 Okay. Welcome everybody. We are glad that you're here for our last of our winter series of horse management webinars. Today we're going to talk about winter facility management, and so we have a lot to talk about, so we're going to get started. Just as a reminder, we are going to keep pretty much everybody's cameras off and we have you all muted, and so we'll do that until it's Q&A time. And at that point you can turn your cameras on and turn your mics on and ask all the questions you'd like. Of course, remember that you can ask questions in the chat box and Rachel and Paige will be pulling those questions out, making sure that we get to them all at the end. So today we have 79 people registered and our friends from Germany and France are joining us again. Of course we have, it looks like the same people kind of from Oregon all the way over to South Carolina and then a lot from North Dakota today. So we're glad you're all here. And the number of horses again is very similar to last week. So a lot have one to five. So oftentimes I saw four as the number 12 to 15 with 11 being the number there and then 50 to 75 there was only a couple people that have that many. And so we are glad you're all here. Okay, today we have with us Shane Gelberg who's the engineer, and he owns an engineering company. Shane today is going to talk to us about structure management so I'm actually going to let him introduce himself when we get rolling here. Then you get to hear from me and so so far I've just introduced things and moderated questions but today we're going to talk about manure. After that we'll talk about Paige is going to come on and talk about windbreaks fence maintenance bedding blanketing, and then Rachel's going to round us off again with waters fence feed access pen maintenance and horse care. So that's what's on the agenda for today. And with that, I'm going to mute myself and turn myself off and I'm going to hand it over to Shane. Can, can ever. I can't see myself. We can hear you. Can you hear me okay. Yep. Okay. Anyways, my name is Shane Gelberg and I own K to S engineering. I guess we specialize in egg engineering. We do probably mainly livestock facilities and waste management livestock facilities. You can read through, I guess, you can click to the next slide. This just is kind of our, I guess our, our company statement and what states were licensed in, and then go kind of cruise over that you can go to the next. Anyways, I guess we'll start with. I'll be honest with you I don't specifically do a lot of horse facilities we do a lot of livestock facilities. I think with livestock. We have the same concerns design concerns the same considerations. I know you guys asked me to talk about pens well if you're talking about individual pens in buildings. You know, some of the stuff you may know but I'm going to assume you don't. If you're, if you're putting animals and individual pens. On bare concrete is not a good idea. Either you use a sand base, or if you have concrete. There's a lot of rubber products out there that you can put on top of that. Your lanes and traffic areas. It's typically the best performances on bare concrete. I mean, the animals typically are staging on these areas but you've got a lot of traffic and from the standpoint and also keep an area is clean concrete is usually your best alternative. On outdoor pens. You know, if you have outdoor pens, and they're just earth, you know, you're just using earth base. If you can achieve a three to 5% slope. Depending on your soil type of course, that's usually your optimum slope. And that should that 3% slope would be three feet of fall or three feet of vertical fall over 100 feet. If you have sand base. If you have sandy soils. That slope probably isn't as critical. Animal density outdoor for horses. The problem is, there might be some different philosophies on it but if you're with horses. If you're at 500 square feet per animal. That's probably a good, a good design number to work with. Typically, if we're designing something for breeding beef bowls will shoot for that higher number try to give them a little more room just so that, you know, they have more space. And, like I said, I'm not a horse expert, but I think horses tend to have, you know, tend to tend to appreciate their space. Probably, you know, you're not going to try to confine horses and, you know, 40 to 50 square feet per animal. And then I thought I'd touch on feeding and water, watering areas and around those areas you want to consider heavy use protection. Typically like if you put a concrete pad around your water fountain. That's, that's usually a good idea. Or at least get a good heart, you know, a good thick gravel base, you know, where you're feeding these areas if you're pulling in some kind of a feeding bunk. Next slide. I don't know. Can people see me? Because I can't see myself. Yep, we see you. Okay. Okay. Anyways, building considerations. This is probably the main point. There's, there's essentially two types of buildings that you can consider either a steel barn or a wood barn. I'll tell you right now when it comes to livestock, I'm biased towards wood. I think it holds up better in that type of environment just because you have a little bit, you have higher humidity, you have ammonia in the air. And it seems like structurally some of the materials tend to hold up better and last longer. Wood also gives you the option of, if you want to build pens or you want to add things on, you, you know, or put painters or any type of additional things to attach to those wood structures. Sometimes it's easier with wood if you want to modify things. As far as the building itself. You want to consider, you know, usually I, I tell people you can never put a building high. If you think, I always fix that if you're in too low of a spot. That's pretty much impossible to fix. So, you know, be be cognizant or be aware of your, of your drainage when you're citing your building especially make sure everything drains away from it or at least that you can achieve that afterwards. Orientation. Typically I run livestock buildings east and west if I can, and, and that way, one of the long sides of your buildings are facing south and you can, you can maximize that light, especially when you get up in our climate up here in the Dakotas in the Midwest. This time of the year where, where that sun sits pretty low in the south, you can get a lot more light penetration if you, if you're, if you think about that when you're citing your building. Ventilation is another thing. You know, if you've got a real dense tree belt on one side of it, you probably don't want to build too close to that, just to, to allow more airflow, so you can manage snow a little easier. The other thing of course is, is depending on how many animals you're designing the barn for you want to think about your animal densities you know how many square feet do you want to give each animal, how big do you want to make your individual pens and things like that. Where are your feeding and watering areas going to be, where's your feed storage area is going to be, where's your vet storage is, it's, you know, a good plan will take you, will take you a long ways and you'll appreciate it after you get your building done because sometimes if you, if you have the up, whole moment after you put your barn up, it's a little harder to, to modify those things into your, to your building. Lighting is another thing to consider when you're looking at materials, do you want to let a lot of natural light in, or, or, you know, are you going to use LED type lights or you're going to use more traditional lights, and you can really get into the science science of it if you want to consider where your shadows are going to be, and that way when you're moving animals around, you know, they're not as likely to be spooked by some of those, those lighting issues that that you might be creating. You can go to the next slide. Here's a couple different building photos, the one on the right. I just want to note real quick means we were talking about lighting you can see that we use the kind of a transparent material along the ridge line of that to allow more natural light into that barn. So that's a consideration you can also do that along along the ridge line to but, but that's usually a good, you know, light is a good thing to let in it's a good thing to expose your animals to especially this time of the year when we have a limited amount of that. There's a couple different building designs I wanted to touch on there's a rafter versus a roof trust and there's a difference. The one on the left is a rafter it's it basically it's just a solid beam. That spans. That spans the barn, the one on the right that's a roof trust, but you'll hear most people call it a rafter, but if you wanted to be technical the technical term for it is is rough trust. Personally, I like the rafter if you can make it work and you can, you can, you can build a support post or, or build a strong enough rafter to span a large area. One of the knocks against roof trusses at least personally is is is they attract a lot of birds and and with birds comes a lot of bird baneur and bird nests and and then of course they they start picking at if you have insulation in your ceiling they'll start picking at that. And also it disrupts your airflow. So the one on on the left the rafter it does give you some advantages but you know if you want to hang fans and things like that. Sometimes the roof trust is a better alternative because you got more things to hang fans or lights to but you can still you can still do it with a rafter type system. You may notice, you can go stay back on that one a second. You may notice how we, how the ridgeline is open. I know they're going to talk about ventilation but one thing, one of the, the biggest things I get calls on is is buildings that drip water, and you know ventilation and air flows to mitigate water dripping in your building. So ventilation is a critical thing. And if you look on the building on the right, you can see that it's it's an OSB plywood that's laid down beside before you lay your 10 down. And that will mitigate any dripping because the problem with steel is as cold steel will frost up and then as it warms up, it'll start dripping. And that is, I mean, not only deteriorates your building materials and also drips on your animals drips on your floor and creates a lot of issues so there is, they do make steel products that have what they call a drip stop or it's a kind of a felt material that mitigates that a little bit of a cheaper alternative. But I usually recommend people just putting OSB or plywood down before they put their steel that's, that's one of the reasons I'm, I'm, I'm more partial to wood buildings because even with steel buildings you can use drip stop and you can use insulation but your beams and your purlings are still steel and they still still frost up and will drip on you. And a lot of times some of these steel buildings is still build building manufacturers are getting better but some of the early steel buildings that they used for livestock, a lot of those those the steel deteriorated quite quickly and that because of the ammonia because of the humidity, and it was something that you know they basically just took a steel building and said hey let's put livestock and now after 10 years they figured out wait a minute. This is a whole different environment, then you know then then maybe somebody shop or just cold storage. You can jump to the next slide. The other option I thought I'd throw in here is Hoop Barn. You can, you can, there's definitely some advantages to that it lets a lot of natural light and you can span a large area. Of course it's considered temporary. And there's a little more management to it you got to make sure you keep things straps and things tight because the wind can can create a few more issues but but it's definitely an alternative. I mean, how you put the roof over your full floor plan is kind of up to you. If it's something you're thinking about heating or heating areas. It's a little bit harder to do with it with the hoop structure. And then go to the next one. Next slide. Here's another building with with solid beam rafters that I call and support posts glue laminated posts. Just some of the building specifications. Obviously there's a lot of building codes in North Dakota that don't require that you have to do an engineer building but of course being an engineer, I would highly recommend that that you consider some of the the engineering parts. There's wind, there's minimum wind and snow loads for North Dakota the wind load is essentially the same through throughout egg structures are required to be designed to withstand 102 mile an hour wind. And the snow load, it depends on your area western part of the state you're looking at about 30 pounds per square foot snow load and as you go east, you, you get up to about 50. And then of course, there's with that there's always a foundation analysis, so that you know you properly design those foundations to carry out those loads. So if you have pre engineered buildings you can always ask that question is this building engineered. There are there is a number of building packages out there that are already engineered typically the foundation isn't engineered but whole building is some insurance companies do give you a break if you design to this ASC seven dash oh two that I got noted here. But it, I would say, more often than not. We don't see that being a requirement but some of on some of our large livestock facilities. We do sign kind of a voucher I call it for the insurance company so that they can get a discount on their insurance. We're seeing more requirements for engineered buildings after what happened in Iowa this last summer. There was a lot of structures that failed with some of those storms there and a majority of those egg structures are not engineered necessarily they're not required to commercial type buildings are required to be engineered just so that in case you're wondering why a lot of why you may not be required to do that. And then of course building codes that you know some of the township zoning will say that you have to follow building codes. You know it's really nothing that's enforced but there are building codes out there that that that you can ask whoever's building that you know it does this conform to a certain code, a certain building code or not. Of course materials we talked quite a bit about that. So, go ahead and go to the next slide I guess. You know the engineering considerations. You know, how are you going to assure, you know, your quality assurance so that you don't have concrete that has a gigantic crack in it when you get done things you want to talk to your contractor about you know, so that, that when you do have issues and things that appear to be failing. You have some recourse. You can go to the next slide. And then of course you always want operation and maintenance or an operation maintenance plan like if you have a hoop barn. You, you want to, you want to be checking your strap tightness that's holding your tarp on, you know, at least after every, you know, if it blows 40 miles an hour and 60 mile an hour gusts like it's posted the next two days. So you might want to check before that, you know, check your strap tightness before those that wind event happens just so that, that you're made, you know, you're protecting yourself against a failure. Same thing with ventilation and any, any, any fans and, you know, you just want to make sure that you're doing proper maintenance and you're inspecting it makes your fasteners aren't coming. Like on rough steel if the fasteners are starting to pull out. It's something that you want to bring to your contractor's attention, you know, did he use the right type of fasteners did they actually, you know, torque them down to the correct. You know, it's just things you want to keep an eye on. Go ahead and go to the next slide. Yep, that is it. That is your last slide. Okay, how many minutes was that you were pretty much right on 20. So with that we're going to, we're going to have Shane stick around and show. So we're going to, I will start my video here. There we go. And so we're going to move then into minor management, which is something that comes along with when you have a barn, or when you have some kind of pens outside you do need to manage your manure. So that's what we're going to talk about. And so when you guys registered for this webinar, we had some an area where you could put questions in. And so a lot of the questions we got for the series we were able to take some of those questions out from each webinar topic, and our presenters were able to kind of answer some of those throughout and so for manure management I decided to pull you guys what you asked and so for manure management your question was manure management, manure removal during extreme conditions, moving frozen manure. And then some of you I thought this was really fun just chose to shout manure with all capital so manure was one of your questions with facilities. So I'm going to go through a few things that I think are important for you. And then let's chat. So if you have ideas of things that you've done with any of these topics so removing manure during extreme conditions any of the things that I'm going to talk about as we go. Go ahead and type them in the chat I think this is a good time to share some of those ideas with your fellow horse owners. So, as I was sitting last night thinking about what to tell you guys, because some of the questions were like how do we move frozen manure. And so the first thing that I thought it is what kind of equipment do you have, what do you have access to. Do you have a pitchfork and a whole corral that you're trying to do or do you have a bobcat and a tiny pen. What are you dealing with here, and does your equipment match what you're actually trying to do the job that you're trying to do. Where are you going to stack it and why there. So a lot of you want to remove the manure, but where are you going with it, whether that's out of a barn or out of a crel, what is your plan and then why are you putting it there. Are you putting it there because it's the most convenient spot when it's blowing 40 miles an hour and it's minus 20 out. Are you putting it there because it's the most logical place that you can turn it in the spring. Are you putting it there because you're going to mitigate fly issues with having your manure pile there in the summer. Are you putting it there because of access so when you want to go spread it. What do you think about how will you manage it once it thoughts and so we have frozen manner that you guys now want to move, but then how are you going to manage it. Can you do something now to save yourself time and trouble later, and then composting is something that if you've been on these webinars you know I like it and so we're going to talk just a quick little thing about composting. I do have the link for the webinar where we talked about manure management this past spring, where I really kind of went into more detail on composting and so we can always check that later. And then we'll talk just a little bit about spreading considerations as well. So barn manner and pen manner. Two different kinds of manner, still going to have to think about the same management considerations. And so you can see on the left hand side we have the bobcat in a barn. We're pushing out our manner we're pushing out, we're cleaning up and then we're going to come back in with some betting. And so that's probably happening, you know, depending on on your standards for your animals or how many animals you have in that area. What that looks like. You know you're cleaning once a day once a week maybe you're doing every day pitching out into a wheelbarrow so that it doesn't freeze in place but then maybe once a week you're doing a full clean out or once every two weeks. And so you can see in this barn, something that was done when it was built is they, they thought a lot about cleaning this area out where their horses are. And these pens are and so they were able to open all the gates, push out all at once, and then come back in and close those gates back up and so just some things to think about is how can you make the job that you really don't like easier and more efficient for And then on the very right hand side of the screen you can see where we have just a pile of manure out in a pen. And so what I put this up here is I want you to think about when you look at this pile so if you take the manure and you're like the best thing I can do for my horses is I want the front of the pen clean in the back of the pen dirty. Okay, so you're pushing all of this manner up in the back. But then what happens in the spring when that starts to fall. So you can already see this is kind of more of a spring picture and you can already see that there's a little bit of a low area because we pushed a little too much we got a little aggressive when we were pushing, and we started digging out we never filled that in before winter. And so we dug out a little bit now we're pushing up frozen manure, there's probably some snow mixed in there because it's outside. It's going to freeze in the spring when it falls, we're going to have a big water hole in the middle of our pen. So let's manage that. Okay, the reason I put the middle picture in here is for the next few slides and so you can see whether you're stacking manure on the right hand side outside in your pen so my suggestion for that would be instead of pushing your pen in the pen. Let's put it in a stacking area where we can do something with it in the spring, if you were going to have your animals in that pen in the spring. So you'll remember last year it was super wet. We had a lot of discussions about mud on animals. And sometimes that mud is manure. And what does that look like how do we manage for that let's manage for that now, how will we take that manner and put it in a stacking area. That's not the pen. In here you can see in the middle picture they've used Bobcat and push that manner out and that betting out and now it's setting at the end of the barn. If you can see my mouse here. So is that the best area to leave it. Most of the time, that's where we want to leave it we just want to hurry up and clean out our manners that we can move on to the next thing, because the next thing is taking care of our animals are doing stuff with our animals. But is that the best place to leave it. What happens if it freezes there what happens if you need access to that door, where do we move it how do we move it. And so, again, all things to think about. Stacking and stockpiling guidelines for North Dakota short term manure stockpiles. This is something where you have nine months, you can put this manner in a location, you can leave it there for nine months or less. And you cannot use the same location from year to year. So if we have a permanent manner stockpile. That's something that can be used over nine months. But it also involves a soil investigation to make sure. So you can use that pile every year or that same location every year but we do a soil investigation and regular oversight just to make sure that we're not contaminating any kind of groundwater, or have any issues with leachate. And so, where you're putting your manure. Are you dealing with sandy soils that have rapid permeability, or are you dealing with clay soils with slower permeability and so how are those nutrients while they're frozen now. We saw in the spring and so how do we manage that and pick a correct site, and how you do that is to know what kind of soil types you have on your operation, where those soil types may be different, and then pick that appropriate spot depth to groundwater and location of surface water or something that couple the first questions if you call me or page or Rachel that's one of the first few things we're going to ask you is, where's your water at where does it run. What does it look like. Okay, no matter if you have a short term or long term manure stockpiles cannot be located in gravel pits along streams or lakes within a floodplain, or 50 my 50 feet of a private waters supplies like a well, or 100 feet from a public supply water well. We just a lot of this is common sense when you call me and you're like well, I want to put it in a whole. And then I tell you no no we can't do that but if you call and you're like you know I thought about this. I know that the the creek runs over here but I'm going to put it over here instead, and I know that there's, you know our well is this far away and we're this far away from the barn where that those are all good things you've really thought through the common sense of where to put that that manner. Okay, so we're going to go back to thinking about that middle picture where there was a nice pile of mineral so we pushed it out. We're going to assume that those producers put that manner on their stacking area at their appropriate stacking area but now they have a nice pile of mineral. What are they going to do with it. One of the easiest things you can do in the spring as it starts to thought is start to mix it. When you're mixing it, you're going to start composting it as you're composting it it's going to burn down. As it burns just down. It becomes less for you to have to deal with, but it also becomes a more stable product, which makes me happy, and is better for pollution considerations and so you're going to push it all up in the winter and then we're going to come in in the spring and we're going to start turning in making compost. So I threw a few slides in here I'm not going to go through the composting process like I said we have those these slides in another presentation I just put them in here so you would see them. As you're going through and remember to click on that presentation and the resources at the end and go and watch that. So we just talk about you know turning and the appropriateness of timing when to do that and how to do that. And then when it's done. So, okay so something else. All right, we have pushed this pile up, we are maybe going to compost it, but maybe not maybe you're like, not my thing. Okay, so now you want to work with a customer or holler. So here are some things to think about you guys have asked these questions. How do we work with these guys how do we get these guys to our place. So let's talk about that so things you need to know about working with a customer or holler and so these guys are used to doing jobs that last a date, a day or more. A long time at a location they're hauling 200 or 500 loads when they're at these places, hauling mostly North Dakota for beef guys that we want them to come and hall manner for us and we might have a half a load for them. So what you need to know to be able to tell them is how much manure do you have, how much do you have when you want them to come spread it. Where are they spreading it. So this is something where you can work with your local neighbor local landowner, or if you have your own land to you can spread on your own land that's just fine. But it is your responsibility as the manure owner to figure out where you're going to put it. It's not your hollers responsibility. And so your hollers are very likely not going to come if you're like well I need you to spread my manner but I don't have a place to put it. That is something that they really want you to work on and you to figure out so that they can continue doing their jobs. Another thing that we talked about earlier is where you're going to put it and why that's really important. Can you get to them a stir. Can they get to the manure storage area. So they have big equipment that will look at next. Can they get in there can they maneuver around and make their equipment fit. Not all of them have smaller bobcats and such a lot of them are working with big payloaders, which might be fine. They can put it in an area where they can access it. And then, of course, you have to pay them for their job. So, here's what some of our equipment looks like. We do have some hollers in the state that are actually using toad trailer or toad spreaders and so they have a tractor with a spreader. These are smaller spreaders. Most of our guys have bigger ones. These are just a few of the smaller ones that I just wanted to show you. So you have an idea of what this equipment looks like and why I said it's super important to know what will fit where when you're wanting to spread. So here's some more equipment a lot of our guys have truck mounted spreaders in the state. So something else to consider is when you're feeding your animals, especially if you have a handful of animals in an outdoor lot you're putting hay out there. And it's cold out and you don't want to take your twine in your net wrap off, and you get a pile like that on the left side. So what happens is when the hollers come in and they spread for you that gets wrapped around their beaters and then they have to take time and cut it off. And so they'll charge extra for that so just know that that is something if you pick it up. It doesn't wrap around their beaters and they won't charge you extra. So of course there's at home spreading options as well not all of you are going to have enough manure for a custom holler you're not going to want that maybe every other year you'll think I'll have a custom guy come in but sometimes I want to spread my own as well. So there are smaller pull type ground driven spreaders out there. Typically you would pull them with a with an ATV lawnmower, some people poem with horses. Those are always fun videos to watch and so on some examples are listed here. And then I just went through and did the math for you and you can see this later just how to convert bushels and tons so you know how much manner you have. So if you're interested in one of these little spreaders and so this is what they look like so much smaller. If that's the route you plan to go then you can plan a lot differently for where you're going to put your manure and how you're going to manage that during the winter. Okay, with that I'm going to turn it over to page. So let me give her access and I will be quiet. Everyone so let's talk a little bit about outdoor shelter options and one type of shelter is going to be a windbreak and really a certain any type of windbreak is going to be needed in North Dakota we get extremely cold. The wind chills are very dangerous so some sort of windbreak is needed. So this diagram here kind of shows an example of the effects of a windbreak. In summary, if you have an adequate windbreak you're going to reduce that wind speed about 60% or so, and that'll vary a little bit. Oftentimes the area that's protected by your windbreak is going to be up to eight to 10 times the height of the windbreak. So keep that in mind that a lot of times. The trees here about five times out, they're still reducing the wind velocity by about 50% and it'll continue on a little bit less than that, the further you go to the right of the windbreak. Some of the permanent and portable options that are available and pretty common in North Dakota are tree rows that's going to be a permanent option that's going to take a long time to establish so if you don't have a tree row. You can certainly look into establishing one. Wood fencing options can be both permanent or portable straw bales are often used as a portable windbreak. And then also there's some steel fence options and the slope of the land can use be used as a windbreak as well. You want to keep in mind when you're looking at what to use for horses anyway is safety is paramount. I mentioned the steel windbreaks a lot of those are designed for cattle or livestock, and they're not the safest option the size of the gaps might be not ideal they can get a hoof or a head stuck through there, and really cause some severe injuries. You want to make sure that there's smooth edges there's no screws or nails or those sort of things. And then you want to think about where your windbreak is in proximity to feed and water and buildings or shelter areas other shelter areas as well. We'll talk a little bit more about that. So here's a few pictures that I want to share. In the first picture on the left, you can notice that there's, you can't really see it real well but it's kind of a V shaped straw bale windbreak just a single layer of straw bales. And behind that is a shelter belt full of trees as well so it's kind of double protection, in a sense. You may need to provide straw bales in front to prevent or something in front of the straw bales. Sorry straw bales in front of some of these other portable options to prevent them from sliding or moving when the wind is really strong. So a lot of times, we've seen where these portable options like in the lower right hand side, you get those big windy days that are coming up this week, and those portable panels will actually slide around. Making sure they're anchored, secured to post in the ground or using some bales that can prevent them from moving is a good option. If we look back over here a couple other things to point out about this windbreak is notice that the feed is on the downward wind side of the windbreak that's an ideal place to position it. There's a little bit of a slope to this land so the windbreak is up on top of a hill. And then it's bedded again on the downward side and we'll talk about bedding in a little bit. One of the comments I want to make is there's approximately 10 or so horses in this particular pen and there's two separate feeders. So making sure that you provide enough access to feed for the number of horses that you have. I want to talk about these kind of engineered design shelters that can be either installed permanently or be portable moveable ones as well they're very common in the area. I like the design here because it does have the wood on the back of the shelter. We see some that are just the frame with the tin over it. That causes a risk if your horse were to back into it start itching its tail on the the fence or kick it could kick a hole through the tin and cause some injury so always make sure you have at least four feet of a quick kick panel in your shelter. Also the minimum space for those shelters the one that's pictured here and would maybe safely house up to two horses assuming those horses get along well. The recommendation is to provide about 240 square feet in an outdoor three sided shelter like this for two horses and then add an additional 60 square feet for each additional horse so 240 square feet for example would be like a 12 by 20 foot shelter and be adequate again for a couple horses assuming they get along well. Another option that's fairly affordable and easy to use is again these stacked straw bales so we have a picture here are too high. Keep in mind if you're doing that to make sure that those bales are very sturdy, and they are secured quite well with with twiner net wrap so these are some net wrap bales the horses aren't going to be able to destroy them quite as easily versus the flax bales that are in this single row in this picture. They just had some biodegradable twine Cecil twine on them. So those ones do decay and the bales start to disintegrate and fall apart over time. This windbreak shelter here has been set up for about four or five years. So over time they start to sort of fall apart and decay and then you can either compost those bales down move them out of the area and replace them with some more attractive looking bales if you wish. So what if you don't have any windbreak protection no shelter available. We get the questions about blanketing and the majority of horses out there handle the cold and North Dakota very well and most do not require blanketing. But it might be something to consider if there is truly no shelter available blanketing can provide a temporary kind of portable shelter for the horse. The horse is in poor body condition score of a three or less and we've covered body condition score and some previous webinars know that blanketing is recommended at that point if they're very old or very very young blanketing might need to be considered. If the cold conditions are also combined with wet conditioned. So typically in the middle of winter we don't get that wet snow but in the fall the first nose of the year and then in the spring a lot of times those rain mixes or that really heavy wet snow will create the horses hair coat and they lose that insulation factor and they become very susceptible to the cold in those instances. So if we combine very cold temperatures with also wet that might be a time to consider blanketing, assuming they have no other shelter. Another option or another time to blanket is if they're not acclimated to our cold climate so if you're shipping a horse up from a southern climate and they don't have much of a hair coat. They need some extra protection. If your body clipping your horses to make it easier to cool them out after riding, or you're showing throughout the winter and you don't want them to have as much of a hair coat. They're going to blanket as well. And then something we forget to is that some of our horses are kept under lights and what I mean by that is if they're under artificial lighting for 16 hours the day or more, but inhibits them from growing a thick heavy winter because horses are sensitive to the daylight and that's what triggers their hair growth. So keep in mind that if you're bringing your horses in and the lights are on consistently for that 16 hours, they're not going to grow enough hair and they might need to blanket. Hair coat continues to grow until the winter solstice in December so if you start blanketing, you know in October or November your horses going to have a shorter hair coat and actually they start growing in their hair coat in July. They start shedding their summer hair coat and their winter hair coat is coming in. And then after that winter solstice in December, if you go check out your horses right now, they're starting to shed some of their winter coat very slowly. It doesn't happen overnight, but they're starting to loosen up some of those hairs. And again just a reminder that that that hair coat traps warm air against the body. So sometimes what blanketing does is flatten that hair and can actually decrease the insulation effect. So you need to make sure that you have the appropriate blanket for the temperatures out there. For instance, if you were to just go put a light blanket on with no insulation factor on your horses this time of year, it's going to flatten that hair and we'll actually leave them colder and less warm than if you were to just leave them unblanketed in the first place. So again, really research the type of blankets they're going to use. There's ones with no insulation, what we call a medium insulation and then a really heavy blanket or heavy insulation that can have up to, you know, 400 grams of that that fill that keeps them warm. Other things with blanketing to remember is to check for dangling straps daily. If you're going to blanket you need to make sure that you're making sure that it fits appropriately. If it's wet, it needs to be removed and definitely be removing that blanket regularly to make sure you're checking on their body condition score and the fit as well. I'm going to touch briefly on thinking about where snowdrifts are going to land in the winter. This year we've been lucky to not have a whole lot of snow, but if we think to a few years back we had some significant issues. And that can prevent access to not only to you getting to the barn into your horses, but think about where you're placing your feeders and where your waters are located and your fences as well. In this picture down in the lower right hand corner. Imagine if you just had this windbreak a shelter and you went about 50 or 100 feet out from that windbreak to place your feeders because that's where wind protection would be, you know, significant. And in this picture here in a snow a year those feeders and waters and shelter would be completely covered by snowdrifts so keep in mind that you're going to have an accumulation of snow on both sides of your windbreak, both on the windward drift and then also the leeward drift and keep your feeders and buildings and all of the equipment materials that you need to take carry your horses in winter far enough away so they're not completely consumed by some of these snowdrifts. In the picture on the top right this picture was taken from standing inside the building, and that building has to be shoveled out on snow years, almost on a daily, daily schedule because it does drift in, because it was placed too close to the windbreak and you don't always have an option of where you can put it in your pens and your shelters but keep that in mind. Also know that a lot of times we fence right alongside of our shelter belts. In that instance, these fences that are right next to the trees are completely under snow, and not going to do a whole lot of good. So let's talk a little bit about winter fence maintenance then. The weight of the snow and ice can break wires completely bury the fences in the case in this picture. And you're going to need to go in and remove that and I say that because you would think that no animal would want to walk over or walk through a snow drift this high, but as those snowdrifts harden the horses are well fed. So that should keep them close to the bail feeder but once they're done eating they might get a little bit bored and go exploring and play around on top of those snowdrifts and they're able to walk right over top of the fences. So if they fall through or fall in, they can get entangled or entrapped in the fence and really cause some problems so keep that in mind. Here we have a picture of a horse that is drinking out of a water that is about a two to three foot high water off the ground but it is completely drifted in in this this really snowy winter. So while this might be a temporary solution to just shovel out so they can find the top of the water, eventually you're going to want to go in there some heavy equipment and get that that snow removed so that they can easily access their their feed. The other thing I want to talk about is just keeping a fence visible in the winter and maintained will often keep horses in and I'm talking I guess about electric fences so the struggle we have with electric fences is that they don't always work so great in the winter. They can short out from the snow and the ice accumulation our solar chargers and our battery chargers don't work very well in the cold and the decrease daylight. So if you can switch to a plugin or that type of sensor that would be better. Oftentimes the earth ground fails. So you might need to move to what we call it a two kind of a two wire grounding system where one wire is on insulators and that's your hot wire your electric wire. And another wire on your fences is grounded so it's attached directly to the post to provide that ground, because we just don't get a good ground in cold winter conditions so keep that in mind that our electric fences typically don't work very well. What we find with horses is that having that visible barrier there they're typically not going to test it as much anyway so even if you are struggling with keeping the voltage up in your electric fence, keeping the wires up and maintained and and pulled tight enough that will help keep your horses in assuming they're they're well fed. The other thing to consider is that blankets will often inhibit the electric fences from impacting the horse as well that kind of insulates them against the shock. Probably the biggest issue we see in winter is the weight of the snow and the ice that can break boards can break wires. The cold weather makes the wires tighten up and shorten and can snap them quite easily as well. And then we often see downed tree branches that may fall on fences. When you get some ice storms going on so check your fences regularly having a horse entangled in them is not something that we want to have happen. The last thing I'm going to talk about today is the importance of betting your horse in the winter whether you are inside or outside. You should provide some source of betting for your horses and there may be some variations on what you choose according to availability price and just your personal preference as well. So this betting is going to provide an insulating layer against the frozen ground, try to make it at least 12 inches deep if you can. And that betting is going to serve to keep the animal clean because it absorbs the moisture. Common materials in North Dakota are straw. Straw is great for outside. We have a variety of wheat, oat, barley, and flax. Straw can be a little bit tougher to pick through. So if you're keeping your horses in stalls whether it's heated or unheated cleaning a straw bedded pen by hand is more challenging than cleaning a wooded bedded pen. So whether the let's look at the different types of wood products that are available as well. There's wood chips, wood shavings sawdust and pellets and they're all byproducts of wood production and processing. They seem to be easier to pick through for most people. They may not be as available in some areas and the expense may be higher than straw. So really this is going to vary from location to location, whether you're keeping horses in stalls or outside is the preference that you choose. Straw isn't as absorbent as wood, but often as easier to come by and maybe a little bit cheaper to have to weigh those pros and cons. Some of the other materials I want to mention that are available that horse people have used for bedding are peat moss which is highly absorbent but maybe a little bit more expensive and not as easy to find. Newspaper shreds, corn stalk shreds, dried compost. So that's actually taking thoroughly composted manure and reusing this bedding that's not as common in the horse industry as it is in some of the other livestock industries, but some people do use that. And then others consider bedding on sand as well. All right, I think I'm going to turn it over to Rachel and we will answer questions at the end. Okay. So we're going to move on to waters and I know everybody this time of year loves to walk out and see the water that's, that's right in the middle of this picture, the one that's overflowing and and a whole bunch of people are a whole bunch of things are wrong. This is actually a picture from Paige and the first thing she said is because everybody wants to remember the day that you walk out and see that. Right. So the one thing that I want to mention with waters is check them daily and best to check them twice a day so that you know, right in the morning that they're getting water all day long. And then before you go to bed at night, check them again to make sure that that water is still on for the night. So that you don't essentially wake up to something like that middle picture. So I have three different types of waters in there besides the ice covered one. There are horse specific waters up on the top, and they're more of a bowl. And then there's, if you have, say, four pens or two pens that needed need to be watered at one same place the lower picture has two sides to it. And that one feeds four different pens so that's, you know, knowing, knowing what kind of water you're going to need when you walk into a situation or when you start planning out pens for your operation. It's important to know that and also knowing, you know, if you do go with the single bowl water, you're going to have to put one in every pen so then you're maintaining four waters instead of just one. Looking at heat tape, heat tape in a water, such as the one in the lower right hand corner is nice to cover the pipe with so that you can plug it in when wintertime comes around to make to ensure that that pipe stays warm. The hole that the pipe is coming out of provides enough heat, but when we get into extreme conditions in North Dakota, just about anything can happen when we get that cold. Another option is a tank heater, even in these water tanks, like I'm showing here, you can put a small tank heater in to ensure that that water stays at that ideal condition which is 45 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit. And I know everybody knows that, you know, an average thousand pound horse drinks 10 to 12 gallons a day so that's, I mean if you have more than one horse out there that's quite a bit of water you need to provide. But also think, you know, that average is in the summertime, and in the summertime they're getting a lot of water from their forage from the grass on the ground. As they're roaming around the pasture in the wintertime the hay that they're eating is maybe 10% moisture. So 10 to 15% moisture, so they're actually going to increase the amount of water that they're drinking in the wintertime. And just as a reminder, water actually helps regulate their body temperature as well so they need water to make sure that their body stays warm. So it's not only important in the summertime to prevent dehydration from overheating, but also in the wintertime to prevent any hypothermia as well. You want to protect this from prevailing winds so if you have the option that lower right hand picture has that nice shelter belt, able to keep it out of the way so that it prevents any issues from freezing up. Sometimes we don't have that option, but just thinking about an option that may help when you're setting up windbreak to to make sure that that's included. And I know Paige had mentioned that distance between from the windbreak to, you know, five times out can always reduce the amount of wind or wind chill that's coming at that. So some other things that you want to make sure of is when, when that area around around the water gets icy. You want to kind of maintain that and when it gets bad enough you're going to want to chip it away and move it out out of the way so that doesn't accumulate. And you don't have any issues with injuries on horses walking up there and slipping and falling, or people to when you use a large water tank, something that you have to fill maybe with a hose. You want to consider keeping cords outside the fence because you're going to need a tank warmer for that. So when the tank warmer is plugged in, you want to use a GFCI outlet and make sure to drain that hose, the hose that you use to fill it. Drain that hose regularly because that will ensure that you'll be able to fill the tank every time. The other thing is with those big water tanks, you want to partially cover the tank so that it can retain its own heat. This will actually help a lot so that you don't have to use as much energy with that tank here to keep a space open. When you cover it, it's able to retain its own heat or even keep from that tank heater. Heated buckets are also another option that are commonly used, usually in smaller confined areas. So another thing we want to talk about is feed access and pen maintenance. And a lot of this has been covered already. Paige had talked about with your windbreaks, you want to make sure be conscious where everything's sitting between the shelter, the feed, and the water. So absolutely when you're doing that, think about where you're putting all these things and making sure that those horses can easily get to them because you need all three of those to get through the winter. They need feed to eat, water, and shelter. Keep feed away from those windbreaks to make sure that they don't get covered when the snow drifts in. And everybody said this, so I'm just going to repeat it again, a higher location in the pen is better because they're not downward where it might get too low and end up with water in the spring. But you also want to make sure that they're easily able to get to water, a water source. So when you're talking snow removal, you want to plan ahead. When you're taking that snow out, you have to make sure you have a place to put it, much like the manure piles that Mary talked about. Plan ahead, make sure you're not blocking any feed source, you're not blocking a gate, you're not blocking a building. And make sure that you have adequate space for your herd. And that, you know, if your herd gets long really well, then you're making sure you maintain that space. But if you have somebody who's a little bit more of a bully, then you're going to need a larger space to make sure that everybody can get away from each other. Regular maintenance in these paddocks will ensure that draining in the spring and also faster drying so that they aren't in a mud hole when springtime comes around. And then preparing for winter storms. A lot of us are looking at that kind of the high winds that are coming up today. Not everybody wants to be out and feeding in but you know you need to have your animals taken care of. So make sure there's enough forage available. And like Paige talked about one bale feeder is enough for about six animals. So if you do have more than six animals, make sure that there's two bale feeders out there, or enough, if you're feeding, say small squares, enough piles so that there's more than more piles than animals so that they can safely get to all of them. Make sure that you're feeding closer to a windbreak, so that they don't have to move very far to get to it and that they stay warm while they're there. So if you do have to go out to feed, make sure you have a safe path to the barn. If you're in a winter storm. Most of the time we want to make sure you have those animals taken care of before you go in. But if you have to go out to feed. Safety is key, make sure you have maybe a rope from the house to the barn to ensure that you get there, or a safe place or a warm place to stay in the barn if you need to stay there. Make sure you have a generator available with three days of fuel to run it on that way you know any heating systems, water pumps and waters, lighting, if you need to plug in your tractor to ensure it starts. All of those are imperative so that when, when the winter storm is here or when it's over you're able to get things started and start moving snow and get to your animals to make sure that they have what they need. And the last one is horse care, and I know a lot of people in the wintertime think Oh, you know, homes don't grow that fast in the winter so I don't need to worry about it. But that's not the case, you still need to stay on a regular foot trimming schedule, maintain your regular foot care throughout the winter, and pick their feet regularly this will actually help with those snowballs that are just, just a pain in them in the winter when, when all that snow comes around and your horses are walking around on those. Bring them in. Get them cleaned out, make sure that they're on a regular schedule just keeping them trimmed regularly will help with this. And then as you can see in the picture. That is actually a pad that goes underneath the shoe for snowballs to ensure that that they don't stick in there as easily. And if you are maintaining your horse horses shot in the wintertime, make sure that they have cleats along with it so that they, they don't slip and fall when ice comes around. And then when you're exercising in the cold, use common sense. Don't overwork those horses, and make sure to cool them down properly out of out of the wind. You don't want them hot or wet when you're turning them back out. You don't want to avoid any icy conditions so if the yard is just a sheet of ice that's not a good place to be riding in. And any deep snow can actually lead to tendon injuries so I want, want to mention just to avoid that. Usually if you're exercising in the winter. You're looking at kind of an indoor situation in North Dakota unless it's like it is right now which is really nice. But you still need to use that common sense and those rules along with it to ensure that you don't injure or end up with any illness because if they're hot before they go back in that pen. And they're cooled down properly you can end up with some issues like that. It looks like we've got a couple of questions. It's page and Mary and Shane want to turn their videos back on. Now's a great time where if you want to type questions in the chat box you can, or we can unmute your microphones and you, you can unmute your microphone and ask them to us verbally as well. And before we go to questions I just want to point out these resources before I turn my screen share off. So, on all of the presentations we have had resources at the end those also get posted online. And so you can see on here we just put a handful of hot links that you can go to to look at things that we've talked about as far as minor management or health care plans. Health horse, minor pastures and facilities and all the things and so a lot of the stuff we talked about today you'll find on our resources page with that questions or comments. So as many of you know this is the last in our winter series. And so if there are things that you would like us to chat about if we potentially do this again in the spring we're really just kind of feeding off of the participants and what you guys are suggesting and so if you're like yes we should keep doing these in our reviews that we're getting from you then we'll keep doing them. And if not, we'll take a break for a little bit. But yeah this is the last in our winter series. Mary this Shane can you hear me. Oh, I just wanted to mention that on my first slide there we do have a YouTube page k2s engineering YouTube page and we've got several YouTube videos of live start confinement barns in there. If you want to. There is no horse facilities but there are, there are buildings in there in case case you want to browse those. I can add that to a resource page as well, just in case folks have questions about, you know what different facilities might look like. Yes. I see a question came in the chat about is there one stall bedding type that is preferred for a horse's health over another. When it comes to that answer, it depends it's not an easy answer, but straw is the least absorbent so straw is typically going to leave the pens a little more damp and wet. Pete Moss has been shown to be the most absorbent, but can be harder to get your hands on and has some other downsides to it as well and the wood products kind of fall right in the middle. So really it's, it's a variation there. You want to think about, again, what's accessible and affordable and easy for you to clean out. And then also just keep in mind that you may need to clean a little bit more often. What I recommend some people do is to go in the stall and kind of squat down at the floor level and see how wet it is, what the smell is like, what that ammonia smell is like. And that might tell you whether you need to clean your stalls more frequently, maybe switch up and try a different material, or add more bedding to the mix. We appreciate you guys sticking with us today. We know this was a little bit longer, but we had a lot to talk about all things that you guys sent in and asked questions about and so we appreciate that. If there are no other questions there was a question about if we will be sending the links out and Rachel answered that yes we will be. If you guys are sent out in order for you to join this you had to register and so I have your email address and I will send those out. It'll take a couple days just to make sure we once we get it edited and I'm able to add everything to the website. So yep, this will be sent out. I think with that, we will end and we just appreciate all of you again joining us, whether it was for the entire series or just for one webinar. We appreciate you and thank you so much. And feel free to email any of us and ask us questions or suggest other topics. Rachel our page any parting comments. Thanks for joining everyone. Thanks for coming in. I'm so happy to see everybody and the special thank you to Shane for joining us today too we really appreciate having industry come in and help us with some of these things once in a while so with that I will stop the recording and we are done for the day.