Central Mass Hoof Care

09/29/2023

The dangers of paddock grass to our equine friends is not a new subject we are constantly talking about it all over the world due to it’s often catastrophic impact on our domesticated horses .

We talk about the spring and early summer burst of fresh lush grass .
We talk about the autumn flush of lush grass .
We even talk about winter frosts and sunny days with its impact on the grass .

So now it’s a year round problem for so many horses including most of mine .

How can we safely allow our horses to graze in the paddock without the worry of laminitis.

NOT EASY THAT FOR SURE. 😣and trust me I dont always get it right either.

We know that Grass that is shorter than six inches is very problematic and the shorter it is the more dangerous it becomes.

That said even if still fresh and green looking even at six inches and above can be a disaster for many .

Very Short eaten down to stubs grass is FULL of sugars as this is often called stressed grass which they love as it’s so sweet but this is extremely dangerous.

Sunlight , dew and dampness especially at spring and autumn causes this to absorb and replenish its reserves so at the end of a lovely sunny day it’s literally full of sugar and uses this over night to grow .

Early morning grazing is generally safer on this grass but certainly not full safe proof .

Adding to issues as temperatures drops over night to almost freezing or even a few degrees above this allow the grass to hold on to the sugar and not use it so early morning grazing is just as dangerous.

Mind blowing and very difficult to manage a sensitive horse , and even non sensitive types can very suddenly be affected by these spikes in grasses .

So can we help to create safer grazing by allowing the paddocks to grow to maturity before allowing any grazing , and keep moving the area so not allow short stressed grass to become a problem .
Putting in track systems are certainly the way forward and feeding ad lib hays , but again not everyone can afford to keep feeding ad lib hays or indeed it’s been difficult for many finding the right hay for horses all year round .
A combination of both track systems and correct management for the paddocks grasses and plant appropriate species may be a safer option for many .

This management should ensure lower sugars and better diversity fibre management intake plus more chewing time which is more species appropriate on their digestive system.

Any thoughts and are owners out there adapting to this practice.

Photo of one of my mature winter grass fields on the right that’s been left all summer to grow to full maturity ( verses a young lush area of growing unsafe autumn grass . 👇

06/09/2023

Please!!

As a hoofcare provider, whenever I hear horses are living on grass my heartrate speeds up a bit. My first thoughts are "will this horse become laminitic" or "is this horse laminitic".... But some horses do just fine living on grass, and not all horses are metabolic, but even so, I tend to find some of the worst feet on those that live on pasture. So how do we ensure that we are making safe choices with horses that CAN graze?

I have seen posts from Cherrie Nolden over the last few years about grazing her large herd of Norwegian Fjords on abundant grass 24/7. I have always wondered - how does she do it? How did she keep an "easy keeper" herd on grass without soundness issues or weight concerns? Can we mimic this with healthy horses in our lives?

Cherrie and I sit down and talk about how she manages her fields and herd of horses to ensure healthy pasture, healthy horses, and healthy hooves. You can hear the entire conversation on any podcast app under "The Humble Hoof," or at this link: https://thehumblehoof.com/2023/06/09/safer-grazing-for-horses/

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06/02/2023

https://www.centralmasshoofcare.com/post/notes-on-grass-from-pete-ramey-clinic-august-24-25-2019-ipswich-ma

Grass Pasture, Notes from Pete Ramey Clinic, 8/24-8/25/19 Doesn’t really matter what kind of grass you have, anything that is happy in its environment is good. If the grass is stressed, the sugars will spike. The sun hits the grass and it starts making sugar, then the growth starts, and the growin...

06/02/2023

This subject is probably the most controversial thing among clients to understand. I know…if you have a nice lush pasture and they love it Sooooooo much and you don’t have anywhere else to put them and don’t want to build a dry lot and ohhh the grazing muzzles are just so cruel! And isn’t grass what horses are SUPPOSED to eat??? I know it’s a long article with technical terminology…but PLEASE try!! The calls I get for horses who are just suddenly lame and crippled are absolutely heartbreaking. It’s hard to hear but metabolic laminitis is always a owner management issue and preventable. After this stay tuned for another article on grass I took from a Pete Ramey clinic I attended.

https://equusmagazine.com/horse-world/price-progress-32134/?fbclid=IwAR2myB14G4BfBjA3X158TJQMAEJXF4seT-lnsaaOrL938-EcBKZoWQ8scfY_aem_th_AV3mGyCONcFXLS1DGTtVylMlFLWf8tJlLg9jWQYn402laowswJcRdlYp34sV_PSR79A

Laminitis associated with lush grass is the most common form of the condition today, but it was hardly known a century ago. Why?

12/06/2022

Very inspired story: A Year to Live.

Anthony Burgess was forty when he learned he had a brain tumor that would kill him within a year. He had no money at the time and nothing to bequeath to his soon-to-be widow, Lynne.

Burgess had never been a professional novelist in the past; but he was always aware that he had the talent to be a writer in him. So, just to be able to leave at least the copyrights to his wife, he put a piece of paper in the typewriter and began to write his first novel. It was not even certain that what he had written could be published; but he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“It was January 1960,” he said, “and according to the diagnosis, I had a winter, a spring, and a summer ahead of me. That year, when the leaves began to fall, I would have died too.” With that speed and haste, Burgess had managed to write five and a half novels before the year was out. E. M. Forster could only write so many in almost an entire lifetime; J. D. Salinger, one of America’s greatest writers, managed to write only half of it in his entire life.

However, Burgess did not die. His cancer first regressed; then it disappeared altogether. In his long and full life as a writer, he produced more than seventy works, most famously A Clockwork Orange. He might not have written even one of these novels had it not been for the death sentence that cancer had inflicted on him.

Most of us are like Anthony Burgess; we hide a great talent waiting for an emergency to emerge from within us.

A useful exercise in self-motivation is to ask yourself what you would do if you were in Anthony Burgess’s place and found out that you would die of cancer within a year… “What would change in my life, how would I live my last year if I had learned that I would only live one more year? ? What exactly would I do? Considering the brevity of life is a useful exercise; it often brings up surprising thoughts in your mind that will reveal your unused talents that have not yet surfaced.

Author Unknown

09/09/2022

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=538826360966921&id=104652331050995&mibextid=zXXBe0

People call me all the time saying that they can’t find a farrier or they only show up once and they never come back. Usually there is a reason for this.

In person consultations are not free. Gas is not free and time is valuable. If you just want an assessment, there is a fee.

Just because your horse stands well for you to brush him and feed him treats does not necessarily mean he’s well behaved. If you have not trained him to have his feet handled it’s not the farriers job to do it. If he’s going to pull my back out and put me out of work and behind schedule for two weeks then I’m not going to wrestle with him, I’m going to dope him. Dope is $20 extra.

If you are not going to keep your horse on a schedule and are going to only call a farrier once they go lame or after they’ve gotten so long you are worried your neighbors are going to turn you in, it will cost extra if I can find a place in my schedule to work you in. I will not drop everything and shuffle regularly scheduled customers just because someone neglected their horses and now “need a farrier right now today “.

If I get your foundered horse on its feet again and then you proceed to neglect to have him regularly maintained or put him right back on grass to re-founder, I’m not going to waste my time.

Lots of people seem to think that farriers should be available at the spur of the moment, that our prices are negotiable. This is not true. It’s a highly skilled job. If you want to treat your farrier like a lawn boy, maybe you should see if your lawn boy wants to trim your horse.