SpringWaterStation.com blog

You may ask what does my health and my horse have in common, what’s the link.  If your like many of us, baby boomers, as you grown older your health is not what it used to be.  You’ve gained too much weight, you have developed diabetes and other related health issues. But most of all your energy level just isn’t what it used to be.  So you start moving away from many of the activities that you used to love, like trail riding.  Whether you recognize it or not you don’t have the energy for it any longer.  So you take up a sport that is less demanding, sports you don’t enjoy as much, one with no mountain vistas; like Canasta. 

We baby boomers need to change our eating habits and the easiest way to do that is to lower the amount of fat and meat we consume.  When you reduce or eliminate meat from your diet, change to skin milk and in general reduce the amount of fat you consume daily to under ten percent, you will begin to see some changes.  Real weight loss, less need for insulin or other diabetic related drugs, you’ll even be able to enjoy a little candy now and again, but most of all you’ll find your energy level coming back.  Oh it won’t happen over night, but if you are diligent in watching your fat consumption in two or three months you will be amazed at the changes you will make just because you no longer need energy drinks to get through the day. 

Take a peek at (Lev. 3:17)

Take your grandkids trail riding again.

The most interesting thing about the results, for me was not who won.  But that all three of the first place winners were Kiger Mustang type dun ponies. Two quarter horses and a mustang dun named Winemmuca.

 Mustang Smack down

It was in the hands of the bull owners of Spain and Portugal that the progenitors of the Kiger Mustang earned its reputation as the greatest stock-working animal in the equine world. In the valley of the Guadalquiver River Spanish Vaqueros used this horse in handling temperamental bulls. Few horses would feel comfortable working these dangerous animals, yet these horses appeared to delight in the work. With incredible speed and handiness, they maneuver an anger bull, dodging in and out barely missing the hooking horns when the bull charges.

The Kiger Mustang is a horse that has inherited from it progenitors five hundred years of “Cow Since”.

This coming Sunday in what could be considered one of the most unconventional approaches to an equine competition, at the Texas Classic, one of the nation’s largest Quarter horse shows, they will be pitting five American Mustangs against some best quarter horses in the world in what’s being billed as the “Extreme Mustang Smack down.”

The five American Mustangs will take on five of the best freestyle horses the Quarter horse industry has to offer in a “no holds barred” freestyle event. A winner-take-all purse of $5,000 is up for grabs in the event to be held at the Will Rogers Memorial Center May 25.

It’s said that the Quarter horse inherited their uncanny cow sense from five Spanish mustang mares that were the foundation of the modern Quarter horse breed.  And what a breed.  The American Quarter horse went on to earned the reputation, as the finest working cow pony in the world. This coming Sunday men and horses like USET Gold Medalist and World Champion trainer Pete Kyle of Whitesboro, Texas, will be competing in the Smack down with American Quarter Horse Chexy Dr Pepper, winner of more than $70,000 in NRHA competition and former year-end high-point reining horse in AQHA competition.

Against five American Mustangs, the results of  trainers working 100 days to tame five America’s iconic wild Mustangs. These men and their mustangs will be given a chance to prove their mettle. Mustangs like the Dun Winnemucca.                      

We’ll see if the Spanish Mustang after five hundred years running wild in the American west still has what it takes to be a cowboy’s mount

We hope to be able to bring you some live video from the competition, I think you will enjoy it.

Farm Bureau Working to Stop Expansion of Clean Water Act.

I’m sure that’s the right thing to do for farmers, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do for the environment.

The Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007 would expand the authority of the EPA and the Corp of Army Engineers beyond navigable waters and add also authority over ground waters.

This gives it the power to regulate activities that add pollutants from run off, pollutants from landfills and sewage lagoons run off from pesticides, and chemical fertilizers.  And our pesticide formulations available today are between 10 and 100 times more potent than those sold in 1975. Roughly 85-90% of pesticides used for agriculture never reach target organisms, but instead spread through the air, soil, and water.

One third of the wells tested in California’s San Joaquin Valley in 1988 contained the pesticide DBCP at levels 10 times higher than the maximum allowed for safe drinking water-more than a decade after its use was banned.  Ninety-five percent of all fresh water on earth is ground water. The average length of time groundwater remains in an aquifer is 1,400 years, as opposed to 16 days for river water. This suggest clean up a long term project ie prevention is a better solution, Estimates suggest that nearly 1.5 billion people lack safe drinking water

Clearly, the problems associated with water pollution have the capabilities to disrupt life on a planet-wide basis.  Global environmental collapse is possible. We cannot ignore groundwater pollution no matter the economic consequences to agriculture. As a farmer I believe a workable solution must be found sooner rather than to late.

The President signed into law an economic stimulus package that includes a major tax incentives for the Kiger Mustang allowing for new owners to write off, in most cases, 100% of your purchase price in the first year;begining in 2008. For more details see extended post in the tax section of the SWS web site.

  My Kiger Mustang seem to eat anything.  My wife’s pine trees, blackberry bushes. To say the least they are easy keepers. But one thing they do need is water. For equine athletes the winning edge means the right nutrition, and your horses drink enough water, then their bodies can make energy efficiently and fuel top performance. However getting your horse to drink during competition is imperative and more often than not difficult. There are many trick riders and trainers try soaking their hay, feeding soaked beet pulp, but the best approach I’ve found is green grass.Water is the most important factor in sports nutrition. Water makes up approximately 60% of body weight and 70% of green grass.  It is involved in almost every body process. Your body cannot make or store water, so you must replace the water eliminated in urination and sweating.

But water rich in minerals and nutrients, chloraphyl, found in green feed. That’s the key to winning.

Grain as a livestock feed is no longer tenable. Production of onSite and on-Demand green feed is a must. 

World hunger statistics are staggering: Over 1 billion people, over a sixth of the world’s population, are chronically undernourished. Between 700 and 800 million people lack sufficient income to obtain the basic necessities of life. An estimated twenty million people die annually due to hunger.

2. Children are particularly victimized by malnutrition. Three out of four people who die due to hunger are children. Over 8 percent of children in poorer countries die before their first birthday. According to a UNICEF report on the “State of the World’s Children”, a child dies of malnutrition or starvation every 2.3 seconds.

3. One important reason why many are starving today is that tremendous amount of grains are used to fatten animals for slaughter. It takes 8 to 12 pounds of grain to produce one pound of edible beef in a feedlot. Half of U.S. farm acreage is used to produce feed crops for livestock. Animal agriculture also requires tremendous inputs of chemical fertilizer and pesticides, irrigation water, and fuel - commodities which are becoming scarcer worldwide.

Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer estimated that if just 10 percent of the worlds cattle were taken off grain, enough grain would be released to feed 60 million people.

The wealthy nations feed more grain to their livestock than the people of India and China (more than one-third of humanity) consume directly.

  The “Circle of Life”, “God’s Plan” call it whatever you like, but it’s no surprise to livestock breeds that the flush of spring grass corresponds with the breeding season and the birthing of new foals.

Now scientist like Dr. Yasuo Hotta are researching why? A substance provisionally dubbed P4D1 found abundantly in spring grasses, not cubed alfalfa or dry hay bales, but new growth has shown, in laboratory testing, the ability to stimulate the production and natural repair of reproductive cells and it’s DNA structure in both humans and livestock.

What does this mean? That the P4D1 found in the new grass growth seems to be able to increase potency, reproductive powers and stimulate the repair of DNA.

Food scientist Dr. Charles Schnabel has shown how fresh grasses returned fertility to Dairy bulls, increased milk production and extended the longevity of milkers.  In addition research grass-fed hens, winter egg production went up by 150% per bird!

The effect of Spring Grass is probably news to the scientist-not farmers.

 Well maybe that’s dreaming, but sperm Sexing, for horse breeders, to predetermine the sex of offspring prior to breeding, thereby maximizing, profitability, is soon to be a reality.

Sorting by sex is not entirely new, the technology has been available since the late 1980s; it was used by a research team to produce the world’s first lamb, of a pre-determined sex in 1995, although the procedure used then was too complex to be taken up commercially.

But today, pre-selecting a foal’s sex, has become a commercial reality. The ability to select sex will have a beneficial impact on horse breeding. In a horse market already flooded with unwanted animals smaller pinpoint breeding program can fill market demand.

Serious horse breeders,” including Kiger Mustangs, quarter horses, Arabians and others, have preferences, for which sex they want in different equestrian sports. If you’re a performance horse breeder, say for jumpers then you want males, the most successful jumpers are usually male because of greater strength and muscle mass, if your market is breeding animals quality fillies sell three to one plus the profit margin is two fold over trained geldings. So gaining a reliable way to select for sex will be beneficial to breeders.

The economic returns from sex selection for other livestock should be even larger. In cattle, dairy farmers want cows to be born, rather than bulls. So if the sex ratio can be skewed to make almost all of the calves born female, the number of pregnancies needed to build a herd will be cut in half. We know that about 10 million dairy calves annually born male are slaughtered at birth, because bulls are useless in the milk business, except for a few needed for breeding. Similarly, beef breeders prefer males, and breeding only to get big, muscular bulls could significantly improve profits for the meat industry.

The new technology does not involve genetic modification, is non-invasive. I anticipate this inexpensive approach will launch possible in 2008.

As the price of diesel fuel rises, beyond anything we had contemplated, and the demand for fuel crops, for ethanol and biodiesel production continues to take priority and the demand for food crops such as corn and wheat increases in emerging countries such as China and India the pressure to replace hay and feed grain crops with more profitable crops continues; the price of a bushel of wheat is at a all time high. And the price of horse ownership skyrockets and the value of our horse plummets.

One solution may be found in the field of hydroponics.  Recent advances in lighting techniques, insulation, and dry Fogging, has led to the feasibility of “ER’s” Environmental Rooms. In which it is possible to produce “Spring Grass” at a cost of $30.00 a ton.

A small room can grow grass equivalent to a fifty-acre meadow. PLUS the grass produced has twice to nutritional content of the best alfalfa. And it produces 365 days a year.

So when this hay wagon leaving; My guess spring - 2009.