 'em fall down and
sit. And then we'd lift thestrings out and then we would
just set 'em on the back oftheir pickup truck. They would
back into the barn, push it offsomehow. Okay. And those flakes
would just lift out of the bagand there's no mess in their
barn. And when they get done,any debris is still in the bag.

(44:37):
Yeah. That they could soakthat, feed it to their horses,
do whatever. You know, therewas no waste. They liked it. It
, it's a little bit more laborintensive to get those bales in
that bag, but it, if it makesit easier for people.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Yeah. That's neat.
We've, we've fed a few big onesat the clinic and we've had
fortunate client go get a loadand have a skidsteer and just
scoot it in. But they're easyto feed. Like they just flake
off and Yeah. It's, we liked itand

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah. We built the car . The cart was the biggest
thing that helped us.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah. We wanna see a video on that.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah. Yeah. That cart is, I mean, it, it, it
just makes it easy. 'cause whenyou wanna roll it around, one
person can roll it around thebarn if you got concrete. Yeah.
You know, it just rolls aroundthe barn. It's easy. Huh . So

Speaker 2 (45:21):
The , so the , what I wanted to ask you too, like,
I haven't heard of it in awhile, but when I was younger
we hauled a lot of hay. Mm-Hmm. And I remember some fielders
he's throwing around that strawsomewhere. You're dead. You
know, but, and then I remembera farmer's barns burning down.
Yeah . Was that the

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah, that's mold .
That's the mold. Okay . I mean,you know, if you , you pile
mulch up in your yard, youknow, that, that, that, that
biological activity thathappens in there, you can like
horse manure pile if you let itsit out there and while dig in,
stick your hand in there. Yes.
I'm saying stick your hand inthe pile of manure folks. Uh,
it'll be 140 degrees. Wow . Youknow, it's the same thing that

(45:58):
happens in, hey, you've gotthat biological material tight
together. When that moldproduction starts, it starts
that whole chain reaction. And,you know, barn will burn down
it , it'll, the combustiontemperature is really low when
it gets into that idealscenario, it'll combust it like
140. Yeah. 145 degrees.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
And you know what a barn loft is? Like? It's
southern Illinois . You lie .
Yeah ,

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Exactly. And moisture actually increases the
speed of that, that breakdown.
Okay . So when you get thatmold going, that's, I mean
that's why the, the propionicacid discussion was so
important to us because, youknow, we store, I mean, we'll
bale 5,000, those big squarebales, you get one of them that

(46:41):
gets mold and then boom. That'san expensive, that's an
expensive stack. Yeah. Goes upand you hear about it almost
every year you hear aboutsomebody's hay who has gone up.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah. Yeah. That seems like a no brainer to use
it. When do , when do you , howdoes, how do you put it on?
When do you do it?

Speaker 1 (46:58):
So there , I've seen a couple different systems. The
one that we use , uh, we have atank on the back of our baler
holds 150 , 200 gallons. And asthe hay gets picked up by the
pickup teeth, it sprays it onjust before it goes into that
bale chamber. So it's got twospray nozzles

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Even they

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Just , yeah. So it gets evenly distributed.
There's, there's a, there's anew system out that I have a
friend that uses, I've neverused it, but it's a dry kind of
a , a , a crystalline deal thatgoes on there somewhere. And
they, they like that. I'venever used it. I've never seen
it. But they like that. Andthey say they bale at 25%
moisture. I would never do. Imean, even with Propionic and

(47:41):
they say you can do it, I justwould feel uncomfortable. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
That seems awful high.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah. And it's hard to get hay baled . I mean,
southern Illinois we havetemperature swings here and
humidity swings that are, thatare insane. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
I hold a lot of hay when I was younger.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah. Well, will hauled for you guys for that

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Was the last time we did it. Yeah. And we just quit
. 'cause

Speaker 1 (48:01):
You couldn't find anybody,

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Nobody wanted to help us . Will , will ,

Speaker 1 (48:04):
Will came .

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yeah. It worked.
It's too high. High schoolkids. We had Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
You know, he got, he got moved. He's now stationed
out east. That's awesome. Yeah. He likes it.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
I think it's awesome.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
Yeah, it's awesome.
I mean, he's not in a combatsituation, so I'm pretty, I
mean, dead . I , yeah , I wouldjust assume he, you know, he
worked as a file clerk though.
That's not what he wants to do.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah . I think dad was 70 and Will was playing .
He wasn't driving yet . 14.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
No, he's probably 13, 14

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Years old. Yeah . We had two, two football players
and they got out, worked by a70-year-old and a 14-year-old

Speaker 1 (48:35):
.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
We had to send one down outta the loft. They
couldn't breathe. Really?
Mm-Hmm. .

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Really?

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Yep . I don't miss that.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
You know, in my mind, I look back when I, when
I bucked bales for the coupleof guys, and I did that. Most
summers I look back and thoseare some of the, you know, just
some happy times. But I had topick up three or four , uh,
small squares and put 'em up ina hay loft for somebody the
other day. I don't know thatI'd want to do that. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (49:05):
I , I got another ways to make money now.
. Yeah. I , I was dumband I got good at stacking. Oh
my . So I had to touch everybale , . I should have
not been very good and Icould've just walked alongside.
Just all there . Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
Now how much did you make a bale ?

Speaker 2 (49:21):
10 cents was the going rate. Yep . There was one
farm, they paid us 15 and theykept a cooler full of Gatorade
and we had sandwiches at five.
Yeah. There was another onethat it was 10 cents, and if
they had to call more thanthree of us, if rain was coming
or something, then we all got alittle pay cut. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
We, it , I remember, I wanna say it was a , now my
friend Jimmy, he would tell mea penny of bale was what ? When
he was a kid. Wow .

Speaker 2 (49:48):
And but what was a gallon of gas? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
I don't know. God knows back then Jimmy order .
Yeah. . I mean, I thinkI was making, I think I made 5
cents a bale was the most Iever made. But that was
probably back in, you'retalking the late seventies?

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah. Mine would've been the late nineties. Early
two thousands. Yeah. In 10 10we got 12 much . Did

Speaker 1 (50:11):
It?

Speaker 2 (50:12):
No . No. And I remember going in town , like
on that Saturday night withyour a hundred bucks. You Oh
yeah. You're

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Thinking you're king of the world, huh? Yeah. Next

Speaker 2 (50:19):
As was like a dollar. That's

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Right . Gallon bill gates, watch out. Yeah ,

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Exactly. .
Yep .

Speaker 1 (50:26):
So I was trying to think if I have any more
questions. I think we'vecovered a lot. What do you Yeah
. You got anything interesting?

Speaker 2 (50:31):
No, we will touch on the vaccinations, vaccinate
your forces. And the otherthing is call your vet. Have
them do it because storingthose vaccines is, is
important. Yeah . They're notreally supposed to be exposed
to light. Right. You walk inthe feed stores and there's
their cooler white oven ,they're all exposed to light .
You don't know how they'vehandled them . And the most of

(50:51):
the , the main manufacturers,the big ones, they'll stand
behind it. Like we vaccinateyour horses. If we think one
gets flu or West Nile, I mean,they'll pay for testing and
treatment up to like 5,000.
Wow.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Well, you know, I , we talk about marketing a lot.
That's, you know, people whowatch the watch or listen to
this podcast know that that'ssort of what I did for a while
. But I am a big, big believerin a couple things. And one is
build relationships withbusinesses and people. Right .
Mostly people, but people, youknow, you are your business.

(51:23):
Right. It's not, you didn't,you know, you don't get up in
the morning and change who youare to go to work. You are, you
know, you go and you take careof people's horses and you care
about it. And I think it'simportant to build that
relationship because I remembercalling the clinic years ago
and we were a new customer andyou have so many people that

(51:44):
call for one-off things andhave nothing else that it's,
it's a different relationshipwhen you have, you know, you
vaccinate all of our horses,our entire remuda, you take
care of 'em all, you know ourname. It's, it's a different
relationship that when I have aproblem, I know I can call. Yep
. And if I don't get animmediate callback, it would be
a shock. I mean, you just takecare of everybody that way.

(52:05):
Right . But building thatrelationship and getting a a ,
an annual program together,getting on that, you know, that
getting some understanding. You, you put on that, that equine
dinner every year. And I thinkthat is absolutely fantastic.
Yeah . You bring in some of thedrug people that can actually
explain what's going on andwhat we're seeing.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah. That , that's huge. Because I mean, there's,
there's such a shortage ofMm-Hmm . of large
animals, especially equine betsnow that Yeah. I mean, and I'm,
I'm solo right now. We'retrying to hire 'em , but Right.
I mean, I can't get toeverybody. Right. But if, if
you support me the rest of theyear, I'm gonna be there when
you need me. That's right. Andthat's, that's main, that's
everybody's take on it

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Too. Mean that's good business for you, but it's
good business for, for me thecustomer too. I want to know, I
want a relationship with you.
And we don't have , you know,we're not a big commercial
stable, but we have a , a ,we've got a bunch of horses and
I want, I want thatrelationship because I know
they're gonna get taken careof. I know. I want to know that
my horses have I that you havetheir best interest at heart.

(53:05):
And that's important, gettingthose vaccinations done. I
mean, I can't tell you how manyyears that, you know, your dad
or you have called and said,Hey, we need to get out there.
I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. Getit done.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
I finally did mine yesterday. . Yeah .

Speaker 1 (53:18):
.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
They've been down there for eight weeks. I
finally, finally got 'em. It'seasy to lose track. So I mean,
we, we've implemented remindersystems and stuff like that.
Yeah . So that makes it easier.
But Yeah .

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Well, another thing is, you know, people, we get
calls, everybody's, you know,it , it's tough economic times.
I get that. And people areprice shopping. Yep . But you
can't, you know, hey is one ofthose things, I, I talked to a
person the other day. If you'rea , if you farm corn or green ,
it's a commodity, right? So themarket sets the price and you

(53:51):
have to live with whatever thatprice is. Hay will never be
commoditized because there areso many variations from one
field to the next. From whattime you bail the hay to the
next, from one cutting to thenext. There are so many
variations that it, it , itcan't be put in a group like
that. So, you know, building arelationship with the guy who

(54:12):
farms your hay , get to know'em . Yeah. I mean, whether
it's our farm or, or somebodyelse. Get to know the farmer
because you have thatconsistency of product. If
they're doing their job right.
And they care. I mean, we put alot of time, effort, and a lot
of money into making sure ourhay is the best it can be, best
that we can make it. And thatrelationship, knowing that I'm

(54:33):
gonna call before I, I sell allof my hay to one guy. I'm gonna
call my, make sure I try totake care of my customers
because they take care of me.
Right. And that's that samething. Get to know if you buy
your hay from a feed store andthere's nothing wrong with it ,
don't get me wrong, that hay isprobably fine. But that hay may
have come from Jim's farm onemonth and the next month they

(54:55):
ran short and they, they stillneed hay to sell. So they get
it from somewhere else andthey, they're buying based on
what's the best price for themversus what's the market price
that they can get out of it,because that's their job is to
buy and sell stuff. It's adifferent relationship to the
guy who grows it. Right. Youknow,

Speaker 2 (55:11):
And then Yeah, that's true with everything
too. It

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Is. It mean .

Speaker 2 (55:14):
But yeah, the takeaway from that , I think
would be like, if you want avet or your vet to be there
when you really need 'em , thenyou need to support 'em .
That's with the rest of

Speaker 1 (55:24):
The year too. That's right.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
So if you , you know, even on the way here, we,
we stopped and did vaccines andcoggins and we saw an eye
problem. Yep . Picked up alittle ulcer, we gotta fix it.
That could have been a hugeproblem. And Right. And , and ,
and that's the time we, wediscuss stuff like we talked
about today with the forage andjust small talk while we're
vaccinating and coggins , youknow, any other little
concerns. So having thatrelationship with your bits

Speaker 1 (55:47):
Huge . I remember years ago , uh, uh, your dad
was still working pretty muchfull-time at the clinic. And I
had that stretch horse I wastalking about. Just showed bear
. I mean, he just was startingto show signs that he was gonna
colic. And that horse hasnever, colic never done, but it
was a big temperature change.
Mm-Hmm. . And wegot out there and we, oil did

(56:08):
an oil change on him and itpopped .

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Did he use a dipstick? ?

Speaker 1 (56:14):
No. We use , we, we we tubed him through the nose.
Yeah . And , uh, but yeah, Imean that, that communication
and that, you know, because I ,I'm pretty sure it was your dad
back then, but your dad knew Itook care of my horses. He, you
know, this wasn't a horse thathad sat out and was at the , he
knew I was very proactive andshowed right up. You guys were
right there. That , thatbuilding that relationship is

(56:35):
important. And, and it'simportant with just about any
business. It's not justveterinary and your hay farmer.
You know, I want people to beloyal to me, but I'm also gonna
be loyal to them. Right .
Pretty much any business. Well,with that, we'll kind of wrap
up here today. This has been afun, I've been, I had looked
forward to this podcast for along time. I I just thought
this was gonna be fun. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (56:53):
This is good. I learned a lot about, Hey,

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Just say hey . Just

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Say hey.com. Kind

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Of a goofy name. I know, but you remember it.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Exactly. I love

Speaker 1 (57:01):
It. . So Travis, good to see you . Yeah.
If you guys remember, I'll putthe information up to the
Beasley Equine Clinic, checkthem out on YouTube, check them
out on their social mediachannels. They do a lot of
videos that are really helpfulif you're trying to understand
things about your horse.
They've done several on, on ,uh, hooves that have gotten out
of control. They've done someon ulcers. They've, they , they

(57:22):
post a , a video at least onwhat are you doing every week?
Trying to, yeah. And it ,they're very educational. I
mean, these are really welldone . You know, they're,
they're, they're good stuff. Socheck them out on social media.
And the clinic is based insouthern Illinois. You handle
pretty much all of the southernIllinois area. Yeah. Are you
pretty much, how are , do yougo north?

Speaker 2 (57:40):
I don't, we don't Because of how much we got, we
try to get everything in so wewon't go more than like 45
minutes or so. But we get a lotof people, two, three hour
radius. Yeah. Horse people arelike nomads. They don't care to
drive.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
My daughter and I talk about it all the time.
Everybody else say, oh, it'stwo hours away. That's just too
far. I'm not going. And we'relike, heck, we've, we've driven
eight hours for a rodeo thatnight . Yeah . You know ,
.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Exactly. So, I mean, they're not horse people.
They're nomad. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Yeah. So. Well Travis, I really appreciate it.
Thank you for being on. We'lldo another

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Me we soon. Yeah.
Alright . It's fun.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Good luck and God bless.