the frightening thing to me is today will be the good old days for those looking back in the future
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Saddles??? Bridles??? Well you were real fancy! We had one stock saddle and one bridle between the three horses - oh and a bridle for the pony cause we couldnt get the bridle down that far. We rode in halters and bare-back - with a sheepskin tied on with a rope during the summer when that wide back got rather slick. We rode whichever horse we could catch - I usually ended up with the largest cause I was the slowest … so had to find fences or gates to clamber aboard.
Helmet? Hard-hat? Nope - rode with a straw hat in summer and a knitted cap in winter.
Jumped hung gates - we didnt know any better and we had really really smart horses with an awesome survival instinct. Any that were naughty - well, Dad rode them. He preferred bare-back as that was how he learned and being a coal miner was very solid and very strong.
We were not welcome at pony club for reasonably obvious reasons until we got Saint Gypsy. Dad swapped her for a cow and she came with a saddle, a bridle and saddle-pads. Ones that actually fitted. She was for my brother but she loved being with people and we could ride her all day. We took turns hacking her to pony club (15kms away) and home again - and let my brother ride her at pony club.
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I wasn’t around for all that, but they were phasing out tube worming horses in the 90s, if I remember correctly. I was a teen, but I had to do everything for my horse because my family had no real background.
IIRC, we were still tubing horses to worm mid 80s, and then injectable ivermectin, administered by a vet, came out. Then there were the horror stories about how dangerous injectable ivermectin was - it wasn’t, what happened was that horses with a major resistant parasite load would have massive parasite die offs and colic.
I think injectable ivermectin was around for a couple of years before paste became available.
Anybody remember treating horses for summer sores prior to ivermectin? Or thread worms and sweet itch?
We had one of those first cases of a horse getting sick when vets first tried ivermectin dewormer in a shot, a filly on her mother.
She didn’t have any worm die-off, she had a reaction to the medication itself, as several other did that our vets had to treat.
Also some had serious abscesses, the injectable was not that safe for horses.
Some were giving the injectable by mouth and burning horses with it if it didn’t go down quickly, as per our vets.
Shortly they came out with preparations for horses like the oral pastes we have today.
Before that, dewormers were pellets or tubing.
Most vets could tube horses in a whole barn without ever needing to tranquilize anyone.
They worked with a horse for a bit and before you knew it, the tube was in place and the pump going.
Paste deworming was definitely a better way to deworm than tubing.
Pellets were dangerous if some would be dropped, as those could kill other animals.
Once we used pellets on all horses in pens.
That night wild turkeys, that roosted in the big trees above those pens started raining down, dead.
Next morning horses were in different pens or out, thankfully no one hurt.
I think we pulled over two dozen turkeys out of those pens.
Vets were called and it was determined that the dewormer the turkeys had cleaned after the horses, as they did regularly any grain, was what killed those that ate too much of it.
Thanks, Bluey, that’s fascinating -
She didn’t have any worm die-off, she had a reaction to the medication itself, as several other did that our vets had to treat. Also some had serious abscesses, the injectable was not that safe for horses.
Horrible, but fascinating. What I remember seeing was horses with edema along their ventral midline from the parasite die off; that gradually resolved over a few days. Nothing like you described, thank goodness.
I won’t get the turkey story out of my head for a long time to come.
It was bad, the vets called the animal health department, the state lab processed samples, but everyone was thinking it was the dewormer before they were sure after tests results.
Best I remember, it was some kind of organophosphate and generally safe.
Horses in the pens were some youngsters in training and weanlings, that may just not have eaten all the pellets as an older horse may do.
We had over 200 wild turkeys and never knew of one dying from it, but that one time and so many, it was shocking.
This old cowboy I knew when I was a kid said he used to deworm horses with tobacco. He was in his 90s when he died in the 1990s. He said they liked the taste of it.
nicotine is a known purgative.
here is a 2014 journal article revisiting the use of nicotine as a dewormer. Very readable
for a reference point the average ( median) household income based on 1964 census was 6,900 before taxes
https://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-049.pdf
I started riding in 1968 in a school barn ( group lessons) they were $4 which I worked off in trade scrubbing floor and washing windows
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My grandpa taught me to cross my reins to teach my mare to neck rein.
Being able to ride all day long anywhere I pleased and no “No Trespassing” signs or other. I rode down the roads without worrying about cars (they were polite back then). My saddle bags were whatever grocery bag I could find and tie to my saddle - IF I had one. Mostly I rode everywhere bareback.
Hay, I remember alfalfa being maybe $50/ton.
My first colt, first bit - the tack store guy said ‘this is what you need’ and handed me a shanked snaffle. Yes, I used it until somebody wiser than I told me otherwise.
I still have the first bridle I bought and yes it is still in great shape and usable. I don’t have my first saddle anymore but I do have my first custom made one (altho it’s not that old, only about 15 years).
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I can remember that D ring snaffles were only “only” used on the track. Horses wearing Ds were thought to not be very far from the track or not well trained
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