Murder Hollow

02/15/2025

Love getting updates on Murder Hollow babies all grown up! Especially Valentines 💘

Pictured is one of our Knabstrupper babies, Takoda MHF who is lovingly owned by Rene Wertheimer!

Definitely one kissable 😘 nose right there!

02/14/2025

Chorion is red, allantois is blue, here's a placenta heart just for you! Happy Valentine's Day to all our breeder friends lol 🤪💘

02/13/2025

Excellent article on the benefits of increased turnout 👏 👏

Equine surgeon Dr. Larry Bramlage says the type and length of turnout a horse gets when healing makes a crucial difference: https://bit.ly/4gpsMnT

02/12/2025

💘 AVAILABLE NOW JUST IN TIME FOR YOUR VALENTINE 💌

I have been delayed on posting what foals are available...life has been a bit hectic! But...for those looking for a last minute Valentine's Day gift, the timing is PERFECT 😂!

We have TWO lovely 2024 foals available from PROVEN lines. Extended payment options and weanling board are available.

🐴 Pallido Blu x Winter Willow (Sambertino/De Niro)
Flashy tobiano/pinto Main Book German Warmblood c**t out of 17h Premium Oldenburg mare, Winter Willow. Willow was bred in the UK and imported for dressage and eventing. Willow’s sire, Sambertino, had a successful performance career in Holland, Germany, and the UK. Sambertino is also one of only two tobiano Warmbloods to have gone through the 100-day stallion licensing in the UK, where he received a 10 for temperament and a 10 for attitude to work. Willow’s maternal grandsire, De Niro, is a legendary sire, known as one of the World’s Best Dressage Stallions, having ranked #1 on the WBFSH Dressage Sire Ranking for five years.

The sire, Pallido Blu, is a 70-day tested stallion known for producing athletic and well-tempered offspring. Pallido scored a perfect 10 for character, 9.5 for constitution, and 9’s for temperament and willingness to work. We have loved our Pallido Blu offspring as they have all shown solid, well-balanced gaits and temperaments suited for a variety of disciplines.

🐴 Pax Asgard af Pegasus x High Fashion (Hohenstein)
Exceptional Main Book Knabstrupper filly (can also be passported KWPN A Book). High Fashion, the dam of this lovely filly, boasts a prestigious show record as a Hanoverian mare, demonstrating her excellence from a young age with notable achievements such as placing 1st in the KDA Breeder's Classic and later clinching the Champion title at NCDCTA. With a foundation in correct dressage training and three impeccable gaits, High Fashion's most charming trait is her exceptionally gentle nature—a testament to her impressive lineage. Wajona, High Fashion's dam, was a Staatsprämie mare from proven dressage champions. Her sire, Wolkenstein, a accomplished Weltmeyer offspring, was known for his impeccable character, outstanding performance, and versatility in both dressage and jumping disciplines.

On the sire's side, Pax Asgard af Pegasus needs no formal introduction. Known for adding a touch of color along with his kind and cooperative demeanor, Pax has made his mark in the competition circuit, showcasing his talents in both dressage and now in the hunter/jumper arena.

Take a deep dive into our breeding and raising philosophy at:
https://www.murderhollow.com/ourbreedingraisingphilosophy

Extended payment options and weanling board are available.
💖🐴💖🐴

02/11/2025

Anxiety Cheese or Sleepless Crackers

What’s yours 🤔

02/11/2025

Love getting updates on our Murder Hollow bred babies!!!

Puff 🐉 is looking like he’s going to be a natural! 😘

02/06/2025

Making breeding plans this year with gummy bears 😜

02/06/2025

SPOTS AND SKIS 🎿🖤🤍🖤

Skijoring memories ⛷️ 🐎

Not enough snow this year but winter isn’t over yet!

02/05/2025

GET READY FOR SPRING, FRIENDS!

01/31/2025

😆 I feel so personally attacked.

01/31/2025

Golden Wasabi MHF ❤️

Owned by Ava Babnick. Can’t wait to see what the future holds for these two. Wasabi has remained in tact and will hopefully head to stallion licensing once he is of age!

01/31/2025

Sharing as this is super helpful information for those with horses battling f***l water syndrome (FWS)! Thanks Jim the Feed Guy for always sharing helpful information 😘

I have addressed this problem so many times in the field and in my group that I still don’t quite know why it has taken so long to actually do a short article on F***l Water Syndrome aka “FWS”.

FWS typically presents in horses as an excessive amount of thin brown liquid being ejected from a horse’s a**s. This is different from diarrhea because it doesn’t have any f***l matter contained in the liquid. The horse’s manure may be on the soft side or may be perfectly formed.

In most cases FWS isn’t debilitating to the horse but it is messy and can coat their butts and legs with nasty smelling and irritating liquid. It is especially difficult during the cold winter months as you can see from the photo I used. The fluid clumps on fur and freezes while the cold temperatures make it difficult if not impossible to clean.

Obviously FWS is a gastro-intestinal issue but most owners miss the mark when treating FWS. Owners will throw expensive supplements at the problem and the symptoms will persist. I know this from personal experience with my mare, Flair. That poor mare had about 32 different supplements thrown at her and nothing worked.

Probiotics, prebiotics, biosponge, ulcer treatments, gut supplements and anything else I tried wouldn’t clear it up. Nothing ever even slowed it down.

Then while attending an equine nutrition clinic I was having a cocktail with one of the more well known equine nutrition PhDs and I mentioned my frustration to her. Of course she had the answer!

Just so everyone knows, it’s not that I’m really smart but I hang out with really smart people!

In the overwhelming majority of cases FWS is being caused by a mild case of a condition known as Right Dorsal Colitis. I got the full monty clinical explanation, and as I would do in any conversation with an extremely bright, lovely woman who is twenty years younger I sat at the edge of my chair in rapt attention while understanding none of it but all I needed to know was that it is a condition similar to Irritable Bowel Syndrome in humans.

IBS is something that most people in my age range (somewhere between classic and Jurassic) are familiar with. The cure for both conditions is simple: add easily digestible fiber. I began taking a tablespoon of psyllium each day and my IBS cleared up almost immediately.

Right Dorsal Colitis can become very serious and require clinical intervention in some cases. In severe cases FWS is accompanied by lethargy, weight loss, lack of appetite and colic. I am NOT a vet so you should discuss any concerns that you have with your vet and follow their treatment advice.

Many times RDC is caused by coarse hay. Mature, coarse hay is very high in fiber and can be difficult to process in the gut causing some inflammation resulting in the watery fountain of stench emanating from your horse’s butt.

My own experience with FWS is very much like what I hear from others. The FWS shows up in the fall when the horses are off grass and on hay. Whenever I get different hay. My horses are both easy keepers and metabolic so I feed mostly very mature low NSC grass hay ensuring that I am dealing with FWS for most of the year. Quite often you will find that it is worse during the winter and the simple explanation is that they are eating more hay which attenuates the problem.

The dietary treatment for both conditions is to replace some (or all) of the forage with a complete feed enabling the gut to recover by offering some easily digestible fiber.

You can also try using some psyllium but it’s expensive and it typically requires a large dose.

My personal go to and the advice that I have offered to hundreds of people as a first treatment is to simply add a pound of hay stretcher pellets per day to the horse’s normal diet and this usually clears it up. If the FWS doesn’t clear up in a few days I increase it to two pounds per day.

Any genuine complete feed will work as long as the crude fiber is over 20% and the fat level is low. I typically choose to use hay stretcher because it is very high in fiber, usually over 25% and it is not heavily fortified nor high in calories so I don’t really need to make huge adjustments in their diets. I simply toss a cup or two on top of their normal ration and call it a day.

For a 1,000 pound horse two pounds per day should offer relief of the symptoms but if two pounds of hay stretcher doesn’t change things it’s probably time to try something else and at this point all bets are off. Psyllium would be my next step along with a gut supplement.

It is almost never a lack of probiotics unless the horse had recently been on a course of antibiotics.

The long term solution is to feed better hay. If you can find some nice, soft second cutting grass hay it would go a long way towards drying things up.

There are a number of downsides to feeding better hay. Cost and availability are at the top of the list. Then there’s the horse. Second cutting hay isn’t the best choice for easy keepers or insulin resistant horses so this option has its limits.

Many times FWS is linked to insulin resistant horses as a sure sign that they are insulin resistant. The conditions are not related except that most IR horses are on j***y, low starch, low calorie hay.

Please allow me to head off the naysayers and negative comments. This is not by any means a sure fire cure for FWS. It is, however, a very inexpensive treatment as a first go to attempt and it does work in most cases. If not, then try all the whiz bang supplements that probably won’t work either.

In short, if you have a horse with a squirty butt go buy a bag of cheap hay stretcher pellets and run some through the horse. If it works, you got off cheap, if not at least you know something that isn’t going to work.

As a final reminder and a more serious tone, if the FWS persists and the hay stretcher doesn’t work I would strongly encourage you to please consult your veterinarian and have all the appropriate diagnostics done.

Thank you for reading this article.

I am retired and write blog articles to try to make horse owner's lives easier and horse's lives better.

If you found this article to be helpful my horses would be very grateful if you would consider buying some hay for them by going to:

https://buymeacoffee.com/jimthefeedguy

Of course your contributions are not required, nor expected but all are very much appreciated.

Cheers!

01/25/2025

CAPTION THIS - What could these two be discussing?

“Meeting of the minds” 🧠

Freddy, our miniature homozygous fewspot stallion, discusses business with Togo, our homozygous fewspot Knabstrupper stallion 🤪.

01/24/2025

There is nothing better than seeing the product of our program out and about!

Here is another photograph of Maryalice Belluscio’s two beautiful MHF babies!

Left: Phoenix Fantasy MHF aka Phil 👑
Right: Superstition MHF aka Puff 🐉

We take great pride in producing wonderful, amateur friendly, yet talented horses 🙌. With a splash of color 🎨!

01/17/2025

2025 is going to be an amazing year...and I want to put out feelers for the perfect job...so reaching out to all of you to see what might be out there 👀

I obviously have a passion for horses and have always kept a full time job in another industry but I'm thinking its time to combine my passion and work...

I've spent the last 6 years in high-net worth wealth management - I've lead the sales lifecycle including conducting market research and competitive intelligence all the way through to deal negotiation and client retention. In this role I've managed high level client events, sponsorships and educational programs. I've also handled marketing and business development strategies, overseeing client retention efforts, and spearheading brand growth initiatives within the our market.

Prior to my career in wealth management, I spent over a decade in the apparel manufacturing & wholesale industry.

So if my friends on our page know of any interesting opportunities please let me know! I'm in commuting distance to Philadelphia or New York :)

01/16/2025

So excited to share some photos of the stunning Stradivarius MHF! Strad is by Pax Asgard af Pegasus and out of our Olympic producing mare, Cholin. Strad is 3 this year and I can’t wait to see what he accomplishes under the wonderful ownership of Abby Taylor! 🤩🤩🤩

We have a select group of 2025 in utero foals available for purchase - and 2 2024 foals. If you’ve been wanting a Murder Hollow baby, now is the time 😉.

01/16/2025

Tortuga 🫶