During the Past month or so, I have heard a lot about barefoot or natural horses. These are horses that do not wear shoes to protect their feet. So I went out and found some related research which I found fasinating, enjoy!

LIVING CONDITIONS OF THE BAREFOOT HORSE:

• TURNOUT 24/7:  Horses roam up to 20 miles daily when in the wild. This not only keeps their bodies healthy but their hooves in a good, natural trim.
• LIVING IN HERD SITUATION: For mental health and physical it is best if you can keep horses in a herd rather than paddocked singularly. They look to each other for safety, warmth, grooming and move each other around for exercise.
• CONDITION & TYPE OF GROUND FOR TURNOUT: As varied type fo terrain as you can find is the most preferable – rocky, sandy, grassy, forest, wet, dry, soaked … horses need to have their hooves constantly exposed to natural terrains and environments for ultimate health.
• GRAZING: Not only do horses prefer to be out in the open where they can see what’s going on around them, they graze in a natural head down position which allows them to be calm and comfortable. The body actually is hard-wired to send calming messages to the brain when the head is down. It also is the way that horses clear their sinus passages and bronchial tubes from irritants and phlegm. Horses should eat from ground level at all times.
• SHELTER: If providing a man-made shelter in the field for the horse, allow the floor to be a natural substance rather than shavings. Shavings dry out the hooves in a matter of minutes and is detrimental to the overall health of the hoof.

FEED & NUTRITION OF THE BAREFOOT HORSE:

• Natural, whole grains should be supplements to a diet of varied forages and grasses. Hay, trees, shrubs, bushes, weeds, herbs, flowers — these are all part of a natural horse’s diet. Each element offers specific vitamins and minerals necessary to maintain a healthy gut and body.
• Feed the domestic horse with free choice, 24 hour access to grass hay. Addition of a small amount (1 or 2 flakes) of legume hay (Alfalfa) is encouraged on a daily basis.
• Horses eat 18 hours a day in the wild. Their stomachs are small, relatively speaking and can only hold 2 – 4 liters of substance at a time. The gut continually produces acids to break down the feedstuffs on a 24 hour basis. If supplementing grain to the hay, 4 smaller feedings a day is prefereable to just 1 or 2 feedings a day.

HEALTH MAINTENANCE OF THE NATURAL HORSE:

• Use Homeopathics and Herbals for maintaining or
  restoring health
• Try to stay away from processed, chemical medicines or topicals
• Minimal chemical de-worming or vaccinating (exceptions)
• Use the least invasive treatments for medical/health care as possible.

This is Emma, Emma is a mutt who stole our hearts at birth. Although instead of a brain we think she has air (we occaisionally take her in to get her “air” changed) Emma has a strange attraction to porkypines, she attacks and is spiked at over and over. She has had we estimate over 100 porkypine quills pulled from her skin and bones, including 2 surgureys to get quills out of her bones. EMMA!

Shadie is the best doggy ever. When he was little he was abused, in fact thats where we found him, tied to a railroad track. When shadie was younger, he was ambitious and hyper, he was the fastest highest jumping dog there was. Now that he has slowed down and reached 9 years old he’s still a little shaky from the last year. First, on our way to a camping vacation towing a huge RV with shadie and our other two dogs in the back, shadie decided to see what pavement felt like flying down the highway at 60 mph. My mom driving a few cars behind found him in shock wandering on the side of the highway. Then after multiple vet visits and a lot of love, he recovered. Then disaster struck while on a trailride with me and two of my friends, he was kicked in the head after a group of hikers ran toward our horses, clearly excited to see riders, after screaming at them to stop! Tigger my horse reared up and flipped around causing the domino effect, horses where rearing and bucking (darn kids!) in the process shadie was kicked in the head so hard as to cause a fracture to his scull. So we love you Shadie! And we hope you stick around, no more trail rides or truck rides!

The Weather here has been insane from 68 degree farenheit temparatures to snow to pouring rain, we have been wondering when mother nature will decide on our season. Today we had to cover our heads with grocery bags as we walked out of the grocery store! I definately believe in the global warming theory last year in February it would be dumping snow not sun and rain!

this is the exact same as my dad’s new truck but it doesn’t have the lift!

I’m soo exited! My Dad just got a cute new toyota tacoma, it’s bright blue and it has a three inch lift. Something my uncle Jason would be very proud of. I’m thinking that maybe if we have a new truck my dad is thinking about a horse trailer! Wouldn’t that be great! Everyone needs to start suggesting horse trailers he has got to eat sleep and drink horse trailers alright everyone? Okay ready set GO!

Coming from a ranch were a post to tie your horse to is actually lucky to be found, at a fancy barn crossties are the only acceptable place to tie your horse. Wich is rather different place than throwing a lead on the gorund to ground tie a horse.

This is a picture of Doc in the crossties with Pricilla our trainer.

The other day I went out at sunset to the ranch area where the horses where cozily eating, this picture is of Pharoah saying hi, isn’t he cute?

Pharoah, my aunts arabian would love to Meet Thunder, Thunder is an award winning stud colt arabian. He is still under 2 years old, witch is why he is called a stud-colt. He is so amazing, he has won every halter show he has been entered in. Halter: a test of conformation, and charachteristics of a breed, A human leader runs the horse wearing only a halter around a ring while the judje watches the movements, and look of the horse, the best looking horse according to the breed charachteristics is the winner.

Shake Me is a quater horse mare, she competes in the aged-mare halter competitions, she is only four, so now she is starting to compete in Western pleasure as well,in the picture, notice how woderful her neck and head are proportioned, she has had several judges comment on her front end. She is beautiful all over, but she is hard to get ready for halter competitions because she is soooo big! 

 (Click to enlarge)

Alex, one of my other pets, got a bath today, she looed so cute with her drowned rat look… she is so cute and she is so helpful and sweet, we love her. We got a coffee table with a pull out drawer, alex was stuck in there for about 5 hours after she jumped in and it got closed without knowing she was in there. She also spent about 3 hours in the dryer when we were doing laudry she jumped in there and what do you know got locked in… as silly as she is she still adorable we love her!