Speaker 1 0:00

Just say , Hey , podcast. Now, most , mostly we talk about business and marketing and farming and the equipment and agronomy, but today is a podcast that I have been wanting to do for a couple of years now. Uh, we are lucky enough in our community to have , uh, the Beasley Equine Clinic , um, and they have been amazing , uh, just amazing in helping us in our journey as horse owners going from , uh, a pony for my daughter to, you know, a full barn of pretty dang nice rope horses to, you know, and, and guiding us and helping us along the way. And over the years, I have become really close friends with Dr. Travis Beasley, who has recently taken over the clinic. And I just, I just think a lot of Travis and I was really, I really love talking to him. We, we have a lot of things in common and so this, this podcast is gonna be a lot of fun. We're gonna talk about Forge. We're gonna, you know, talk about some of the things that we have in common. So , so let's get into it. Welcome to just say, Hey, the podcast where we talk about what matters to small farms, whether it's business marketing, agronomy equipment, livestock health. If it matters to small farms, we'll probably talk about it here. So let's get into it. Welcome to the show, Travis. Thanks

Speaker 2 1:13

For having me, John . Yeah, this is awesome.

Speaker 1 1:14

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 1:23

1981.

Speaker 1 1:24

1981, yep .

Speaker 2 1:25

Wow.

Speaker 1 1:26

Doesn't seem building. Yeah. Same building. Yep . It still looks fantastic. Yeah. So we are gonna talk about forage here because as, as you know, if you listen to this podcast or watch it on YouTube, that we run a commercial forage farm. And so we deal with a lot of horse owners , a lot of them . And Travis deals with more. So, you know, we talk to horse owners all the time and we try to preach the importance of forage.

Speaker 2 1:53

Right.

Speaker 1 1:54

What do you think?

Speaker 2 1:55

It's great. They need it , um, from all kinds of aspects. The calories, the nutrition, and with the performance horses, we see a ton of stomach problems

Speaker 1 2:05

And ulcers.

Speaker 2 2:05

Yeah. Stomach ulcers. And we can mitigate a bunch of that prevention wise , just with hay.

Speaker 1 2:10

Really? By preventing stomach. Stomach ulcers with hay. Yep . How , how does that work?

Speaker 2 2:15

So the horse's stomach has two different types of lining in it. The bottom half is kind of like ours, that , that makes the acid acid can sit there and doesn't hurt it. Then there's a distinct line, and then the top half is the same lining as like the esophagus and ours. Right. So horses by design are supposed to just forage all day. Right. And constantly be eating. And that keeps that stomach full. The minute that stomach deflates, if a horse stands around not eating, that acid can rise up. And as soon as that top half gets exposed to acid, that's where those ulcers come from. It literally burns a hole in

Speaker 1 2:51

It. Yeah. You and I were talking before the show that the, the stomach acid, especially in things like the, like trail horses that are doing 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 go riding.

Speaker 2 3:08

So we always preach forage first, and that's whether you're feeding in the morning or get ready to ride. Like we recommend two to four pounds of alfalfa, ideally 'cause of the calcium and the added buffering of that. Right. And two to four pounds of that before you ride. 'cause if your horse goes more than six hours without eating your risk of stomach ulcer increase like four or five times .

Speaker 1 3:29

Really? Yeah. So, you know, by, so by feeding our horse alfalfa, or at least some roughage, some, some forage before we do any, any type of an event

Speaker 2 3:40

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 little bit better because of the calcium in it . That calcium buffers. Right . The acid.

Speaker 1 3:51

Okay. So, you know, when, when we traveled a lot so we would make sure we brought our own hay. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , you know , uh, how important is it to maintain a similar hay diet throughout the year? So, you know, we traveled with our horses. You you did a lot of the paperwork for us when we were traveling all over the country. Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:09

The , the consistency is, is big. A lot of the colics we get part of the history is, you know, any change in diet. Yeah. We switched, hey , two weeks ago, whether it's a palatability thing or sugar content or whatever, that's usually a component to these horses at colic. Just really. Yeah. Or if it's dryer and stuff like that. So yeah .

Speaker 1 4:30

We had a horse one time where we were soaking it and we, we were soaking our head before , uh, that due course of ours. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , we were soaking that hay so that he would, you know, help him with some respiratory issues. But you, you see a lot of respiratory issues.

Speaker 2 4:41

We see a ton

Speaker 1 4:42

And, and mostly due to bad forage. Yes.

Speaker 2 4:45

Mostly due to the mold and the biggest culprits of round bas. Yeah. 'cause they sit out, they're exposed, the mold grows and the first thing they do is eat that middle and they stand there all day and breathe that. And then they , they call it, there's a bunch of names, recurrent airway, obstruction, eaves , equine asthma, COPD. It all kind of means the same thing, but that's the biggest thing we see mold related wise . And we'll get the few that have that, like the toxins that can get neurological and get super sick from that. But the , the asthma's the biggest.

Speaker 1 5:17

Yeah. Uh , you know, we have a lot of people that call us call the farm looking for hay for their horses and they want horse quality round bales. 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 up in the barn and it's never, never sits outside. But for the most part, anybody we know that does round bells that they sit outside and they grow mold.

Speaker 2 5:40

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 . <affirmative> ,

Speaker 1 5:46

I mean we, we sort of looked at it when we're feeding , when we were feeding cattle. We've got a a , a small cattle farm as well. When we feed cattle, we think one bale per head per month is sort of a, you know, just, just rough math kind of way to think about it. 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 and they, they sort of eat out of the center. Yeah .

Speaker 2 6:12

And then they , they sit there and just breathe that mold. Yeah. And that's, I mean, Southern Illinois will get extremely humid weather and this August we'll have horses that can't even catch their breath standing there from really, from the Yeah. We'll end up euthanizing several just because

Speaker 1 6:27

Of that. Just because of the molten Wow. Man. Tell you , you know, our horses, I don't know how everybody is out there, but our horses sort of become part of the family. Oh yeah. Some of 'em you wanna , you know , you wanna ship off to boarding school, but for the most part, you know, they're , they're part of the family and you know, by doing something as simple as making sure they've got quality, quality hay there. Yep . Now, you know, now we fed , uh, uh, a name brand food for a while and we fed several grain products as well. But we were always fortunate enough we were able to provide high quality forwards there for 'em. And, you know, you've seen our horses, they, they always look pretty good. Um, what do you, what do you recommend for people? How, how should they buy their hay? How should they look at it?

Speaker 2 7:08

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 nutrition may or may not be there. Or it may be too good for certain horses that aren't doing

Speaker 1 7:19

Much . You know, that's , we , we get our dairy customers that buy alfalfa from us. They want numbers, they want numbers. Now, don't get me wrong, they're gonna look at it, they're gonna visually inspect it to Right . They're not just buying on the numbers, but they're gonna visually inspect it. But they want to know the numbers. And I don't know that we've ever had a horse customer want the numbers.

Speaker 2 7:45

No. And I don't think too many ask until where we get a mouse is like the metabolic horses or Cushings or sugar contents. The , right

Speaker 1 7:53

Now we've, we have a horse that's PSSM. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And so explain what, what Forge does to that.

Speaker 2 8:00

It depends on , um, what else you're feeding too . But a lot of it's the polysaccharides. I mean, they can't, they can't store it. So the , you , you want 'em , a lot of their calories coming from 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 8:18

You got. Yeah . We got a call for a , a low sugar hay last year and I didn't have any experience growing that and didn't have any experience what they were looking for. And I turned them on to another farmer that I know that actually has two or three big fields that are specific to that need. Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:34

And that's probably the biggest thing is if you, if you know, you want your horses to eat all day, but I mean, if you've put that good alfalfa in the blow up like ticks. Right. So slow feeders, slow feeder hay bags . There's a couple commercial products that are, that sit on the ground.

Speaker 1 8:48

Yeah. What about like the nets? So like the net feeders?

Speaker 2 8:51

Yeah, those are good. It depends on your horse too. I bought one for mine and it didn't

Speaker 1 8:55

Last

Speaker 2 8:56

It . Yeah . She tore it up. She got mad. Um, but that's the, you know, the , the real good hay, if if they eat like that, they'll , they'll gain too much weight. So it's, there's a fine line with some of that. So when I say lower quality for some of 'em, not, you know,

Speaker 1 9:11

Not quality of hay , but maybe, maybe lower in the hot Yeah . The protein.

Speaker 2 9:14

Yeah. Not the hay that's been sitting out back for two years. Right. <laugh> . Because again, the mold's the biggest problem we see. Yeah. We

Speaker 1 9:21

See with that we have customers that they want, when they go they, for their horses, they want that second, third, fourth cutting alfalfa, which when we're cutting it. Right. Which we try to do though . Those numbers are through the roof RVs of 200 plus, which I, you know, not being veterinarian, but I I I make 'em at least aware that, look, this is pretty high. Hey, I mean this stuff is a lot of calories, a lot of nutrients packed in here. It might not be what you're looking for.

Speaker 2 9:51

Yeah. That , and it depends on what you use for your horse. I mean, if he stands around all week and you go ride for a few hours on the weekend, you definitely don't need all that. But Right. There's a lot of trainers we work for. I mean, the majority of their diet is just alfalfa. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And the horses look great. They may add a ration balancer in there Yeah. 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 . <affirmative> . 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'm gonna have Larry on as a guest, but his horses, their horses at their stable always look fat and bloomed out. They look just really 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. They blend their own.

Speaker 2 10:33

Yeah. And the other thing with hay, if you feed that forage first and your horse has to chew more than just gulping down, say a sweet feed, and that chewing produces saliva and there's bicarbon that, so not only do you get the hay in there to back as a mat 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. <affirmative> , you know, before you trail ride, give 'em , give 'em four, six pounds of hay. Yeah . But also when you're feeding em Now, I never knew that. And we would allot of times whatever we grabbed first when in the, went in the stall first until we , you know, now you try to get that hay in there first. So they're eating that hay a little bit before they get their nose in the green. Yeah .

Speaker 2 11:12

And then they've done studies where they put cannulas and horses and pH meters and as soon as a horse smells it , their stomach acid starts going up .

Speaker 1 11:20

Well, it's Pavlov. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . I mean it's Pavlov, my, my, my cattle dog that brides with me everywhere. You know, the minute I'd go through a drive through , she's salivating. 'cause she knows she's getting a 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 good practical, anybody can do this. Yeah . I mean, if you're feeding, if you're feeding hay and you're feeding grain, remember feed your forage first. It's gonna stop stomach ulcers. It's gonna help prevent stomach ulcers. Yep . 'cause you're providing that saliva. Yep . That's fantastic . That's really good .

Speaker 2 11:59

And what we tell people too, I mean this is all that's prevention, but we'll get horses that are symptomatic and you can't really prevent anything that's already there. So recognizing the signs of ulcers earliest 'cause we'll have some people call, you know, my horse, he'll eat his hay, but he won't eat a sweet feed . And we use the analogy of that's like giving a kid a bowl of cookies or a bowl of broccoli. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And the kid eats the broccoli. Right. You know what I mean? Because it hurts when they eat that acid because as soon as the carbs hit the stomach, the bacteria in their ferin them into volatile fatty acids. Right. Which make the stomach even more acidic and the cells can swell and stuff like that. So some horses, if they're smart enough, they'll learn, if I eat that, it's gonna hurt. Some aren't so smart. And they'll eat it and then go down. And so a lot of the horses we see that, that get cast and have injuries from that. Right. That's the first thing that goes in my mind is like, why did this horse lay down a roll after it ate ? Right. And unfortunately, the only way to diagnose 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, the stomach acid burns up the drug. Really? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Hmm . So it's the same drug as like our Prilosec . It's omeprazole. Right. But the , the , like, some of the compounded stuff it does is if it hits the stomach, it doesn't, doesn't get absorbed as good.

Speaker 1 13:24

So in your practice, what are the biggest issues that you see that, that are forage 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 , like I 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 want to buy round bales. Oh yeah. They're cheap. Yeah. I mean, as far as forage goes, round bales that sit outside are the cheapest hay you can find. And for a cow, I know we sell a lot of round bales to cattle farmers, but that, and when you set that round bale out and you store it outside properly, the water runoff of the net wrap Mm-Hmm . And does a good job of protecting that bale. But it's not the same as putting it in a barn. No . And it's not the same as keeping the moisture away from it. Plus most round bailers that most the people that bale, not the bailers themselves, most people who round bale are, you know, they're using the old fashioned methods of determining moisture content. When they bail , they get out and they twist the hay or they look at it because the round baler don't have moisture meters. So they're not confirming that they're getting that hay baled in that 16, 15, 16, 18% moisture. So they , they don't have that mechanical check. You know, the other thing that we see is, you know, they, they look at the hay as a dollar, you know, they're looking at, at that value for the tonnage. Well that, that, that thatch of hay across the top of a bale. Well that's waste. So if you've got two to four inches of waste around Yeah. You know, circles get bigger as they , you know, as we go out. So that four inches is the same as six or eight inches in the middle as you go in. So that's a lot of waste that happens there, which most people don't count when they buy 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 live really 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't like the idea that we, we sold our cattle or we ate our cattle. But , uh, you know, when it's on our farm, it gets treated with dignity and respect. It gets fed well. And but the reality is , uh, uh, a cow that you're gonna eat or somebody 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. Looks like he's put together by a committee. But man, he, he's 24. 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 past two years. Yeah. Learning to rope and stretch at 25 years old was still back in the box and still go catch a steer. Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:14

A lot of the, the horses like the high school rodeo ones, I mean, that's what they're looking for. The teenaged. Yeah. The horses that were old 25 years ago aren't Yeah. Aren't so, I mean, and that's nutrition dentistry, I mean Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:29

Hoof care. Hoof

Speaker 2 16:30

Care, everything. Like, everything's getting better. 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 in the, in the water. Almost put dentists outta business. I mean, it's a , I mean, yeah, we still get cavities because now instead of getting bad water, we, we eat like crap. You know? But you know, that same thing with horse care. We know that we need to have our, have our teeth floated and checked. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . We know 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

<laugh>.

Speaker 2 17:13

I don't know . Probably. 'cause we're dumb <laugh> 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 I have a, a lot in common and, and I thought this was funny. I went and saw one of the first times you were up here playing at the, at the restaurant here in town. I went up and saw you because 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't realize 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. <laugh>

Speaker 1 17:45

It's hard to fake talent. I mean, you can fake personality. You could fake a lot of things. You can't fake talent. And I've been around enough 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. Favorite song?

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 that song. You remember the one I'm talking about? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah . Where he is drinking out of the jelly bean jar. Yep .

Speaker 1 18:24

Now I love my favorite all time favorite song. There's two of 'em that I listen to. One of them is Ella Fitzgerald, how High the Moon, 1956 recording from Germany. And she goes out to sing How High the Moon and you know who Ella is. Right? And she forgets the words and she scats the whole back half of the song. And the band follows her impeccably. The story is she comes off stage crying thinking the audience is booing her. And they are, they are standing, standing ovation. It is one of the most amazing record . I have to look at that one. Yeah. You ought to look that one up. Just listen to sit down and listen to it. It will blow you away when you realize, when you think of the story that goes along with that. And you know, in America, we don't appreciate jazz as a country, but you go over to Europe and jazz rules and it's the, oh yeah , we invented the music here. How so? Yeah. Okay. Uh , song you listen 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 one called Talking Veterinarian Blues. Yep . And it , that makes me think of Dad all the time. Yeah. So that's, that's probably 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 fantastic musician. I mean world class , world class musician. And when she was younger, they would have a bunch of friends get together and I was a little kid. I wasn't even old enough to play the piano. And mom would break that song out . It was just a funny song about a guy , one meatball, one meatball about a guy who goes to a fancy restaurant to buy dinner. And I think he only has a nickel. And he says, what can I get for, you know, for this? And the guy says, you can get one meatball with no spaghetti. <laugh> <laugh> .

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 her eighties now. And this probably goes back to when she was playing 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 keep resurfacing.

Speaker 1 20:39

Yeah. So, so we have a lot of that in common. I , you know, Travis, I love to talk music. You came and played for our friend's birthday party several years ago down at the barn. Yep . And I mean, that was fun. We stayed up, I stayed up later than I've stayed up a long 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 free fescue. 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 can cause 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 being that there's free mature separation, there's so when the baby comes out , it's supposed to break that sack. Well, they can'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'll get people that, you know, they , if they're not there, they may come out and then they just got a dead baby. And that's preventable. I mean, just you get the end to fight free stuff or

Speaker 1 22:02

Just, and it's, and it's only like 60 to 90 days. 'cause I have customers that you say the word fescue and they're run , you can't see anything. But they're backside 'cause they're running away so fast 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 gets your mar and it's fescue hay pasture. I mean Yeah . Most of the pasture around here is fescue.

Speaker 1 22:28

Yeah. Especially the older pasture. It's that old field fescue, which is almost entirely , uh, if I'm not say it's , I think it's Kentucky 31 or something. And it , it , it is, it , there's an end fight infestation. Uh , we per , when we plant new fields, we planted one 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 it stronger. '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 fescue because we don't even want to take a chance with some of our horse customers that, you know, if they mixed their hay up, that that could po even possibly get to a brooded marere . Yeah. So, you know, most of our brood mare are they, you know, even the brood marere farms that we deal with sell, 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 milk and everything and support that little parasite that comes out Yeah. Is important. Right. Right. So good alfalfas are great 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 start eating super young and if they're used to that mother's milk 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 a a , 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 kind of 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 I know the , the moldy hay is way more dangerous than proprionic acid. Yeah . That's the preservative you use, right?

Speaker 1 24:13

Yeah. Yeah. So the proponic acid from my understanding is being the hay producer for us, we look at it because it does two things to the hay. It provides a , uh, it makes it just a little bit softer, more palatable. But it also , uh, is a mold preventative. Yeah. And it's in , in , in horses. It's, they generate 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 the insurance of knowing that there is, that this person, this farm has done everything they can to prevent mold.

Speaker 2 25:07

Right. And can you, I mean, it's so humid here. Like it's, can you, could you get 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 that wet. I mean, 'cause we, we make dry hay, so if it hits 20%, we're probably not bailing. Yeah. But we put, we put preservative on everything, on all of our hay. Whether it's, you know, whether it's for, you know, whether we're it's wet or not. We put it on as a , an insurance policy for us because we wanna make sure we don't have mold, but also for our customers so that there's less of a chance, a dramatically reduced chance of having mold in that hay. Because, you know, again, the, the COPD type reaction that horses have to hay 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 my limited chemical knowledge, you know, it's, it , it , it has about the same acidity to the horse's stomach as tap water.

Speaker 2 26:11

Yeah. No , it won't. So we're good . Affect anything. Yeah. So I'd say go for it. Well , I'll, I'll see more problems with moldy hay than

Speaker 1 26:20

Anything. Yeah. I mean, that's one of your biggest issues is people feeding 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 on the trailer. Um, the horse. You know, if we're hauling a Marin baby, we'll get a box stalled trailer and just leave them loose. Yeah . Depends on your setup too . Some have waters or they have to reach down and get Right. So I think it , and then some of 'em , you know, you open the slant, they just wanna back out as hard as they can. So if they're tied, I , I , I think that one kind of depends.

Speaker 1 26:56

Yeah. Now we never tied in our slants, but we, we had padded slants and, you know, we would load them in. And we are , I'm , I was always fanatic. I wanted my horses to have exceptional ground manners. Yep . You know, I don't like a horse that's running up on me. I don't like it. You know, I want a horse that when I stop walking, I can hold that. I can just drop that lead rope over my finger and when I stop walking, that horse stops with its nose at about my shoulder. Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:21

Those are the ones I try to buy in the clinic. <laugh> . Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:23

<laugh>.

Speaker 2 27:23

They're usually not for sale <laugh> .

Speaker 1 27:27

But, you know, I, I, but I, I worked with ours, so I loop it around their neck and put a little, just a little loose tie on it so that it doesn'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 kids were little, they didn't have to go up in front of that horse and reach up when that horse is , you know, trying to do something. 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 I mean, just whipping it. And I, you know, I didn't know enough to go over and say, whoa, we need to back off here. And I should have, I look back on that and I remember that day to this, watching 'em try to load this horse instead of being patient 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

<affirmative> reluctance to load. And a lot of the symptoms we see, like, unless we sit down and like interview other people, they may, if, if we find ulcers and we treat 'em , they may call two weeks later like, Hey, my horse quit chewing lead ropes in half of the show. My horse loads. Good. Now you quit weaving. You know ? Why do you

Speaker 1 28:30

Think like that ? Why do you think the loading of the

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 the road, that's stomach acid sloshes.

Speaker 1 28:39

Really? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . I wouldn't have thought about that.

Speaker 2 28:41

Or, or if they associate that with going somewhere and getting used and that 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 the other day. Uh, my horse doesn't travel. I don't take my horse off of the, off the farm. Now this is not me that I heard somebody saying this , uh, I don't need , they don't need to vaccinate them.

Speaker 2 29:04

False <laugh> vaccinated horses. Where's the ca vaccinate your horses? <laugh> . Especially, there's five what they, they call core diseases. Right. And they call 'em that because any horse anywhere, unless it was living in here, is susceptible to Right . And it's rabies West Nile, tetanus, and eastern and western encephalitis, which are mosquito things. Okay. Rabies horses are four times more likely 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 the first thing we ask is it's been vaccinated. 'cause one of the first things we do is bits , you know, we look in their mouth UCUs membranes and Yeah. Like that. So I don't know if you've ever seen videos or pictures of people or horses with 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, they have, first of all, you can't get close enough to give them an iv. 'cause if they bite you or something, if they're dangerous. Yeah. So most of the time they end up getting shot. Really. And their head's cut off 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 , if you're reading the text, the survival rate's up to 25%. I've only seen one horse survive from it. It was a huge draft, and I think his size diluted the toxin. Wow. Um, the people at the referral hospitals that are actually treating horses with tetanus will tell you that's closer to 0% survival. Wow . And that's, I mean, you can prevent it. There's, there's a rare case , some vaccinated horses contracting it, but it's

Speaker 1 30:42

Rare. Rare. Super rare. You know, I mean, for years now, well, I know since you've been at the clinic and even before then, we, we ha we built a relationship with you guys and every year, I mean, we just come up on the list, make sure we give , you know, you're calling me saying, Hey, when's a good time to come out and do it and get him on that list, even if I forget about it. You remember it because we're on, 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 are yearly. Every year they're gonna be okay. You know, dogs was there three years for rabies and we're , I forgot how many 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 disappointed in our, in our urban myths and old wives tales. I mean this healthy as a horse. They're the dang fragiles animals that I've ever been around.

Speaker 2 31:34

Yeah. It's amazing. I mean ,

Speaker 1 31:36

Healthy as species . Yeah. <laugh>, I mean, healthy as a horse. I, my horses have better healthcare than I have. Yeah. You know , mean , geez . Healthy as a horse that just doesn't

Speaker 2 31:46

Know maybe a hundred years ago when people were living in he 40. Yeah. There's there the way they're designed. And a lot of that's our fault is readers too. I mean, yeah . We pick and choose what we want and 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 Australian Shepherd and they bred these dogs for the look of an Australian shepherd, but smaller and health issues. You know, they, they, they have these, these, these issues that because the breeders are breeding for a physical characteristic Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and not looking at 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 horse industry as well. Yeah .

Speaker 2 32:32

Yeah. It is . Anytime you try to shrink a species, but a lot of the many horses have the same problems as the, the dogs with the stifles. Really? Yeah. The , the groove won't be big enough. Their kneecap will go in and out. 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 they breed, there's the pressure. Right . And with , with dogs that go on like a mesh and they can open it up, but , but minis have 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, hold on, gimme a second. Here it is. The miniature herford. He, he had a sound concept in , in doing that, is he , his concept was that for a family to buy a steer, you know, if, if you take a , a steer and raise it to commercial weight, you're , you're 12 to 1400 pounds. When that, when, when that animal is, is ready, according to commercial standards for processing, well, hanging weight is approximately 61% of live weight . Um , your actual package weight is about 75% of that 61%. So, but more than a , a , a small family will eat in a year. And his idea was breed a smaller cow. So that one cow equaled one family for one year. And you know, I I I don't know if you've ever looked at , um, uh, I think they're called , uh, amus animal mass units. So you can, you can rank how many animals can you support on your ground in an animal mass unit. And it'll, it'll scale up and down from a , a , a mama cow with a calf all the way down to chickens. Oh , okay. Because each animal has its own, or each species has its own mass unit that you can do the calculations on. So I understand, you know , I might be wrong. So I I've been wrong a couple of times. My wife points it out, quote , eh , that's right. But you know, the, that idea was you could raise the same amount of cattle or same amount of beef, but having that processing weight being 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 , I don'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 full size , but the Herefords looked good. I wonder if they have those 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 did this as a four H project. I wanna say it was like the sixties or seventies. Really? Huh ? Yeah. And he started breeding 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 many bales will a miniature cow eat ? I don't know. Are they miniature baes ? Yeah .

Speaker 2 35:28

Right . <laugh>, yeah. The miniature miniatures.

Speaker 1 35:32

So that brings up another question we ought to , ought to , ought to jump into real quick is how much hay should a horse be eating per day? And also kind of tie into that, how do you determine a horse's workload? So, you know, we had rope horses, we were roping at, you know, at least an hour a day on 'em, probably five days a week they would get exercised strenuously. Um, is that considered a heavy workload?

Speaker 2 36:01

Yeah. I mean, I guess it depends on what your definition would be. Right? And there's not a, we recommend like one to 2% of body weight to be roughage

Speaker 1 36:11

Per day. Yes. So minimum one. So horse weighs a thousand pounds, that's 10 to 20 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, you got guys going out riding feed lot all day, they're gonna take more. Right. If it's a backyard horse that's already got metabolic 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 bit lower RFV. And if , if you don't know, RFV is the relative feed value, it's a calculation of all the different nutrients that I have never had a horse owner that deals in numbers. You know, they, they deal in the feel and the smell and the look. They're very visual and tactile buyers. But you know, what we might be interesting to sit down and talk about is like, what, what RFV should you be looking at for, you know, something that's a heavy workload horse, like a, like a rope horse that's getting actively used and actively rodeoed versus, you know , uh, you know, and a cutting horses and the sorting horses and those horses that are high energy , high, high-end horses versus, you know, and I say high-end, don't get me wrong. There is, there are, if it's your horse, it's a high-end horse. Right. But thinking about the activity levels of a high, high-end working horse versus the activity level of your , your horse at home that might be a pasture ornament and gets ridden three or four times a 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, that mini or that our quarter horse, like you gotta feed a thoroughbred. Yeah. And they , they'd, they'd be founded by borrow . Right. <laugh> . But, and , and the breeds make a difference too. I mean, the thoroughbreds are metabolism's just more, we will see a lot of people that are used to the quarter horses and or stuff like that. They'll go get a , a thoroughbred maybe off the track or something and beat it like their quarter horses and they just start losing weight. Right . So there's , there's so many variables with Right . With horses on that. I think it'd be,

Speaker 1 38:10

But that one to 2% body weight probably a good place to start. That's a great place to start. We always looked, I mean, I , I'm a , I'm a visual learner, but I always like to look at my horses. I mean, that's visually, you know, I could look at my horses and 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 to measure and keep a trend . If you see your horse every day , it's kinda like us too. You know , you don't realize they're getting fat until <laugh> . But if you , if they do, you don't see him . But no <laugh> . But like , people say like, I don't think he's gay that much. And then they come in, 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 'em in a hot fire , man , they'll jump and don't, don't do this. It's mean to the frog. It's just an old wives tale. But, you know, if you , if you slowly crank the heat up, almost sit there until it cooks. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , I mean, it , it's that slow. You know, if you do it over and over, it's that first big max . Not bad. But when you have one every, every day for six months Yeah . Then, you know, then you start to run into some issues.

Speaker 2 39:06

Yeah. But like you said, looking at 'em , your hands on 'em Yeah. And getting a body condition score. I

Speaker 1 39:12

Think it's also important, you know, we, we deal with a , you know, we deal with a lot of horse owners and they, a a lot of them are just their pasture ornaments. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And it's a different relationship that, you know, if your horse is out in pasture, you may not think about 'em for a week. Right. You know, where my horses now my horses are out on pasture, over at our , over Larry's place. But , uh, right now, but when they're here, they get handled every day. And that, that, you know, you know when something'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 I left to go to work and I saw 'em in the dark, but I'd come out when we'd give 'em a handful of grains , so they'd come 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 talk about? 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's kind of hard to get around here. Yeah. So they call us, where can we get it? And then they want, most people are used to the small squares and they're hesitant with the big ones. 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 a customer come to us for four small squares. And we say we, we do, we put the full sales pitch on it because it, it really is a better deal. But I've never had a customer who has switched to big squares go back. They never even think about 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 three sizes of big squares. There's actually a few more, but there's three sizes that you generally see here in the us And that's the three by three. The three by four, and the four by four . And the three by three is the most common. And the mo one, most people want to, if they're gonna feed large bales, is the one they wanna deal with. Most people don't have the equipment to handle the four by fours. They're a beast. I mean, they can weigh upwards of 2000 pounds. And the three by fours are about the same. They can be, you know, 12, 1300 pounds for those three by fours. They're hard for most people, unless you've got bigger, bigger ag equipment to, to deal with. The , um, the three by threes are about 800 pounds. And so when you do the math on it, the small squares that you see baed in the new bundles, you see a lot of 'em even buying those 21 bale bundles, well, those 21 bale bundles, most producers are shooting for a 45 to 52 pound bale. The, and because they sell by the bale, they're trying to make 'em a little lighter. Now that lighter is good. And a lot of people want that because they're easier to carry. I, I remember when I was a kid , uh, bucking bales , uh, for a farmer around here, and they were two , they were wire tied , you know, two string wire tied bales that weighed 175 to a hundred pounds on , you know, as an 8-year-old, I could barely pick 'em up if I could pick 'em up. Uh , but those light bales are, are convenient, they're easy. But when you think about converting that to a big square bale, generally 16. Okay . 17, 18 ba uh , small squares in a big square. Now we built a feeder. So once a, basically once a month we'd come in, set a bale down on our feeder that rolls around the barn and it's got little arms on it. And when you cut the strings, they just fall apart. And then you just pick the, pick the flakes up. It is so much more convenient than small squares that it made us a believer. Yeah. Before we ever started bailing our own hay , we had switched to these big squares. I'll have to see that. Yeah. They're, they're pretty neat. The, the , you know, you don't need a big tractor. I mean, heck, anything that can, has a loader on it can almost handle these. Now you're not gonna want to throw 'em around like we do where we're doing hundreds and hundreds a day. But moving one a month, not a big , you know, it's just the, the example I give all the time is we had, we would buy 400 or so small squares a year. And, and this is when we were first getting into it. And I'd, I'd sit there and we , my kids were real little as I remember. Karen will were real small. They would , we would load those bales and stack 'em as high as you could get 'em in the barn and it would take up a bay. So we had a 12 by 24 foot bay. And you know , we had four of those in our, in our, just our storage shed. And it would take up a bale and a , or a bay and a half of small squares. Well, when we switched to the big squares, we did all the math. So we were getting the same amount of hay one bay. I could unload it from the truck load an entire year's worth of hay in under 45 minutes and move on to something else. Oh. There is a lot of dead space measure . There's a lot of dead space in those stacking . Yeah . Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah. And you , you mentioned something about you get , you've got a way to cut 'em in half. And we tried that for a few and we did it for a few people where, you know, they didn't have the equipment to handle the big bale . So we got some of those large , um, uh, bulk bags. And we basically would put bulk bag , we'd pick 'em up with a fork, put bulk bags on both ends, split the strings, have 'em fall down and sit. And then we'd lift the strings out and then we would just set 'em on the back of their pickup truck. They would back into the barn, push it off somehow. Okay. And those flakes would just lift out of the bag and there's no mess in their barn. And when they get done, any debris is still in the bag. Yeah. That they could soak that, feed it to their horses, do whatever. You know, there was no waste. They liked it. It , it's a little bit more labor intensive to get those bales in that bag, but it, if it makes it easier for people.

Speaker 2 44:50

Yeah. That's neat. We've, we've fed a few big ones at the clinic and we've had fortunate client go get a load and have a skidsteer and just scoot it in. But they're easy to feed. Like they just flake off and Yeah. It's, we liked it and

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 when you wanna roll it around, one person can roll it around the barn if you got concrete. Yeah. You know, it just rolls around the 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 a while, but when I was younger we hauled a lot of hay. Mm-Hmm . And I remember some fielders he's throwing around that straw somewhere. You're dead. You know, but, and then I remember a 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, you know, that, that, that, that biological activity that happens in there, you can like horse manure pile if you let it sit out there and while dig in, stick your hand in there. Yes. I'm saying stick your hand in the pile of manure folks. Uh, it'll be 140 degrees. Wow . You know, it's the same thing that happens in, hey, you've got that biological material tight together. When that mold production starts, it starts that whole chain reaction. And, you know, barn will burn down it , it'll, the combustion temperature is really low when it gets into that ideal scenario, 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 that mold going, that's, I mean that's why the, the propionic acid discussion was so important to us because, you know, we store, I mean, we'll bale 5,000, those big square bales, you get one of them that gets mold and then boom. That's an expensive, that's an expensive stack. Yeah. Goes up and you hear about it almost every year you hear about somebody'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 , how does, 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 a tank on the back of our baler holds 150 , 200 gallons. And as the hay gets picked up by the pickup teeth, it sprays it on just before it goes into that bale chamber. So it's got two spray 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 a new system out that I have a friend that uses, I've never used it, but it's a dry kind of a , a , a crystalline deal that goes on there somewhere. And they, they like that. I've never used it. I've never seen it. But they like that. And they say they bale at 25% moisture. I would never do. I mean, even with Propionic and they say you can do it, I just would 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 have temperature swings here and humidity swings that are, that are 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 <laugh>.

Speaker 2 48:05

Yeah. It worked. It's too high. High school kids. 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 combat situation, so I'm pretty, I mean, dead . I , yeah , I would just 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 a 70-year-old and a 14-year-old

Speaker 1 48:35

<laugh>.

Speaker 2 48:36

We had to send one down outta the loft. They couldn't breathe. Really? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> .

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 couple of guys, and I did that. Most summers I look back and those are some of the, you know, just some happy times. But I had to pick up three or four , uh, small squares and put 'em up in a hay loft for somebody the other day. I don't know that I'd want to do that. Yeah .

Speaker 2 49:05

I , I got another ways to make money now. <laugh>. Yeah. I , I was dumb and I got good at stacking. Oh my . So I had to touch every bale , <laugh>. I should have not been very good and I could'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 they kept a cooler full of Gatorade and we had sandwiches at five. Yeah. There was another one that it was 10 cents, and if they had to call more than three of us, if rain was coming or something, then we all got a little pay cut. Yeah.

Speaker 1 49:39

We, it , I remember, I wanna say it was a , now my friend Jimmy, he would tell me a 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. <laugh>. I mean, I think I was making, I think I made 5 cents a bale was the most I ever made. But that was probably back in, you're talking the late seventies?

Speaker 2 50:04

Yeah. Mine would've been the late nineties. Early two thousands. Yeah. In 10 10 we 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 with your 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. <laugh> . Yep .

Speaker 1 50:26

So I was trying to think if I have any more questions. I think we've covered 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 other thing is call your vet. Have them do it because storing those vaccines is, is important. Yeah . They're not really supposed to be exposed to light. Right. You walk in the feed stores and there's their cooler white oven , they're all exposed to light . You don't know how they've handled them . And the most of the , the main manufacturers, the big ones, they'll stand behind it. Like we vaccinate your 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 who watch the watch or listen to this podcast know that that's sort of what I did for a while . But I am a big, big believer in a couple things. And one is build relationships with businesses and people. Right . Mostly people, but people, you know, you are your business. Right. It's not, you didn't, you know, you don't get up in the morning and change who you are to go to work. You are, you know, you go and you take care of people's horses and you care about it. And I think it's important to build that relationship because I remember calling the clinic years ago and we were a new customer and you have so many people that call for one-off things and have nothing else that it's, it's a different relationship when you have, you know, you vaccinate all of our horses, our entire remuda, you take care of 'em all, you know our name. It's, it's a different relationship that when I have a problem, I know I can call. Yep . And if I don't get an immediate callback, it would be a shock. I mean, you just take care of everybody that way. Right . But building that relationship 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 think that is absolutely fantastic. Yeah . You bring in some of the drug people that can actually explain what's going on and what we're seeing.

Speaker 2 52:25

Yeah. That , that's huge. Because I mean, there's, there's such a shortage of Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> of large animals, especially equine bets now that Yeah. I mean, and I'm, I'm solo right now. We're trying to hire 'em , but Right. I mean, I can't get to everybody. Right. But if, if you support me the rest of the year, I'm gonna be there when you need me. That's right. And that'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 the customer 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 that relationship because I know they're gonna get taken care of. I know. I want to know that my horses have I that you have their best interest at heart. And that's important, getting those vaccinations done. I mean, I can't tell you how many years that, you know, your dad or you have called and said, Hey, we need to get out there. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. Get it done.

Speaker 2 53:16

I finally did mine yesterday. <laugh> . Yeah .

Speaker 1 53:18

<laugh>.

Speaker 2 53:18

They've been down there for eight weeks. I finally, finally got 'em. It's easy to lose track. So I mean, we, we've implemented reminder systems 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 are price shopping. Yep . But you can't, you know, hey is one of those things, I, I talked to a person the other day. If you're a , if you farm corn or green , it's a commodity, right? So the market sets the price and you have to live with whatever that price is. Hay will never be commoditized because there are so many variations from one field to the next. From what time you bail the hay to the next, from one cutting to the next. There are so many variations that it, it , it can't be put in a group like that. So, you know, building a relationship with the guy who farms your hay , get to know 'em . Yeah. I mean, whether it's our farm or, or somebody else. Get to know the farmer because you have that consistency of product. If they're doing their job right. And they care. I mean, we put a lot of time, effort, and a lot of money into making sure our hay is the best it can be, best that we can make it. And that relationship, knowing that I'm gonna call before I, I sell all of my hay to one guy. I'm gonna call my, make sure I try to take care of my customers because they take care of me. Right. And that's that same thing. Get to know if you buy your hay from a feed store and there's nothing wrong with it , don't get me wrong, that hay is probably fine. But that hay may have come from Jim's farm one month and the next month they ran short and they, they still need hay to sell. So they get it from somewhere else and they, they're buying based on what's the best price for them versus 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 a different relationship to the guy who grows it. Right. You know,

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 a vet or your vet to be there when you really need 'em , then you 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 and coggins and we saw an eye problem. Yep . Picked up a little ulcer, we gotta fix it. That could have been a huge problem. And Right. And , and , and that's the time we, we discuss stuff like we talked about today with the forage and just small talk while we're vaccinating and coggins , you know, any other little concerns. So having that relationship with your bits

Speaker 1 55:47

Huge . I remember years ago , uh, uh, your dad was still working pretty much full-time at the clinic. And I had that stretch horse I was talking about. Just showed bear . I mean, he just was starting to show signs that he was gonna colic. And that horse has never, colic never done, but it was a big temperature change. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And we got out there and we, oil did an oil change on him and it popped .

Speaker 2 56:11

Did he use a dipstick? <laugh>?

Speaker 1 56:14

No. We use , we, we we tubed him through the nose. Yeah . And , uh, but yeah, I mean that, that communication and that, you know, because I , I'm pretty sure it was your dad back then, but your dad knew I took care of my horses. He, you know, this wasn't a horse that had sat out and was at the , he knew I was very proactive and showed right up. You guys were right there. That , that building that relationship is important. And, and it's important with just about any business. It's not just veterinary and your hay farmer. You know, I want people to be loyal 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 a fun, I've been, I had looked forward to this podcast for a long 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. <laugh> . So Travis, good to see you . Yeah. If you guys remember, I'll put the information up to the Beasley Equine Clinic, check them out on YouTube, check them out on their social media channels. They do a lot of videos that are really helpful if 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 some on ulcers. They've, they , they post a , a video at least on what are you doing every week? Trying to, yeah. And it , they're very educational. I mean, these are really well done . You know, they're, they're, they're good stuff. So check them out on social media. And the clinic is based in southern Illinois. You handle pretty much all of the southern Illinois area. Yeah. Are you pretty much, how are , do you go north?

Speaker 2 57:40

I don't, we don't Because of how much we got, we try to get everything in so we won't go more than like 45 minutes or so. But we get a lot of people, two, three hour radius. Yeah. Horse people are like 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's two hours away. That's just too far. I'm not going. And we're like, heck, we've, we've driven eight hours for a rodeo that night . Yeah . You know , <laugh>.

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'll do another

Speaker 2 58:11

Me we soon. Yeah. Alright . It's fun.

Speaker 1 58:13

Good luck and God bless.