Horse Husbandry.

Whats in a name?

Chief in name and nature.

Chief in name and nature

Having a special unique name is important for any horse or pony. It is something that is going to be your calling card for your animal hopefully for its life. Horse sometimes have super superior lengthily names for registration, showing, racing, competing etc. Or they may have pretty unimaginative names like one of our recent editions “Pony”. Each horse needs a tag or a short name it can respond to and be called by. Sometimes it is really amusing to hear what the nicknames are for the horses christened with long names.

When my best friend gets old.

Just like people horses are living longer now days than in previous years thanks to the advances of modern medicine and improved nutrition. The average life of a horse in now around 24 years of age with many horses and especially pony breeds living into there thirties. When a horse or pony reaches the end of its working and productive time due to advanced age or even injury the owner is faced with a grim decision regarding what action to take regarding the rest of that animal’s life. All too often the owners don’t want to face the reality of doing what is in the best interest of the horse. So many horses and ponies are passed on from home to home or left with people that are not able to meet the requirements of taking care of a geriatric horse simply to ease the previous owners conscience. When the time comes for retirement the owner must keep in mind that quality of life is the most important factor for the horse. The owner must ask themselves the following two important questions:

Should I Geld Him?

The majority of folk seem to have this mystical idea about keeping a stallion. Recently I have seen many such people that think their horse “ has great breeding potential” and they “ want to let him do stud services”. However the sad fact is the majority of these owners are totally kidding themselves. Some don’t even know the breed of the horse, the one emphatically told me his horse’s breed was chestnut….. say no more! There are very few horses that are suitable to be kept as breeding stock, as the aim of breeding should always be to produce an animal that is superior to its dam and sire.
Owning a stallion is a huge responsibility that should only be undertaken by someone with lots of horse experience as well as the facilities to handle a stallion. The only reason a horse should be kept a stallion is if the owner has an established and well-defined breeding program and obviously the horse must be a superior animal from both a genetic and conformation point of view. If you as a horse owner would like to breed your mare and have decided that you can deal with all the logistics and expense of a mare and foal, you don’t need to own a stallion. We are fortunate to have some really nice stallions around that are available for stud as well as all the options that artificial insemination give us.

Why do we ride?

This is a question I am sure every rider has asked themselves at some point in their riding career. Usually when lying face down in the dirt after an unplanned unceremonious dismount or when having to pay the feed bill!
I have been asked a couple of times by my friends recently – “And you do this for FUN?” As I have been working with a two semi wild, unhandled adult mares causing some unplanned incidents. The most impressive one was getting the lead rein around my foot while unloading a mare that had never been halter trained, needless to say I came bouncing out the box and down the road on my rear end. Happy to say the mare now leads like a star.
Well there are many good reasons to ride horses and they make up for these moments of doubt.