Natural Horse Company

Clicker Training and Equine Touch in Portugal

I've just returned from a week in sunny Portugal where I was working as an Equine Touch Practitioner and teaching clicker training.

A big thank you to Sophie who organised my trip and for putting me up in her wonderful yurt at her lovely organic smallholding, www.portugalsmallholding.org. She also organised an Equine Touch demo and took me to visit various equines in need of some healing, including one horse who had fallen through a wooden floor, a lovely rescued mule and a lusitano stallion with a bad back. Everybody was very friendly and enthusiastic, and now want to learn some Equine Touch for themselves, bringing ET to portugal.

Sandra was my host in Lisbon, based at her livery yard and riding school, www.centrohipico.pt. The clicker training workshop went really well, leaving them inspired to teach their horses new things in a postive and fun way. Equine Touch meant I met more wonderful horses there, my favourite being Anke, a lovely dressage mare.

Click here to see the photos!

Hannah

To bit or not to bit? That is the question.

You may have seen the recent video entitled "blue tongue world cup" which exposes the horror of Rollkur (hyperflexion). I warn you, it’s tough to watch. However, hopefully the outrage expressed from this will lead to changes in dressage competitions which are long overdue. If you want to take action I suggest subscribing to eponatv to reward these two women for their bravery in challenging the establishment. Also, there’s a petition to sign to ask the FEI to ban hyperflexion in competitions. Epona TV also have a good discussion on this in their editorial.

For myself, I’m completely at the other end of the scale although I have the usual goal of perfect horse/human connection; I’m just taking the slow route to get there. So in a couple of weeks I’ll be entering my second dressage test in my life. Walk/trot and I hope to beat those little nippers on lead rein!! But will I be able to? I want to enter in a bitless bridle…is this allowed? Do I have to do rising trot in the test? My sitting trot is better connected and I get better collection so isn’t that the prime goal? I’m even hoping I’ll be brave enough to ride in a Baretek pad as James Shaw has banned me from using stirrups this winter (nice man) but is that allowed? Rules, rules, rules.

I draw inspiration from  Marthe Kiley-Worthington doing dressage to music at a workshop I organised 8 years ago. No bridle, no saddle, and performing piaffe, passage and one-time tempi changes. Achieved by letting horses be horses and training them using positive reinforcement and immense respect. Pity you can’t bottle that and sell it.

Rachel

Feeding Healthy Forage

Feeding a forage diet to your horse improves bacteria in their gut, new research shows.

For those of you feeding Simple System forage feeds to your horse, you'll know how effective it is, how well your horse goes on it and that they look great. Horses are designed to eat forage so it makes sense that it improves behaviour, stamina, weight control (both ways), skin and coat and countless other things.

This latest research looks at how feeding cereals and sugars as well as forage can possibly upset the balance of the bacteria in the gut. To read the full report on The Horse click here.

For more info on feeding your horse a healthy forage diet visit www.simplesystem.co.uk or contact us for details. We distribute Simple System feeds in the North East of England so click here for delivery dates to your area.

Multiple Approach to Healing

A lower limb wound in horses can be hard to heal, so when Roisin came in with a nasty wire cut in her pastern, I decided to pull out all the stops to heal it. Here are my top tips...I'm doing them all and it's going really well.

1) Bless the 21st Century! Conventional vetting cleaned the wound and covered infection with anti-biotics and anti-tetanus jabs. The wound was too deep and flexing to stitch, so was left open and seeping.

2) Food is the best medicine, so it was on to high amounts of linseed, delivered in top quality forage feeds, to promote healing. Linseed is the best source of vegetable Omega oils, is high in Vitamin E and so promotes great cell structure and removes free radicals.

3) Having a resident Equine Touch practitioner is handy. Hannah has given her a couple of Body Balances to promote the elimination of toxins and the natural healing processes.

4) The vet predicts a lot of proud flesh (scarring) on the wound. I doubt it as I'm using Forever Living's Aloe Vera with Bee Propolis. This is the most amazing cream for wounds as it keeps the skin soft and seems to prevent scarring and proud flesh.

5) Once the anti-biotics had finished it was on to nutritional support for the immune system. Eclipse Recovery probiotic from Simple System and Astralagus herbal tincture, recommended by Lynda Sharp of Solway Holistics.

6) Roisin lives out in a herd so being stuck in is tough. We provide a companion at all times and she gets a run out into the yard to bask in sunshine (and promote Vitamin D). Now the wound is much dryer she gets to graze on the farm road where there's no mud.

7) To bandage or not to bandage, that is the question. I like to leave wounds open to the air if possible. This one is near the ground so will get dirty easily and I have tended to bandage it to let her out during the day and then leave it open at night and keep her in to keep it clean. Support for not bandaging came in a timely report from Horse Health last week. 

8) Finally, if your horse is going to injure herself, make sure she does it at the start of a healing workshop! She came in bloody on the first morning of a 4-day workshop we ran last month, so the 9 delegates and 3 tutors got a chance to practise what they preach. Grateful thanks to them all for their input and, in particular, to Mary Trost and Liam Shaw for their care for Roisin.  

Feed for the Spooky Horse: Five Top Tips

A common horse problem is having a spooky horse...over half the audience at the recent Kelly Marks Masterclass raised their hands for this one. Make sure you don't feed the problem by following these top five nutrition tips:

1) Minimise sugar consumption. Sugar makes horses hot and grass can contain lots of it. If the local farmer is making silage, then the grass is bursting with sugar. Graze over-night, use a grazing muzzle, strip graze or try to find longer grass for grazing.

2) Don't buy sugar!! Use feeds naturally low in sugars and starches...less than 15% is ideal and less than 10% for fatties and laminitics. Starches convert to sugar so avoid oat feed, wheat feed, maize, molasses etc etc too.

3) ADHD: kids get given Omega Oil supplements and their behaviour improves. This is the equine version so do feed a good Omega supplement. Horses are vegans so the best source is linseed. Simple System Instant Linseed is easy to feed, nice to handle and they are the only feed company approved by the Vegan Society.

4) High fibre diets are good for horses as well as humans. Buy feeds containing at least 25% crude fibre. It is a legal requirement to state this level on the bag, so check the label, not the hype!

5) Two great horse supplements are Brewer's Yeast and Magnesium. They help manage sugar metabolism and are very calming. But you can feed too much so choose a supplement such as Lunar Eclipse where they are supplied in balance.

Equine Touch and Colic

Last week, I noticed India, my 3yo warmblood mare, lying down in the field quite a lot in the afternoon but didn't think much of it until everyone else started cantering around the field and she didn't join in. I called them all in to the yard and sure enough India was very uncomfortable, tucked up and stiff and isn't wasn't long before she started the telltale signs of nudging her tummy, pawing the ground and continually getting up and lying down. Putting my ear to her side all I could hear was a very ominous silence. Uh-oh, colic.

I immediately started giving her some Equine Touch and was thorougly amazed at the results! After about 30 seconds her stomach gave an enormous rumble and isn't wasn't long after that she passed some wind. I'm not often so excited by a fart! She was still very uncomfortable and her belly was very sore to the touch. Her abdominal muscles and some over her back were very tight and contracted and she really didn't want to move, so I carried on with the Balance.

As it went on she started to relax her muscles and breathe more deeply, and after about half an hour lay down. She was obviously more comfortable in this poistion and I just continued working on her where she was. Her muscles were relaxing, the grumbling was getting more frequent and she was still letting out the occasional fart. The pain around her belly was also getting less and by the time I finished she was fast asleep, eyes shut, head on the ground.

I left her where she was with Toby standing over and kept an eye out. She stayed there for nearly half an hour and when I checked on her a bit later she was standing up, had left a neat pile of muck and came trotting down to the fence demanding to be fed! I left her in overnight with a big bucket of Simple System feed and she was right as rain in the morning.

It was such a great result, Equine Touch is a very powerful tool and I'm constantly amazed at the great results it produces when I use it, from digestive problems, stiffness, lameness, tension, bad behaviour...the list goes on!

Hannah

Cock Rocks

How many horse owners know what this is a picture of? As the owner of several geldings, I have been cleaning sheaths for years but until recently I never looked any further (well, to be honest, who would want to??). Through my Equine Touch training I've learnt about urinary beans, (aka willy beans or, my favourite, cock rocks) and the above picture is one I removed from a client's horse I visited last week.

These beans are a build up of dirt, sweat, urine and secretion from the glands inside the sheath. They combine to form smegma which can form hard waxy balls inside the head of the penis. They build up in the urethral diverticulum, which is the pocket near the urethra near the end of the penis.

They can cause all sorts of problems, from difficulties urinating, behavioural problems and discomfort through the back and hind end. Problems such as being bad-tempered, bucking, reluctance to go forward when ridden and short stride length could all be caused by the pain of a urinary bean.

Next time you're cleaning your horse's sheath, gently pull back the skin from the head of the penis and check inside. Some horses are comfortable to let you touch that area while others are not so happy! Toby, my coloured cob, hates anyone going near his sheath and still puts up a bit of a fuss which makes the whole thing worse than it already it is and means i tend to put it off...talking of which, it's on my to-do list for today. What fun! : )

Hannah

photo courtesy of thehorse.com

Worm Testing Time Again

This week’s job is to get the horses rounded up and sample the dung for worms. We have used Westgate Labs for many years to check the faecal egg count and thoroughly recommend their service.  Our old girl, Poppy, is the most important one to keep an eye on. She has low immunity so can throw a high worm count and also has shown that the worms she carries are resistant to some wormers so she can incubate the beasties and spread them around for the others to get infected. Our other main concern is India, our rising three-year old. Coming from a  natural home, we hope she has a good immunity but it is the first time we’ll have tested her so will be concerned to ensure she doesn’t get a problem.

One worm count will stand for the other five. They are mature horses and we manage a rotational grazing system so there should be no problems. We are happy for them to carry a count of up to 300, understanding that this can help to charge up the immune system. I was delighted to find an article at http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=13695  which supported this approach (second part of the article).

 Cyprianna Swiderski, assistant professor of veterinary medicine at Mississippi State University writes “... the concept of zero tolerance for small strongyles should be abandoned, as some degree of parasitism is necessary to stimulate an immune response. Horses that lack such exposure tend to have more severe health problems when parasite exposure eventually occurs, which is assured in an animal whose optimal health depends upon grazing. “ The article has lots of other interesting info. about worming so check it out.

In the Shop, we have decided to stock Verm-X, natural control. We have a special introductory offer of a free Westgate worm count pack with your first order...check it out too.

Signs of Spring

Riding out to the moor the other day we saw our favourite first sign of spring... the tumbling dives of lapwings. They winter at the coast and then come back to nest. Another coastal winterer was back this weekend…the curlews. As we patched up the fencing on Sunday, we were enchanted by their plaintive calls and long slow glides.

 

A less welcome sign of the warmer weather, though, was midgies on the muck heap on Monday. Time to get the garlic out, I thought. Feeding horses garlic from now on can help their skin to be a bit more repellent to biting, blood sucking insects. Perhaps that’s why there’s the tradition of using garlic to fend off vampires?

 

We use freeze dried garlic granules, which are pleasant to handle and have a good level of allicin, the active ingredient. The level of allicin varies hugely depending on how well the garlic is sourced and preserved, so it’s worth checking that out. Garlic is traditionally seen to have lots of health properties, including being anti-parasitic and anti-bacterial. Keep to recommended feeding levels though, as it can inhibit the uptake of some minerals such as Copper and Zinc.

 

Hot on the heels of the midgies were the bats. I was buzzed repeatedly by a pair as I mucked out last night. I stood still and one came really close, wheeling round and back over my face. It reminded me of being buzzed by hummingbirds when I was out for a riding holiday in Colorado last summer. So, on the thought of summer, here’s a photo of a midsummer moon-set, over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Dream on…

Rachel

 

 

photo courtesy of Lorna Butterworth

Poppy: Old, Bold and Still Going Strong!

Searching for a topic for my first blog, I thought I’d tell you about our old pony, Poppy, as some friends had been asking after her at Christmas. Poppy was a working pony at Jodhpurs Riding School for many years where Hannah learned to ride. We gave Poppy a retirement home 10 years ago and she is in her mid-30’s now (about 100 in human terms).

Well, as you can see from the video, Poppy is alive and well and as feisty as ever. She broke her pelvis in the early 1990’s and was superbly treated by Sue Armstrong, one of the country’s first holistic vets. She was always a popular ride, but like most veteran school ponies she had her little ways. One time, at Tockwith Show, she stopped dead at a jump. Hannah sailed over the jump and stood up, widely grinning, holding Poppy’s empty bridle in her hand.

We keep Poppy fit and well with a huge trug of Simple System feed each night and regular  Equine Touch  balances. The video shows her morning routine, when, on turn out, she makes a bee-line for her cute toy-boy, Copper, for a big scratch and snuggle. I hope I’ve got a toy-boy half my age when I’m knocking on for 100!

 

Rachel