Living Tips for Naturally Happier Healthier Horses

By: Natural Horse World

Give your horses the benefit of new information and ideas to bring out their full potential.

The Seven Things Your Horse Needs to be Happy and Healthy

1. Food, Water and Shelter - A mix of grazing at appropriate times along with hay most of the time. Fresh water at all times and shelter from the wind and hot sun are absolutely necessary.
2. Companionship - A herd is ideal but at least one other equine companion is necessary for a herd animal – cattle or goats won’t provide mutual grooming.
3. Room to move freely at all paces - Long, narrow pastures or a track and no rugs encourage more movement.
4. Regular Hoof Care - Maintenance trims every 2-4 weeks on a barefoot horse is the ideal, and using hoof boots gives better protection than metal horse shoes.
5. Healthcare when needed - Regular minerals, worming and using natural therapies in conjunction with veterinary care will give optimum health.
6. Kindly fitted equipment - Bitless Bridle or natural hackamore, well fitted saddle, no artificial control devices, no halters left on in the paddock, no rug unless absolutely needed for ill-health or no shelter available.
7. Considerate Training & handling - Using understanding and psychology rather than force, fear and intimidation.

Your Horse is what it Eats

Horses evolved to eat small amounts of grasses, herbs and minerals almost constantly throughout the day. They covered many miles to reach water and lived in small herds of varied ages and sexes.

Does this sound like the modern horse?
Not really - their involvement with humans has necessitated their restriction and artificial feeding to easily use them as a working animal.
Today the majority of horses are kept for pleasure and that pleasure need not be all ours. If we want a happy, healthy horse to provide many years of companionship then we can change our ways a little to suit their nature.

Many new ideas are replacing traditional methods of horsemanship and health care with hoof care and feeding now the focus. Natural Hoof Care practitioners and forage researchers have discovered that horses cannot be fed like cows – on high sugar grasses that maximise beef and milk production. To do so, compromises the health of our horses by causing laminitis as horses become more carbohydrate intolerant – they are commonly called ‘good doers’.

When horses eat high sugar grass it causes a toxic reaction in the hind gut which then affects the connection between hoof wall and laminae (sensitive internal structure). This causes common hoof ailments such as abscesses, seedy toe/white line disease and deformed, shallow, sensitive hooves.

With a little thought and planning, better management and feeding practices can change all of this.

Here are some changes you can make with feeding to improve health:

• Ensure grass hay is fed as the main diet, along with free choice minerals and salt.
• Try to feed as far from the water as possible to encourage movement.
• Give your horse room to move by fencing an 8–20m wide track around your pasture which makes a long, thin paddock and reduces grass intake.
• Restrict grass appropriately for each horse – most will need to be kept off the grass during the evening when the sugars in the plant are highest. Provide hay for them to eat instead.
• Some ‘easy keepers’ will need to wear a grazing muzzle some of the time to remain with the herd. It’s not comfortable for them to wear a muzzle all the time and may even cause colic if left on 24/7.
• Equines prone to laminitis will need to have their ‘sugar rich’ hay soaked for a few hours to lower the sugar content. Rich hay is usually cut from rye grass and clover pastures designed for cattle.
• Avoid feeding grain unless your horse is receiving enough additional exercise to utilise the energy such as racehorses, endurance and performance horses. Broodmares, foals and young horses may need some grains and legumes (lucerne/alfalfa) to provide additional protein and calcium. All other horses will gain more weight on free choice hay.

Article Source: http://www.naturalhorseworld.com/NaturalLivingForHorses.htm

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