Bill Here we have cooperheads.Black snakes and racers too but they are not poisoness.My horse only stepped on one while I was riding.They usually are very good at avoiding them.But I suppose once with a mamba would cull the slow ones.
Based on some of the old books, it seems that horses don't survive well at all in most of Africa. It appears that they are suseptable to diseases there that make their lives quite short on safari. I'm NOT an authority on this, but I know that they had real poor luck with them in this regard in the past. Now days? Inquiring minds want to know!
Posts: 747 | Location: Nevada, USA | Registered: 22 May 2003
I kept thinking about the horses getting bitten by snakes, though.
Where I grew up there were rattlers all over the place. Our horses stayed well away from the snakes and always seemed to find and avoid them. Never had or heard of one being bitten. I would imagine the results would be similar in Africa.
Safari on horseback sounds like it would be a great way to hunt.
Posts: 3155 | Location: Rigby, ID | Registered: 20 March 2004
A 'Salted' horse is one that has been exposed to trypanasomiasis (nagama or animal sleeping sickness) and recovered from the disease.
Trypanasomiasis rhodesiensis is the local human form of the disease and untreated is 100% fatal. We loose a couple of game scouts a year from it once again after a 17 year break!. Trypanasomiasis zambeziensis (or vorgelii) causes nagama in horses and cattle and is between 90& 95 % fatal if untreated.
Note. Further north in Africa there are other specis of tryps that cause both human and animal sleeping sickness with differing levels of mortality if untreated. - however, a salted animal seems immune from all species of tryps once it has recovered.
Also, never heard of a horse being killed by a snake. must happen, but we used horses extensively on the farm when I was a kid and several of our parks stations still have them. Lost a game scout at tsabalala game park to a black mamba bite while he was riding a horse ( the horse stepped on the snake and it reared up and bit the rider) but cannot recall ever loosing a horse!
Posts: 3026 | Location: Zimbabwe | Registered: 23 July 2003
Horses and mules are almost always used for MT. Nyala hunts. I've done quite a bit of elephant hunting in the mountains of SW Ethiopia on horse back. Mules too. I spent 2 weeks up in the mountains around Sheko, east of Tepi.Just me and five Ethiopians. Blew the villagers minds when we would come riding in as the only way to get there was walking or mule back. Few white folks had ever been there. We vacinated our horses in that area but they only lasted about 6 months anyway. Rough on horses but they were cheap. AT another place called Kulo Kunta where I took my first elephant we used mules to go way down into a swampy valley. Had to get off and hurry them through high grass to keep em from suffocating. Never had any of em snake bit. Guess it was possible though.
Rich Elliott
Posts: 2013 | Location: Crossville, IL 62827 USA | Registered: 07 February 2001
Though not Africa, my June bear hunt was basically run off horseback in the Selway. These were true mountain horses. The horse I had would even pack out bears, he took mine down the mountain.
Chris and Pierre Van Wyk in Zimbabwe have several horses available for safari goers. I suspect modern medications like Ivermectin help keep horses healthier in the African continent now-a-days.
Posts: 19564 | Location: The LOST Nation | Registered: 27 March 2001
This is really neat! In all the time I've hung out here, I've never seen any of you talk about safaris on horseback. I had no idea there was so much of it available!
Russ
Posts: 2982 | Location: Silvis, IL | Registered: 12 May 2001
While he only mentions it on his web site ( http://www.christiesadv.com.na/frame.html )under activities, when I spoke with Christie, he told me we could hunt off of horses.
Posts: 4781 | Location: Story, WY / San Carlos, Sonora, MX | Registered: 29 May 2002
Peter Harris can hook you up with a hunt at Bokpoort Ranch in RSA with Christo Roos. His ranch is located in the Free State in an area that looks a lot like Wyoming. The acomidations are in the western cowboy style and you can hunt with horses. Lots of fun. We hunted there this past June. My wife and daughter thought it was a blast. I enjoyed the change from the typical thatched roof lodge.
Posts: 955 | Location: Houston, Texas, USA | Registered: 13 February 2002
We offer hunting safaris on horses in Botswana in the Kalahari for both Leopard or Plains game hunting. It is an easy way to get around and be able to get very close to the animals. Once you get into postion you then get off the horse and shoot. You do not want to shoot on the back of the horse!
Had a leopard charge in the Kalahari once and it ran right under one of the horses as it was going for one of the trackers walking next to the horse. Tracker got some serious cuts and about 23 stitches, but was back at work a couple of days later.
I would post a picture of the horses in Botswana on an eland hunt, but not good at the posting stuff.
Posts: 473 | Location: San Antonio, Texas & Tanzania | Registered: 20 November 2003
Quote: Russ... Didn't you have a rough experience on horseback a few years back? Are you a masochist ?
Yes. November, 2002. My gunsmith buddy has commented along the same lines as you, here, but he was a bit more... um... "explicit." I was still, occasionally, limping... in Iraq... up to about May or June.
Too many westerns growing up, I guess... or maybe it was the years of watching "Mr. Ed" at a tender age.
Russ
Posts: 2982 | Location: Silvis, IL | Registered: 12 May 2001
