Month: March 2022

Math and Manure Management

By Michelle Eames


A horse produces about 50 pounds of manure a day, or 7 to 9 tons of manure per year. I always think I am not very fit and don’t exercise enough, but I do shovel manure most days. My horses are in paddocks, or sacrifice areas, most of the time. They graze for an hour or more a day in the pasture; I don’t shovel manure out of the large pasture. So if we assume I clean up only two thirds of their manure from two horses times 8 tons (she reaches for the calculator…) the work output results in about 10.6 tons of manure shoveled per year. I use a pitchfork, wheelbarrow, and/or sled. That’s a lot of weight bearing activity!


Now I should time my shoveling work and calculate the calories burned. Then, in celebration, I can treat myself to ice cream! I found a website with a blog by Claire Dyett. In her blog Claire determined 10 minutes of stall mucking burned 76 calories, 30 minutes is 228, and hard mucking for an hour is 460 calories. How many calories are in a hot fudge sunday? A quick google tells me that a two scoop sunday at Baskin Robins is 530 calories. Hmm. The math isn’t telling me what I want to hear. I will need to add some effort to my typical half-hour shoveling scenario.


The same article explains that a slow trail ride burns 100 calories an hour, a fast galloping ride is 240 calories per hour, and an energetic schooling session in the arena could burn 360 calories. Neither I nor my horse are really energetic, so we will calculate with the slow trail ride rate. A 3 hour ride, plus a half hour manure mucking session, gives me only 376 calories. Hmm. Still haven’t earned my hot-fudge sunday. I looked for some other sources to see if I could back up my claim that I should have a daily hot fudge sunday just because I want one. Other sources gave pretty similar calorie counts for horse activities. Dang it.


Okay, what if I add a walk. One source says I can burn 100 to 200 calories with 30 minutes of brisk walking. Now we’re talking. So I would need to do a slow 3 hour trail ride, a half hour of shoveling manure, and a half hour brisk walk for 576 total calories burned to cancel out my 530 calorie sunday. Of course, my walks often start out brisk and get slower as I go. And if I am dragging one of my mellow fjord horses along on my walk, we are definitely not brisk.


So, unfortunately, I determined I should probably skip the daily hot-fudge sunday. I wonder how many calories are in a glass of wine, instead? Red wine: 125 calories. Okay, the math works on that one! Excuse me while I find a corkscrew.


Sources:
https://www.horseillustrated.com/eco-friendly-horsekeeping
https://practicalhorsemanmag.com/lifestyle/green_horsekeeping_tips_071810-11499
https://www.spillers-feeds.com/1145-2/ [Claire Dyett blog]
https://www.medicinenet.com/

Birds and the Little Critters

By Michelle Eames

Last year, my first year of retirement, I decided to learn and relearn native plants and mushrooms.  I’m still not a skilled botanist or mycologist, but it was fun to take the time to look closely at the plants and ‘shrooms, and appreciate their forms. 

This year, I thought I would focus on birds.  I have always been a poor birder.  I never really made the time to study them, and somehow missed ornithology in college.  However, after buying a good pair of binoculars, and pulling out the bird books, I have instead been inadvertently drawn to invertebrates. 

Did you know that even seed-eating birds rely heavily on caterpillars to feed their young?  And many moths and their caterpillars are host-plant specific, only living on one species of native plant?  Insect populations are crashing as we remove native habitats.  Without the insects, and caterpillars, we will lose our birds.  However, there is hope.  We can replant native species.  Even in small areas.  Even in cities.  All this I learned from a virtual presentation by Dr. Douglas Tallamy.  See more information on replanting native species and the resultant increased diversity here: https://homegrownnationalpark.org/.  Gardeners can save the world!   I haven’t read Dr. Tallamy’s books yet, but they include:  Nature’s Best Hope, Bringing Nature Home, and the Living Landscape (co-authored with Rick Darke). 

Another book that has increased my interest in invertebrates is Sue Hubbell’s Waiting for Aphrodite:  Journeys into the Time Before Bones.  She is a wonderful writer, and pulls you into the world of invertebrates, including millipedes, earthworms, horseshoe crabs, fireflies and bees.  Why have I never heard of this author?  Amazing what I can learn when I turn off Netflix and take time to read. 

I’m still working on my birds, though.  Last week we had four killdeer near our seasonal pond.  Do killdeer eat caterpillars?  Why yes they do, see the source below.

Killdeer, Charadrius vociferus. 

Diet: Mostly insects. Feeds on a wide variety of insects, including beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, fly larvae, many others; also eats spiders, earthworms, centipedes, crayfish, snails. Eats small amounts of seeds as well.

Source: https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/killdeer