Wagon Wheel Horse Ranch

06/12/2021

https://extension.umn.edu/horse-care-and-management/caring-horses-during-hot-weather

Keeping your horse cool and comfortable during periods of hot weather can help prevent heat issues including heat stress and heat stroke.

03/28/2021

True Appaloosa

For years Horse breeder Scott Engstrom has been trying to prove that the Appaloosa horse came from Asia and not Spain. This extraordinary film follows the fi...

12/17/2020

All is finally done & ready!

09/10/2020

12/31/2019

12/11/2019

https://www.doubledtrailers.com/45-random-amazing-bizarre-horse-facts/

Horses are majestic animals but even you may be shocked by these 45 random, amazing and bizarre facts. Learn more about man’s “original” best friend courtesy of DoubleDTrailers.com.

09/24/2019

Have a senior horse? His health requirements differ from those of other horses in your barn. Learn more about the changing needs of horses in their golden years

09/08/2019

HORSES ASK HUMANS FOR HELP

Japanese researchers have investigated whether horses try to communicate with humans during a problem solving task and found they ask us for help.

Eight horses and their student caretakers at Kobe University took part in a clever experiment looking at how horses communicate with their handlers.

For the first part of the study a researcher put a carrot in a bucket while a horse watched from a distance. The bucket was out of the horse's reach on the other side of their paddock fence. The horse's caretaker was not present to see this happen, so when they then arrived back soon afterwards to join the horse, the horse had the opportunity to know the caretaker wasn't aware of the hidden carrot.

For the second part of the experiment the caretaker stayed next to the paddock when the assistant came and repeated the carrot hiding process. In this case the caretaker could have seen that the carrot was placed in the bucket and the horse may have been aware of this.

The researchers observed the horses behaviour to see whether they tried to communicate with their caretakers and how they did this.

In both parts of the the experiment, the horses did try to communicate with their human. Each horse stayed close to their caretaker and looked at, touched and pushed them.

However, If the caretaker hadn’t been present when the food was hidden, the horses gave more signals – performing the looking, touching and pushing behaviours more actively and for much longer than when the caretaker was not present for the carrot hiding.

These results are fascinating, they show that when horses can't solve problems on their own they may try and communicate with humans visually – by looking, and physically – by touching and pushing.

The results also show that horses may change their behaviour in response to the knowledge levels of humans. This could suggest that horses possess high cognitive skills and a great awareness and sensitivity of what we see and do, and that they will then alter their behaviour accordingly.

How many of us listen to our horses and notice when they are trying to communicate with us?

You can read the study here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-016-1056-4

10/30/2018

http://blog.smartpakequine.com/2018/10/the-411-on-forage/

When most owners think about feeding their horse, their mind often jumps first to grain. But while grain may be top of mind, it’s actually forage that should be the foundation of every horse’s diet. Since your horse was designed to spend his days roaming and grazing on a variety of forages, that...

09/25/2018

The Bitless and Beautiful mission is to promote a more just and humane world for the domesticated horse and to restore balance, harmony and mutual respect for all.

http://www.bitlessandbeautiful.com/

08/18/2018

One of the comments we consistently hear from visitors to our Paddock Paradise - and heard yesterday from two women who flew in from Montreal to learn more about the concept - is that our horses seem happier (and calmer and more content) than any other horses they've ever been around.

Although it is great to hear such comments, it also illustrates the stark contrast between horses whose physical, psychological and emotional needs are met by living in a herd with the ability to freely move long distances and who always have access to healthy food options with those horses that many people are accustomed to seeing who live in very unnatural conditions.

It is a very sad fact that the typical training or boarding facility is home to horses who display symptoms of anxiety, boredom, depression and despair due to their unnatural living conditions that are a consequence of a desire for convenience to the horse owner or trainer - and are designed to prevent horses from getting dirty or from getting their manes, tails or coats 'marred' from playing with their herd-mates. As a result of not wanting to risk their horses being hurt by other horses, humans end up damaging their horses through institutionalized lack of movement, lack of room to express their athletic desire, and through the torture of being isolated from other members of their species. Added to the inhumane infrastructure is the accepted practice of iron shoes being nailed to their hooves as a way to cover up the symptoms resulting from their lousy diets, lack of movement and poor hoof care methods.

Whether horses are traumatized psychologically or emotionallly as a result of living alone in a stall (cage) or small pen/paddock (larger cage) or suffering physically from being forced to live in a pasture of sugary grass that prevents them from achieving optimal health, the fact is that horses - and their owners - deserve better. Increasingly, more horse owners are discovering a more natural alternative to the traditional and often barbaric manner of keeping horses in isolation and confinement. But we all need to do more to spread the word. It is not enough to hear that we have happy horses. We want our happy and healthy horses to be the norm that people are accustomed to seeing and to cease being unique, amazing or impressive.

Photo taken yesterday at the Aanhcp Field Headquarters.