It's official I'M FED UP WITH WINTER!

Blimey, this has been the longest winter in the entire 17 winters we've been here! We had snow in October, earlier than ever before and we have snow in April later than ever before. In between, we had the longest spells of bitter cold winds we've ever had too.

It was snowing and 2 degrees outside when I got up this morning, so I rang and cancelled the cross country training that I was going to do with George and the Farm Ride that I was going to do with Jazz. We went and saw the Spiderwick Chronicles instead, much more fun.

Poor little Zippy is looking quite bemused at why he is getting no attention. I've explained to him that when he is out full time I will have plenty of time for him. Meanwhile my plans for the other two are to just play around at home with Jazz until George is established at Intro height jumping. We have just over a month to our first event, so that should mean Jazz restarts in mid-May. I expect George to be the kind of horse who simply does not need top-up away-from-home training between events. He's just "that type" as Tetley was. If I'm right, then we will train Jazz between George competing, and if he shows promise then we will swap him for George when the time seems right.

If Jazz is still not confident enough to compete, then we will train George up a height and go for Pre-novice later in the season. Either way, all of us should be in for a fun summer, I hope.

I told you that I tried an experiment in stopping the calcium carbonate in their feed. It didn't seem to affect George at all, but Jazz was biting everything including the tops of stone walls - yes really, they have his teeth marks in! Zippy also began to chew bits of his stable door, though only the wood in his case and not the metal top as Jazz does.

So obviously I restarted the calcium carbonate but I still wasn't happy with the amount that Jazz was running his teeth on the door edge in the barn and the gate top. It seemed to me only a matter of time before he turns into a cribber - just one full bite and windsuck and he'd get the endorphins which would reward him hugely and turn him into an addict.

So ... I figured that the spring grass is known to be low in magnesium. I also checked the human antacids and found they are full of Magnesium Carbonate (Milk of MAGNESia - it's a clue, isn't it ? :-))) At my local feed merchant I found the high magnesium version of the mineral mix I normally feed them. This is a cattle mix, so it's a fraction of the price of horse supplements. I've checked out all the ingredients against horse mixes and they seem pretty similar in content and level. Anyway, this new one is 20% magnesium in carbonate and oxide. Incidentally, this is also what's used in magnesium calmers that are sold for horses these days. They are ridiculously expensive!!

Well, to cut what is now becoming a long story short (good job I haven't any training to report) - to say the effect is marked is the understatement of the year. Jazz has simply stopped. Completely. He is not touching a thing with his teeth except feed in a bucket. I don't think Zippy is either, but he hasn't been left standing in and bored since I got it earlier in the week so I can't prove that.

Jazz is just such a sensitive beast!

C.

ps obviously I don't recommend anyone else to feed a cattle mineral mix to their horses. The stuff I'm feeding is MAXCARE ECO summer grazing minerals from Trouw Nutrition, but if you want to try it it's at your own risk!