standards of care (long!!!!)

[Dakoiah@aol.com]

It amazes me sometimes how people can have such totally different ideas on 
how horses should be cared for.

For example, my roommate and i have lived together for two years now.  She 
has two horses, a 2 year old Appaloosa and a 16 year old TB.  I have one, a 5 
year old Paso Fino.  About 5 months ago, we moved out to a place where we 
could keep the horses here with us, 10 acres fenced in the middle of no 
where. It's great!!!  Kim grew up with horses all the time, always haveing 2 
or 3 around the place.  Alpine is my first horse, I've had him a year now, 
and didn't actually start riding until I was 18 (I'll be 26 in Jan).

All three horses live in a sand pasture (no grass in Florida unless you have 
three horses on about 100 acres!!!!!).  They are out during the day and shut 
up at night.  They are fed a combination of Purina Equine Adult and crimped 
oats twice daily, and hay morning and night.  

It's just interesting in how Kim and I have different ideas about things.  I 
am absolutly anal about worming and vaccinations and stalls.  Alpine was on 
Strongid C 2x, but I have taken him off it for a while to give his system a 
rest (in part to discussion here on ridecamp :)  I worm him every 6 weeks to 
the letter with rotating wormers now (Zimectrin today, lucky pony!).   Kims 
horses were due for wormers a month ago, I finally bought them  and will be 
worming them today.  My horse is due for  his six month vaccines now and I am 
calling the vet tomorrow to schedule a call.  Kims haven't had vaccines in 
well over a year and are over due for Coggins.  I want stalls cleaned every 
day, but since I am often away from home, they usually only get cleaned when 
I'm home, which is about 3-4 days a week.  Kim doesn't see a problem with 
leaving them for any length of time (her mom is well known for not cleaning 
stalls for 3 weeks to a month).  All three horses have feet done faithfully 
every six weeks, mainly because we have a fantastic farrier who calls and 
informs us he will be out tomorrow!

Anyone else have  this problem???  I don't mind occasionally buying a wormer, 
but I can't afford to vet all three horses, and I feel she's putting my horse 
at risk by not keeping up a steady vaccine and worming schedule.   I am not 
quibbling about the stalls, I can live with that, and it makes it all the 
more important for me to get my rear end home and clean them.    I'd love any 
suggestions on how to handle this situation!  Tactfully.  Kim is a good 
friend of mine, and we get along very well.  I'd hate to lose that.  

If you got this far, thanks for reading!  Sorry it's a book.  

Juli and Alpine (mom, how come we aren't riding today??  WORMER DAY!   
AGHHHHHH!)


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