We here in South Central Kentucky have sure had a lot of weird weather. First, rain every day. Now, unrelenting heat. It’s been brutal. Ask anyone who works outside every day. Some of us have no choice. I’m lucky though, I’m kind of used to it and I always have a bottle of water close by.
Unfortunately, livestock can become really miserable in this weather, especially if there is no shade and limited access to water. My farm is divided into many paddocks, each having automatic waterers, large run-in sheds and big trees. Oh, and the flies. Did I mention what a bumper crop of flies we have this year? Maybe because of all the rain we had earlier this year, the flies are out in record numbers and boy, are they annoying.
The horses stay in their run-in sheds during the hottest part of the day and can usually avoid the bigger, biting horseflies that way.
We also use fly spray, which works fairly well on the horses and their environment.
I gave Maybell a bath this week, as she was looking uncomfortable with dried sweat covering her beautiful body. Maybell has only been at Rainhill for two weeks and she is on quarantine after coming from a kill-pen in Colorado.
Maybell is an 18- year-old Thoroughbred mare who has wonderful manners and was thrilled to have a bath that washed off all the sweat and grime that she brought with her. Oh, if these horses could only talk, the stories they would tell. Well, actually, they do talk, you just have to listen very carefully. Maybell must have had very good owners at one time. She stood, untied, while I washed and scrubbed, trimmed and brushed, and sprayed and sprayed. She never moved. I have no way of knowing the circumstances that brought Maybell to a kill-pen in Colorado. I’m just glad this wonderful horse made its way to Rainhill, where she will live out her life in peace.
Thank you for reading our stories of hope in a sometimes hopeless world. We can’t save every horse, but for the ones we do save their lives are changed forever. Sometimes the horses we take in are too badly damaged and they do not survive very long. It’s heart-breaking. But at least they died knowing someone loved them.
Rainhill Equine Facility, Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit organization that has been operating on this farm since 1984. All donations are tax-deductible. No one here receives a salary of any kind. All money raised goes to the care of feeding of our precious horses.
Bless you all for caring – STAY COOL!
-by Karen Thurman
Rainhill Equine Facility
11125 Ky. Hwy. 185
Bowling Green, KY 42101
270-777-3164
