Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

> > > The nomadic lifestyle is long gone here and there is no tradition of animals 
> > > in pastures roaming free
In "Horses of the Sahara" it appeared the horses pretty much lived hobbled. 
Boxes may be an improvement. >g<

Angie
____________________________________________________________
Give back to your community.  Click here to start a new career as a Police 
officer.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTEe1ZnDcogNHL8Jc1U0C9fGcEbnyoTqu0xck1diOxtPp6tcRalVcM/

--- Begin Message ---

The concept that horses are complex animals who have evolved in a specific fashion with specific needs and that these needs DO NOT include private rooms with or without fans in which they "rest" for at least 23 hours a day is met with disbelief in most places in this part of the world. The nomadic lifestyle is long gone here and there is no tradition of animals in pastures roaming free. This is partly due to a lack of space/arable land/fencing material, which makes horse keeping in boxes much more economical. Of course, once you do that, then you start choosing feeds that make keeping the boxes clean much easier and so on. None of this is particularly in the horses' best interest. Actually, the horses' best interest is usually felt to be that they be kept a) clean and be) fed and only about w) exercised.? Add urban ex-pats to the mix who have only known stables in urban or suburban settings and the growth in non-knowledge is exponential.

We recently had a census on the horse farms in the area by the local governorate. A group of five agricultural specialists were moving around looking at the farms and asking about how the horses were housed, fed and about waste disposal. When they got to my place they were totally bewildered and kept asking where the boxes were. I very patiently explained at least 3 times that I have no boxes...or rather that the one box I do have is currently storing about 10 tonnes of beet pulp pellets and isn't inhabited. And the waste disposal? I pointed to an old 50 gallon oil drum at the front of the property and told them that it is emptied once a week by a local trash collector. But the horse waste??? They eat the rice straw, wheat chaff, and hay cubes? as part of their diet and anything the horses don't eat, the goats or poultry do.? Manure is piled in a special pit, watered and turned and either used or sold at a profit. No waste.? Not exactly rocket science but they were dumbfounded.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
msgabbani@xxxxxxxxx

Egypt Face to Face
www.alsorat.com
Weblogs:
Living In Egypt
miloflamingo.blogspot.com
Cairo/Giza Daily Photo
cairogizadailyphoto.blogspot.com
Turn Right At The Sarcophagus
haramlik.blogspot.com
Da Moose Is Loose (a blog for kids)
mstroud.blogspot.com
Photos of Egypt:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/livinginegypt/

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 7:24 AM, Maggie Mieske <msmieske@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have tried to "suggest" to people here (even expats) that a horse needs a day of rest after exercise to "rebuild" and that conditioning doesn't take place during exercise, but after.? My experience from going and observing at the Federation is that horses are exercised every day....they mostly stand in a stall all day, maybe get out in a small paddock for an hour if they are lucky, and then are exercised for a couple of hours.? They start out walking for several minutes (15-20) on the pavement outside the track before their exercise regimen and are cooled out the same way....walking on pavement.? Some people use the swimming pool for exercise also.?

?

Maggie Mieske
Lecturer
English Department/Foundation Program
Qatar University
P.O. Box 2713
Doha, Qatar
GMT +3
Office: 974-493-5983
NB Room 234

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." - - Kierkegaard

--- End Message ---