365 Days in Horse Country – Happy in Bad Weather    It’s a cold night and you are warm and snug by the fire.  What about your poor horse?  Standing in the wind, rain, snow, and cold can’t be pleasant for her.  Right? In truth, horses are much more tolerant of bad weather than humans.  Our species is designed to seek shelter and stay out of bad weather.  After all, we don’t have winter ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Craniosacral Therapy The cranium is the part of the skull that encases the brain.  The sacrum is the bone that lies between the lumbar and coccygeal regions.  Craniosacral therapy, then, addresses a horse’s problems from head to tail.  Originally developed for use in people, it is one of the many alternative therapies now available to horses. Craniosacral t ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Equine Metabolic Syndrome     The condition called Equine Metabolic Syndrome is a cluster of problems that includes obesity, insulin resistance and laminitis, or founder.   It tends to affect horses with certain characteristics: they tend to be overweight or gain weight easily, even when they don’t eat much or eat only hay or pasture grass; they have fat d ...

365 Days in Horse Country – The Irish Draft  Irish farm horses of the nineteenth century filled multiple roles, from tilling the fields, to pulling carts to fox hunting on the weekends.  That called for a lighter-weight animal than the traditional draft horse, but it was still substantial, making it popular today for its breeding qualities.  Irish Draught mares produce excellent hunte ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Draft Horse Competition     The draft horse breeds were originally developed to pull heavy loads, which is something they have been doing for centuries.  Although we now have motorized vehicles to do this work, draft horses are still valued in some circles for their ability to pull. Draft horse pulling competitions can be found around the world, and they ar ...

365 Days in Horse Country – The Zorse A horse is a horse, of course, of course…. except when it’s a Zorse!  If you guessed that a Zorse is half zebra and half horse, you are correct.  There are also Zebroids or Zebrulas (any hybred horse with zebra ancestry), Zules (when crossed with donkeys), and Zonies (when crossed with ponies).  They are the result of mating between a male zebra a ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Proper  Leading   One of the first things you learn about horse handling is how to lead.  Seems simple enough; just grab the lead rope and walk, and the horse will follow.  Of course, that’s not all there is to it.  Leading safely and correctly is another story. People who have been around horses all their lives are usually the worst culprits when it comes ...