MC Equine - Farrier and training service

12/09/2024

09/09/2024

I live this exercise for helping the horse to organise his feet and learn to stop and turn back at speed

This is a great exercise to teach your horse to stay collected, be prepared for the stop and quick turn around, to organise their feet in a hurry and be resp...

08/09/2024

🙌🏼👌💯❤️

07/09/2024

06/09/2024

Using obstacles to help break things up and keep things interesting can really help our horses progress and keep them from getting bored

01/09/2024

I came across this one this morning while drinking my coffee and scrolling….this is why, when turning a horse out, we always walk through the gate and yield the hind quarter to have them face up before releasing them

19/08/2024

👌🙌🏼💯❤️

19/08/2024

I love this exercise to help with freeing up and seperating your five body parts and practising over all softness to both your hands and legs

This is a great exercise to work on your body control and over all softness

17/08/2024

A handy little tip to help with horses that want to walk off as you’re trying to mount or as soon as your butt hits the saddle

Mounting procedure is something people really commonly make mistakes with and have ongoing trouble with. I always mount and then practice lateral and vertica...

05/08/2024

I don't want to wreck him, and other self-sabotage of horse owners...

It could be a book don't you think? Horse owners, we come up with the most self-serving, self-sabotaging, bu****it principles - don't we?

I mean, when you really think about it, having 'Self Serving' and 'Self Sabotaging' in the same sentence, to describe the same person seems kind of like an oxymoron doesn't it?

So what do I mean? Well, I see it all the time. A person not doing training or work with their horse because they 'don't want to wreck them' at the same time affords themself the best excuse to avoid failure, because without trying you can't fail, so they are safe from actually failing or not failing, kind of like 'Schrodinger's trainer' - You can equally be both successful and a failure because you haven't tried yet.

Our own fears, core beliefs, and characteristics are so intimately connected to the way that we interact with our horses. Our choice of discipline, training methodology, interaction and the way we relate to our horse is determined so completely with who we are as a person, that the only way to 'improve' our horse is to 'improve' ourselves.

The horse, being a 1000 pound reflection of who we are confronts our sense of self and forces us into self-reflection, (often on a subconscious level) and causes us discomfort or unease. It is in these moments, should choose to embrace and understand it, that real growth will occur.

It is this discomfort that can then cause us to choose not to try rather than pushing forward.

I have written many articles like this one. The reason is that I have seen time and time again the people who choose to forge forward, embrace the self-reflection, face their fears (literally Face Everything And Rise), I receive letters, messages and emails months and years later on how their life has changed for the better, as a result of self-realization and ultimately self-development. It all started because a horse 'wouldn't do X' and ended with a level of consciousness that affords a happy self, happy marriage, happy kids, happy horse.

I am not a psychologist. I do know that when we feel discomfort, or unease, that this can be a pathway to a higher level of consciousness of self. We are designed to 'push back' on discomfort and avoid where possible, but if we can pause, ask the question 'why does this make me uncomfortable' this is the pathway to understanding ourselves, and our horses at a higher level.

I'll give a short example here. When I am out working with my horses, and I feel frustration, anger, nervousness, I pause and ask myself - why am I so bothered by this? Am I fearful of the horse? Am I fearful of being injured? Does the horse not 'doing what I ask' cause me to feel inadequate / disrespected / unloved / that the horse doesn't 'like me'? Using these emotional moments as opportunities to gain insight into myself has turbocharged my self-awareness, and ultimately my abilities in training.

Alot of great trainers follow these same principles, but perhaps don't articulate it, or break it down as much as I have here - when was the last time you heard a trainer say 'Don't take it personally' when coaching you with your horse - this is the short version of 'pause, don't react emotionally'. I am simply trying to take it one step further and say listen to that little knocking sound - that is opportunity saying 'hey, there's an opportunity for self-reflection here'.

Take this newsletter for example. I know that people will unsubscribe from this newsletter list as a result of this article 'triggering' the ego - "this is bu****it, what my horse does isn't about me, it's about him!!"

The reason I share these things is because I want to be honest about what it takes to become a great horseman or horsewoman. First, the realization that there is no 'endpoint'. Sure you may get to the point where someone calls you a great horseman, but the true horseman continues to learn from the horse. Second, the ego will only get you so far. I am fortunate to know some elite horsemen, who have shared with me a little secret.

"You know Tanja when I got 'old' and not so worried about my ego, that's when I got better"

Third, you can be 15 or 50, and self-development is going to have an unlimited positive impact on your horsemanship.

So, back to the start. Next time you hear yourself say 'I don't want to wreck him', go forth and work with your horse (unless you are going to try something like starting him under saddle - then you need a professional). The truth is you will wreck him, we all wreck them, and then we learn more, and we fix them and so on and so forth.

As Maya Angelou said

Do the best you can until you know better, then do better.

Yours for the horse

Tk xo

05/01/2024

04/01/2024

04/01/2024

04/01/2024

04/01/2024

03/01/2024

❗️MINIATURE HIGHLANDS❗️
Written by Jaylyn Ettinger
There is no such thing as a miniature Highland, and certainly not a microminiature one. Adult Highland cows will average 1100-1400 lbs. Bulls generally range from 1700-2000 lbs. Not miniature.
Rising popularity of Highlands has brought out people trying to market smaller animals as “mini” Highlands, commanding high dollars for “pets”. Most often these are stunted, poor examples of the breed. There are many reasons for an animal to be on the small side. Maybe it is a case of placental insufficiency. Maybe the dam is older and her milk production/quality is declining. Maybe the calf was sick at some point. Maybe it has something congenital going on – bad heart, for example. Maybe the breeding combination just didn’t work - not every pairing clicks. Lots of different reasons.
Maybe the breeder deliberately withheld nutrition to stunt it. Some so-called “breeders” pull healthy calves off of healthy dams and feed the calves just enough to survive. Some misrepresent the age of the animal, claiming it is older than it actually is, so it seems small. I've heard of a few cases of people buying a very young calf as a miniature, with no instruction to feed milk replacer - and the calf is dead in a week.
Maybe the animal is not a purebred Highland, rather crossed with another breed - often Dexter. Crossbreeding is fine, as long as it is not being marketed as a purebred - and the sire & dam do not carry the chondrodysplasia (dwarf) gene. Many so-called miniature Highlands are the result of a Highland being crossed with a chondro Dexter. Breeding animals that carry the chondro gene increases the risk of bulldog calves (a lethal genetic defect).
For any reason, other than being crossbred, it is irresponsible to pass on those genetics. Not only do you risk passing on poor qualities, you risk endangering the cow and future calves. A "mini" Highland cow will still have regular Highland size genetics - and will have a normal sized calf, greatly increasing the risk of dystocia.
I think (I hope) the problem is, most of these “breeders” do not have cattle experience and are just jumping on a bandwagon. Inexperience is fine, ignorance is not. Highlands have so much to offer as a hardy beef breed, why on earth would you bastardize a grand old breed to produce substandard animals? If you want a Highland, even if just for a pet – please buy a well bred one from someone who has the breed’s best interest at heart.

01/01/2024

The Horse Manure Problem of 1894
The 15 to 30 pounds of manure produced daily by each beast multiplied by the 150,000+ horses in New York city resulted in more than three million pounds of horse manure per day that somehow needed to be disposed of. That’s not to mention the daily 40,000 gallons of horse urine.
In other words, cities reeked. As Morris says, the “stench was omnipresent.” Here are some fun bits from his article:
Urban streets were minefields that needed to be navigated with the greatest care. “Crossing sweepers” stood on street corners; for a fee they would clear a path through the mire for pedestrians. Wet weather turned the streets into swamps and rivers of muck, but dry weather brought little improvement; the manure turned to dust, which was then whipped up by the wind, choking pedestrians and coating buildings. . . even when it had been removed from the streets the manure piled up faster than it could be disposed of . . . early in the century farmers were happy to pay good money for the manure, by the end of the 1800s stable owners had to pay to have it carted off. As a result of this glut . . . vacant lots in cities across America became piled high with manure; in New York these sometimes rose to forty and even sixty feet.
We need to remind ourselves that horse manure is an ideal breeding ground for flies, which spread disease. Morris reports that deadly outbreaks of typhoid and “infant diarrheal diseases can be traced to spikes in the fly population.”
Comparing fatalities associated with horse-related accidents in 1916 Chicago versus automobile accidents in 1997, he concludes that people were killed nearly seven times more often back in the good old days. The reasons for this are straightforward: . . horse-drawn vehicles have an engine with a mind of its own. The skittishness of horses added a dangerous level of unpredictability to nineteenth-century transportation. This was particularly true in a bustling urban environment, full of surprises that could shock and spook the animals. Horses often stampeded, but a more common danger came from horses kicking, biting, or trampling bystanders. Children were particularly at risk.
Falls, injuries, and maltreatment also took a toll on the horses themselves. Data cited by Morris indicates that, in 1880, more than 3 dozen dead horses were cleared from New York streets each day (nearly 15,000 a year).

29/12/2023

Good girl!!!!

28/12/2023

28/12/2023

😂😂😂

25/12/2023

25/12/2023

Merry Christmas too all from Beau and me…looking forward to seeing you all in the new year

21/12/2023

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