Are there any other horse enthusists here? We have no Farrier in the Islands and no horses are ever shod, they all have beautiful feet! I highly recommend a book called 'Horse owners guide to natural hoofcare - the barefoot alternative' by Jamie Jackson.
Its a very interesting read aswell as a practical book, some of the principles of natural hoofcare are -
Nature created a hoof that is vastly superior to the same hoof shod
Nature crated a hoof that can do the job without nailing shoes to it
Conventional horseshoeing is directly responsible for most lameness in horses
Horseshoesing eventually cuts off feeleing in the feet, unbalances the horse and causes pain
Natural hoofcare is equally as concerened about providing horses with as natural living conditions as possible
More and more people in the UK (and worldwide) are discovering the benefits of natural hoofcare, even if your sceptical, Its interesting to do a little reaserch into the subject
I owned an ex race horse for many years, & his feet were far from natural, even when he was retired he still had to be shod, he did have a lot of white stripes in his hooves & this was a point of weakness, my farrier had a hell of a job getting shoes to stay on him & he was the "only" farrier who could shoe him to last 6 weeks. Maybe your lucky & have more native pony types which are way hardier, if that's the case your very very lucky, it costs about £60+ here to shoe a horse now where i live.
When i was a child we had Welsh mountain pony, he was never shod, must to the disgust of the snooty pony club, he did choose to walk on grass rather than the road, but did absolutely fine, as the saying goes, it's horse for courses I guess. What are the general breeds you have, your pic's look a like lovely hairy ponies
Our horses are very hardy, they need to be I suppose to deal with the weather! Most are a mix of Welsh ponies and Exmoor ponies, with quite a bit of Chilean t'bred and a few arabs thrown in!
You should see how much they coats grow out in winter! must be at least 2 or 3" long, I think they look gorgeous when they are all furry like that
There are some barefoot doctors in the UK now that are doing amazing work with horses like the one you described, I know of a couple of people who were considering having to put animals down because their feet were so bad, luckily they were saved due a 'last shot' of going barefoot, it took a long time to get them in good condition but they got there in the end.
Its still a very contraversial subject, and the the snooty horsey set can be down right malicious about it.
I have also recently switched to bitless bridless, and they are working out great, I do have a young gelding though who is still unpredictable and just learning, I use a humaine pee wee bit with him and he has taken to it wonderfully.
The next thing on my list is a treeless saddle, they are wildly expensive but I definatley want to head in that direction! They make some beautiful ones in Texas and Argentina, total works of art
OMG pee wee has an entirely different meaning here they are also called "she wee's" if that gives it away a bit more
I used to use a bitless bridle on our little welsh, all the contril comes from their poll & works a treat, we also had a western bridle which was lovely.
I've only ever ridden in a treeless saddle in the south of france, I think? are they the ones with the hole down the middle??
to explain hole down the middle of a saddle a bit clearer, i mean where you sit, you can see the horses back though the hole which is literally right along the centre of the saddle, it's very odd & i have no idea of the benefits if that is indeed a treeless one
Ohhh that saddle sounds like what we call a Bastos or a gaucho saddle, did it have a sheepskin thrown over the top? Most people have these types of saddles, and all the horses are taught neck reining western style.
Here is some info on treeless saddles -
With conventional saddles that have a rigid tree, the saddle sits on the horse immovably while the shoulder and legs move. The weight of the rider is never fully aligned. It is constantly shifted forwards through the tree. With a Treeless saddle, the rider always moves in harmony with the horse's natural gait. It is extremely soft & moulds itself to the shape of your horse. When used with a specially designed pad, the horse's shoulders and back are free of any local pressure points. The absence of a rigid tree also reduces the saddle's weight down to a remarkable 3.5Kg (8 lbs). All this combines to create harmony, balance, freedom of movement and increased performance
Hasn't everything moved on, I remember when i was a kid, you had one saddle & bunged it on anything you rode, can you imagine that now...not! & we didn't care or wonder why we were turfed off more often than not.
Yes it did have a cheeky little sheepskin number on it, which was less than fab in the heat of the south of france.
same here Another stupid thing we did, again with our welsh pony, in the pitch black, we tied the sledge to him in the garden when it had snowed, we sat on it & shouted yeehar as you do & off he bolted, we never moved an inch, he cleared off at a rate of knots down the road in the dark, nearly got hit by a car & set off towards the A1, a major road, luckily we called him & the daft thing came back That & we took him in the house when my mum went out shopping, just to be annoying
I was assuming that you had a farrier there, so that's all very interesting. Please send us some photos of your horses (as you can see there are quite a few of us on here who like horses.
I used to ride before I got married, can't afford it now, it's so bloody expensive round here and I certainly don't have the time or money to keep one of my own. I would also love my daughter to learn one day.
Michele
In a perfect world every dog would have a home, and every home would have a dog - Anon.
Will try and take some new photos of the horses, havent taken any for ages! Its not expensive too keep horses down here, I dont pay for grazing or stables, no farrier, I give the herd 2 sacks of lesisure mix once a week and that costs £15 just to make sure they are topped up with all essential vitamins & minerals, I am in a minority with that though.
It costs £40 a year to worm all 12 horses and all vet fees are heavily subsidised by the goverment, we only pay a tiny percentage - I called a vet out to Nancy on a Sunday night of a bank holiday weekend, she was bloated, rolling and generally looked uncomfertable, the vet came out and gave her a pain killer, a thorough check over and an injection to 'shift everything through' and the bill for the whole thing came to £13 (the greedy girl had eaten way too many Diddle dee berries and giver herself a bellyache lol)
They have cost me a whack recently though, I bought the older ones coats for when winter hits or its exceptionally wet, but I will get years of use out of those and the oldies are happy
Yes the main cost round here is stabling/land, as any land is promptly bought up developers for more houses (something we're desparately short of round here - not!!)
How do get on with producing/acquriing new stock? Do you have plenty of stallions, or do you have to go to Chile etc and have them shipped over? Likewise with livestock, I guess you have resident bulls and rams?
Michele
In a perfect world every dog would have a home, and every home would have a dog - Anon.
We do have quite a few stallions that are used only for breeding. Each farm has its own rams and they cross breed with other farms to mix the blood lines, every now and again the ewes will be AFI'd from rams in Australia to bring fresh blood lines in. We dont export any livestock, only wool, all the cattle is for Island use only, it would be uneconomical to try and export or compete with South American beef.
A Diddle dee berry is a tiny red berry that grown on a plant very much like heather, its a bit smaller than a cranberry and tastes very similar, we make Jams and chutneys out of it, its lovely with any roasted meat, or in scones etc
