Archive for Diet & Nutrition
Meet Benji, Kathleen, and moi at Road the the Horse, the World Championship colt starting competition March 5-7 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Benji will make a special appearance at the event; I’ll be signing copies of The Soul of a Horse: Life Lessons from the Herd; and – by popular demand – Kathleen will be introducing Read More→
…like this. The calm before the storm! Read More→

I was so proud of myself. I would go out several times a day and chop the edges of the pond so the horses would have no problem getting water. I would often watch them when they came to the pond and if a thin coating of ice had formed one tap with a hoof would produce water and they would drink. As the number of days below freezing began to build into the double digits Read More→

2009 was a tough year; full of struggles, change, and pain. And much to remember. But 2010 began with an awesome reminder of what our task on this planet is all about. Read More→
A day doesn’t pass that we don’t receive several beautiful emails from folks who have read the book, the blog, a newsletter, or been on the website and been moved by something we’ve said or done. These words are what make it all worthwhile. The juice that keeps our wheels turning and keeps us fired up about what we do. And keeps us ever Read More→
Two Month Report: Happy Healthy Mustang Joins Happy Healthy Herd; Life Lessons
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Sometimes I have to haul off and slap myself.
Seriously.
Something to force the brain to stop racing around like a crazed maniac and take a deep breath. To pause and smell the roses. Or at least look at them. How many times in my life have I closed my eyes and dreamed of the above picture? And here it is. Part of our life. And I’m fretting about how far behind I am and how much I have to do. Read More→
That phrase – Natural Horsemanship – is beginning to affect me like fingernails on a chalk board because there’s very little that any of us do with a horse that is truly natural. I suppose if we never had an agenda – a human agenda – we might be able Read More→

I have never been licked by a horse before. Lots of sniffing, nudging, lip nibbling, and just hanging out close by. But never a full-blown, full-tongue lick on the arm. Especially by a mustang who’s never even had a lead rope on. Until yesterday. Kathleen and I (and ALL of the dogs) were sitting in the play pen Read More→
Pete and Ivy Ramey are currently spending one week every month at Auburn University’s Vet School trimming hooves for Doctor Deborah Taylor, DVM, MS, DACVIM who is recording and studying the results of natural hoof care on chronic laminitis cases. The study has consistently shown rotation reversal, increased sole Read More→

March 11, 2009, Malachi’s 8th Day
Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament of the Bible. In Hebrew the word means messenger, and in the Book of Malachi the message is that change is coming.
Malachi intended to write a book about change.
I didn’t.
In fact I didn’t set out to write a book at all. Kathleen and I were just trying to figure out how to keep and care for a small group of horses that had somehow landed quite unexpectedly in our front yard. We were asking Read More→
Journaled on February 18, 2009 – This morning Kathleen said to me, “Do you realize that you’re always saying, ‘I wonder when I’m going to be able to do this or do that with Noelle.’ Just a few days ago you were saying you couldn’t wait until you could scratch her on the neck. Seriously, just a few days! And here you are scratching her neck, her chest, her leg, her ear, her face and are you satisfied, even just a little bit? Have you taken a moment to just sigh happily Read More→
This short video from Ove Lind in Sweden is the clearest example I’ve ever seen of why laminitis and other problems with the lamina in your horse’s hoof go hand in hand when your horse is wearing a metal shoe. The horse was not Read More→
I read somewhere during the past year that someone was having good results feeding their horses pro-biotics to help clean out the parasites, thus eliminating the need for worming. We had already gone to a program of fecal testing before worming, with a plan to test every six months and only worm if the tests are positive. So we started using Probios Dispersible Powder (http://www.probios.com/powders.htm#disperpwdr), mixing about a half teaspoon with each horse’s small tub of Triple Crown Safe Starch forage, feeding it Read More→
1) There are thousands of horse books on the market. Why did you write another one?
I didn’t actually. I mean, yes, of course, it has to do with horses, but first and foremost it’s a story. I’ve spent most of my life telling stories, most of them involving animals. And I found this one particularly fascinating. Two complete novices-my wife and I-leaping into this enigmatic world of horses literally without a clue. The mistakes, the fear, the fascination, and the frustration with some of the answers we were getting. And ultimately the discovery that something was very wrong in this world of horses. Read More→
It took me three years to finally boil this journey of ours down to a single simple point as it relates to how horses are supposed to live. It never ceases to amaze me how I can have something right in front of my face and not be able to see it because it’s camouflaged by some predisposition or learning sequence. Like this old logic problem: What do the words, first, hijack, and crabcake have in common? Stare at that for a bit and if you get it quickly, you’re doing better than I did. I spent several hours before finally, in desperation, I began to assign numbers to the letters, looking for some commonality of sequence, or totals, or something. Only after a number was attached to each letter did I see it. The answer literally leaped off the page. Do it yourself, assign numbers… ie: a=1… b=2…z=26, etc. You’ll see it very quickly. That’s the way it was with this concept of so-called domestic vs wild horses. How do you explain Read More→