Equine Care | Equestrian Barns & Architecture: Start Living the Dream

Hay is For Horses

5:33 pm

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Hay is for horses…

and how much and where you feed that hay can make a difference to the health of your horse. Horses are natural-born grazers, meaning that in their natural state, horses would work at roughage for fourteen hours a day or more. Stalled horses, in contrast, often only have food before them for a few hours a day. Although free-choice hay is the best way, not every horse can have hay before them all the time. What can a horse-owner do to make sure their horse gets the most from their hay […]

Can Music Relax Horses

5:36 pm

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Equine Care, Misc.

Does music relax your horse?

Most barns have a radio. Sometimes it’s a dusty old clock radio that’s seen better days, sometimes it’s a fancy stereo kept safe from barn dirt with a towel. And barn radios play all sorts of tunes and talk, depending on the barn. Some trainers swear their horses only like country music; some say their horses live for Pink Floyd. Others say classical music keeps every animal in the barn, whether they have two legs or four, nice and relaxed. But does music really relax your horse?

A team of […]

Easing Transitions for Horses

4:27 pm

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Equine Care

Horses are creatures of habit.

They like their meals at a certain time (as anyone who lives within earshot of a hungry horse will attest to), they like returning to the same stall every evening, and they like seeing the same familiar faces every day.

So when humans begin periods of transition, our horses do not always take the change well. New schedules, resulting from school starting, a new job, or even a new owner or rider, can send the most reliable and calm of horses into a physical and emotional tizzy. Behavior changes, health problems, and nervous […]

Homemade Fly Spray

8:03 pm

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Equine Care

Summer bugs — no fun for your horse, and no fun for you.

How about some natural fly repellent? Here are three homemade fly repellents for your horse to give a try. Some contain essential oils, some contain dish-soap, some Avon’s Skin-So-Soft. Where you live and the kind of insects you have in your area. Horsemen in mosquito-prone areas often swear by Skin-So-Soft, while barns that only have a minor fly problem might get away with little more than soapy water.

Keep in mind that every horse (and person!) is different and […]

Equine Coronavirus

5:41 pm

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Equine Care, Guest Author, Guest Author Farmgirl

Equine Coronavirus – A Black Swan Event

When I first heard of the concept of a Black Swan event, I was more than intrigued. Curious enough in fact, that I read the New York Times bestseller: The Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007, Random House, 300 pages and notes, etc). This very complicated treatise was based upon the story of the black swan: basically people were convinced that all swans were white. When a black swan was first discovered, it literally, in today’s vernacular, rocked their world.

This shock […]

Glue On Shoes

6:36 pm

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Equine Care, Products

No Nails Required: The New Era of Horseshoeing

For about five hundred years, give or take, humans have been protecting horses’ hooves and giving their animals traction by nailing on shoes. And for just as long (presumably) horses have had their hooves damaged by those nails, whether simply because slowly-growing horn racked up too many holes from back-to-back shoeings, or because a “hot nail” hit sensitive laminae within the hoof.

Horseshoes are often seen as a necessary evil. Sure, we’d all love to have our horses barefoot — it would hurt less when they step […]

Poisonous Plants

5:52 pm

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Equine Care

Three Common Plants That Might Hurt Your Horse

Is there poison in your pasture?

Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Sadly there are plenty of growing things that your horse might think are nice to eat, but are in fact poisonous. Over the twenty years of designing facilities we have developed a twenty two page document listing as many of these as we can. It might be a native growth or an ornamental planting brought in by ambitious gardeners. Either way, it’s time to check your outdoor areas and make sure there’s nothing dangerous lurking out there […]

California Chrome and Equine Nasal Strips

5:49 pm

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Equine Care

If you’ve been anywhere near the horse world this week, you probably know that there’s a new Triple Crown contender on the line.

On Saturday, May 17th, California Chrome became the latest horse to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, whipping the horse racing world into a frenzy of excitement.

It’s been 32 years since Affirmed became the last Triple Crown winner, ending an exciting string of wins (Secretariat in 1973, Seattle Slew in 1977). The seventies were very good for Triple Crowns – almost as good as the thirties and forties, when three […]