Horse Barn Research Articles

Effect of daily floor treatment with sodium bisulfate on the fly population of horse stalls

To determine application rate and effectiveness of sodium bisulfate to decrease the fly population in a horse barn environment. 12 privately owned farms in southeastern Pennsylvania. Application rates of sodium bisulfate were approximately 2.3 kg/stall, 1.1 kg/stall, and 0.5 kg/stall. Two or 3 stalls were treated, and 1 or 2 stalls were not treated (control stalls) at each farm. Farm personnel applied sodium bisulfate in treated stalls daily for 7 days. Fly tapes were hung from the same site in treated and control stalls. After 24 hours, the fly tape was removed, flies adhering to the sticky surface were counted and recorded, and a new fly tape was hung. This procedure was repeated daily during each of the testing periods. Following the application of 2.3 kg of sodium bisulfate/stall, the numbers of flies collected on the fly tape were significantly decreased in treated stalls, compared with control stalls during the same time periods on 9 of the 12 farms evaluated. Following the application of 1.1 kg of sodium bisulfate/stall, fly numbers were significantly decreased in treated stalls on 6 of the 9 farms evaluated. Following the application of 0.5 kg of sodium bisulfate/stall, fly numbers were significantly decreased in the treated stalls on 3 of the 4 farms evaluated. Our findings suggest that sodium bisulfate would be effective for fly control in horse barns.

Barn

Barn______________________________ Laura Lee Brother The old barn hasn't changed much from the outside: it's still faded gray with missing boards which give it a gap-toothed grin as it leans against the blue band of the sky. As I step out of the frozen white glare into this place where sunlight glows golden on dust spiraling toward the ground, the door creaks closed behind me and the slap ofthe rusty chain which holds it to the barn echoes high in the rafters. Now I take the time to notice the echo of the chain fade upward, and to notice the myriad oflight floating through the cross beams. This barn is my solace and peace; some of the best times of my life have been witnessed here, and some of my worst too. This barn always listens and we are comrades , bound together in old age and peace and the memories which float on the dust. In my childhood, this barn hummed with activity: my activity. I took this proud tobacco barn, which had also pulled tours of duty with both sheep and cattle, and I made it into the horse barn of my dreams. I bought books at horse shows describing how saddlebred barns were kept, and my favorite and most trusted guide was written by a woman who had been a groom. I actually kept this book out at the barn, and referred to it like a lawyer with his law books. My dad had divided the shed hugging the left side of the barn into two stalls, and I can remember countless weekends shoveling foot after foot of manure out the windows into the spreader. My insistence that these two stalls be kept clean was only the beginning. I used to think my dad didn't care that the stalls were four feet deep in manure, but now I realize that he didn't have time. Anyway, moving that four feet of manure became the disciplinary method of choice at our house. As the family became more involved in showing horses, I, along with my mother, insisted that these small stalls were not going to do at all, and that big roomy box stalls like they had at the real horse farms needed to be constructed. I supervised as my dad and brother filled up the left side of the barn with stalls, and it was left to me to move all the Laura Lee Brother grew up on a beef cattle and tobacco farm in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. Although she currently teaches English at Jefferson Community College, she is anxious to return to the family farm both to farm and pursue her writing. 46 bits and pieces of farm equipment to another resting place. The things I discovered—mildewed burlap bags, nuts and bolts, old leather reins, stirrups, brushes, lots of spiders, and occasionally a big scary looking rat! Oh, but it looked nice—those big box stalls, and the smell of wood everywhere. I had seen the intricate raking of the horse show set at the Kentucky State Fair. You could walk through the barns there and think you were in a four star hotel. The barn area was raked into perfect straight rows, and there was always somebody watering it to keep the dust down. It was wonderful. So, I became the queen of the rake. I would start at the front of the barn and rake row after row all the way to the back, choking on the dust with enthusiasm. My dad always said that when I set out with the rake you could see the dust fly for miles—oh well, the horses liked it; they weren't used to such antics and I always had an interested audience. Now I think there is nothing more graceful than a spacious barn draped in cobwebs, but when I was young I dusted my barn furiously as my mother dusted our house. I used old tobacco cloth that they used to cover the beds, and I climbed way up in the cross beams to knock down cobwebs while the horses snorted in their stalls below. Because tobacco cloth is so flimsy, I...

Effect of sodium bisulfate on ammonia concentration, fly population, and manure pH in a horse barn

Abstract Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of altering the pH of manure with sodium bisulfate, thereby decreasing ammonia concentration and fly population in a horse barn environment. Animals 4 mixed-breed pony stallions. Procedure The 4-week study was scheduled with 2 weeks of treatment (with 2 application rates) end 2 weeks with no treatment (control weeks). During treatment weeks, sodium bisulfate was applied daily to the top of the bedding and straw, then spread on top. Ponies were kept in tne stalls 24 hours a day during the 7-day test period and stall cleaning was not done. On day 7 of each week, ammonia concentration, manure pH, number of flies on a fly tape, and fly-evasive behavior patterns were determined. Results Sodium bisulfate applied to the horse stall environment daily of either 2.3 or 4.5 kg/9.3 m2(5 or 10lb/100 ft2) decreased ammonia concentration, manure pF, and number of flies in the stall environment, compared with a control period with no sodium bisulfate. Fly-evasive behavior patterns of ponies occupying the stalls, including tail swishes, head tosses, and kicks/strikes, were decreased during the period of sodium bisulfate application. Conclusion Sodium bisulfate rnay be an effective method of decreasing ammonia concentration and may serve as a method of fly control in horse barns. (Am J Vet Res 1996;57:1795–1798)

Midwinter thaw: Parsnips and people

(Rrceiwd 10 Februor>, 1986) SOME~ME in late January or early February. after Lake Erie has frozen over and the lake effect snow squalls have stopped, there is a midwinter thaw in Western New York. A short break in the fierce cold and snowy weather that we anticipate as keenly as the arrival of the delights of winter: cardinals and evening grosbeaks. wood stove warm kitchen, seed catalogs, Dickensian Christmases. cross country skiing, and parsnips. Melting snow turns the horse paddock into a quagmire, the driveway into a temporary creek, and the 120-year-old fieldstone portion of the basement into a puddle. The grass over the septic tank and tile field pipes reappears as miraculously as do the unharvested turnips. parsnips, and cold resistant spinach: incongruous, refreshing gray-green against the leafless trees. snow, and gray sky. When the conditions are right dense ground fog, just like the moor mist in the old Sherlock Holmes Hound of the Baskervilles movie, settles in over fields still covered with snow. Of course it is only a matter of time before real winter returns, but for a few days we scurry about in shirts and down vests doing chores that have been put ofi transferring hay to the top of the horse barn, spreading the accumulated ashes from several cleanings of the fireplace and wood stove on the garden, hauling more logs to the bottom of the big barn to replace those that have been split and burnt. The softening squash and pumpkins are culled from the baskets of vegetables in the cold room and put out for the birds and field mice to eat. Fences are hastily patched with hopes that the repairs will last until spring. Loose straw and hay from the barns are raked up and spread over the exposed perennial beds to protect them against the frigid temperatures sure to come. Without a good sized layer of insulating snow the tender shoots of early spring flowering plants will be frost killed. Anticipating the appetite for fresh fruits and vegetables that accompanies the warming trends of spring yet to come, one of the dormant rhubarb plants is enveloped by a bottomless wooden keg filled with manure and straw. In March when the spring melt is in full Aood, this rhubarb plant, growing into the fertile warmth of its winter manure coat? will be undressed and the partially blanched stalks stewed and savored. A favorite chore of these rare midwinter thaw days is to dig parsnips. Now that the boys have grown up and away, the chores of the sheep and poultry have been relinquished. Jeremiah, the champion ram, is as vigorous as ever but he is tending to a larger flock of mixed Dorset sheep in an adjoining town. Without the reliability of youth the day to day animal work done by an increasingly busy and reluctant father began to suffer. So in the winter of 1985-1986, Susan and I savor the seed catalogs, our neighbor’s dozen

Sporobolomyces: a possible cause of extrinsic allergic alveolitis

A 28-year-old horseback rider presented with symptoms, chest radiograph, and pulmonary function tests suggestive of extrinsic allergic alveolitis related to exposure to a horse barn. Exposure to the barn produced symptoms, fever, and a fall in VC commencing 4 hr after exposure. Precipitins were positive against Sporobolomyces, suggesting this might be the causative agent; precipitins were negative against other fungi and horses. Lymphocyte stimulation to Sporobolomyces in vitro was positive in the patient and negative in two control subjects. Sporobolomyces was grown from straw in the barn. Cessation of exposure to this barn (but continued exposure to horses) has resulted in improvement in clinical condition. A survey for immunologic sensitivity to Sporobolomyces revealed that eight of 30 atopic subjects had positive wheal-and-flare prick skin tests to Sporobolomyces antigen, whereas none of 30 laboratory controls or 30 grain handlers had precipitins against Sporobolomyces. Sporobolomyces is a common fungus in cereal grain growing areas. Its spore size is less than 5 μm, consistent with other causative agents of this disorder. In this patient, positive precipitins and lymphocyte stimulation to Sporobolomyces and negative precipitins to other known causes of extrinsic allergic alveolitis provide circumstantial evidence that Sporobolomyces was the cause of the syndrome.

Horse Barns, House Fly Control, 1978

Abstract Five horse barns located in Hancock County, Indiana, were selected to evaluate residual wall treatments of AtrobanR (permethrin) for controlling house flies. All of the barns had a history of fly populations warranting control during the summer months. Test treatments were applied to 4 barns on Jul’78 while one barn served as a check. Treatments were applied by hand spraying all exposed interior fly resting surfaces at a rate of 750 sq ft/gal of spray mixture using B&G sprayers equipped with TeejetR #50015 fan-pattern nozzles. Indices of fly populations were obtained weekly by counting fly fecal and regurgitation specks deposited on 5 x 8 inch white paper cards placed in the barns for 24 hr periods. Ten cards were used in each barn (5 inside stalls and 5 in isle ways) suspended from ceilings and wall beams. In addition, 2 sticky fly tapes were placed in each barn to aid in identification of fly species present. Treatment efficacy was evaluated by comparing post-treatment changes in the mean number of fly specks from pre-treatment means and adjusted for natural population changes as reflected from changes in the check barn. Because of excessive variation in fly populations in the test barns a comparison of respective populations by statistical methods was not conducted.

A Comparison of Reproductive Potential of Two Rat Populations

A previous study (Davis 1949) showed that the striking differences in size between Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) living in the residential areas of Baltimore and rats living on a farm near Baltimore were largely phenotypical. Laboratory experiments proved that rats from both populations grew at the same rate and attained the same size when they were raised on the same diet. At that time, data on certain growth and reproductive characteristics were not available for the farm rats. Hence it is the purpose of this paper to compare certain growth and reproductive characteristics of the two populations. Such comparative studies of the productivity of mammalian populations are rare. Morton and Cheatum (1946) compared the reproduction of deer in northern and southern New York State. Most other studies of reproduction refer only to one population and hence are not comparative. Obviously an analysis of reproductive rates is fundamental to an understanding of population changes, dispersal, and mortality rates. The rats were captured during two years from June, 1947 to June, 1949. The city rats were obtained by trapping in residential areas of Baltimore. There the rats lived in yards, basements, and garages and fed upon garbage. The farm rats were captured on a horsebreeding farm about 16 miles north of Baltimore. There the rats lived under the buildings, in the stalls, and between the double walls of the horse barns and cow barn. They ate horse feed, manure, and an occasional dead rat or fowl. This is the deficient diet. The city rats came from stationary, increasing, or decreasing populations. These changes reflected environmental changes as well as the result of reductions from trapping. Seasonal population changes due to seasonal differences in the reproductive rate are not detectable with present census methods. The farm population during the first year averaged about 300 rats. The changes were due both to local changes in the environment and to seasonal changes in reproduction. During the second year the population increased to about 600. After capture, the rats were autopsied in the laboratory, and the data recorded on punch cards. The numerical totals in the tables do not all agree because data for a characteristic may be lacking. For example in Table I the weights of 402 male farm rats were recorded but the lengths of only 390; the unrecorded ones were due to inability to measure the rat for some reason. These differences are small and are random and hence do not introduce any systematic error. The city rats here described are not the same rats analyzed in the previous paper (Davis 1949).