Archive for April 2014

The Gift of Barefoot

Mouse4GreatHooves-450-333Mouse4GreatCU-450-333Mouse4GreatECU-450-333Mouse4GreatVECU-450-333Cash-LF-4533Cash-Ballet-4533CashHoof-9-10-4533PocketHoof-4533Pete'sHoof-4533Skeeter-LF-Bot-2-4533Skeeter-LF-4533
Miss Mouse - Look at those feet!
Mr. Cash
Miss Pocket
Wild Horse Hoof from Pete Ramey
Uncle Skeeter
Not so many years ago I thought all horses had to have shoes. Everybody said so and I didn’t question. Until I started reading and stumbled upon an article in Horse & Rider. The first couple of paragraphs went something like this:

Did you know that a horse’s hoof is supposed to flex with every step taken? And that simple act of flexing is just about the most important thing a horse can do for good health and long life? The flexing provides shock absorption for the joints, tendons and ligaments in the leg and shoulder; acts as a circulatory pump for hundreds of blood vessels in the hoof mechanism; and helps the heart get that blood flowing back up the leg.

Without flexing, the hoof mechanism will not have good circulation and will not be healthy. And the heart will have to work harder to get the blood back up the legs. Without flexing, there will be no shock absorption.

And with a metal shoe nailed to the hoof, no flexing can occur.

Kerwhap! I was slapped right in the face with a piece of indisputable logic.

How insensitive to my inertia.

Four years later I discovered this thermograph (displayed below) which actually shows – in a real-life horse – what happens to circulation when a metal shoe is nailed on. This horse is wearing one metal shoe, on his front right. The other three hooves are barefoot. The thermograph is set to show blood circulation (or lack of it). He was walked around in a big circle and then the thermograph was taken. Read More→

Everything You Need!

Everything You Need!
Happy Healthy Horses
Terrific Relationships with All

We began our journey of discovery with horses just a few short years ago. I was 68. It seems like yesterday. One day we had no horses and no clue. The next day we had three horses… and no clue. Today, after a great deal of study and research, we have finally chipped away at our cluelessness, but we are still learning every single day. We now have eight horses and we enjoy amazing relationships with all of them. They live out 24/7, are healthy, happy and come whenever they’re called by name. They have none of the diseases, ills, or behavior vices that plague so many horses today. Their diets consist of what they are genetically designed to eat. We play and work with our herd completely at liberty, almost never resorting to the use of halters and lead ropes. And never Read More→

How We Kept Six Barefoot Horses Moving and Eating Happily, Healthily on an Acre and a Half of Rock and Dirt

When we acquired our first three horses, soon to be six, they were all living in stalls, wearing metal shoes, and eating sugary feed from a bag. Because so many of the questions we were asking were turning up answers that made no sense we finally began to dig into serious research on our own to determine how our new horses should be living and eating. To dig out the actual facts, not the legends. Not the hearsay. Not the standard That’s the way it’s always been done. And what we discovered was nothing short of amazing. Virtually everything we had been told to do was diametrically opposed to the way horses – all horses – should actually be living. Join us on our journey of discovery  in the video above as we slowly but surely figured out how to turn our horses lives completely around and turn our steep one-and-a-half acre hillside of rock and dirt into a happy and healthy lifestyle for our entire herd. Read More→