Returning horses to health 🌾 natural boarding & hoofcare•French classical riding•horsemanship • EFL
What a find! 🔎 My friend and colleague Liesl from SAEFIA happened across this article I wrote many, many years ago 🐴🐴🐴🌾
Recognising and valuing the sovereignty of these beings (and all other beings!) remains my North Star to this day and forward…
💙🤎….amidst the colours of winter….🧡💛
Horses keeping close to the Yin…
Would that we keep sight of what the ACTUAL problems are, the ROOT CAUSES. 🐴🌿
“This issue is far greater than Helgstrand, Dujardin and all of those before them. And all of those who have yet to be found out.
They are a byproduct of the system as a whole, not the problem itself. They are merely a symptom of the sickness within.”
We’ve used the Tick and Fly Balm extensively. We were treated to quite an experience! …a heavenly scent, that lets the heart flow and the body settle, while providing a HUGE reduction of ticks, almost none to be found on our horses anymore in the height of summer.
That’s every bit as much as the normal chemical products have been able to do for us re ticks- with the bonus of NO poisons. Rather, so much goodness 🦄
Good morning 🌞❄️
Might be handy for the one or other horse.. 🐴
This is what it’s about 🐴🌾🐴🌾🌾🐴🐴 for us too. Every day, within and as part of the natural world that surrounds us.
The golden cage often built for a horse -
is still a cage.
Horses are so much more powerful and able than we give them credit and possibility for. We take away so much from them, when we wrap them in swaddling, rescuing them from the hardships of life. We separate them from the very nature that created them and which they are built for, that which matures and shapes them…and which they navigate very successfully as a herd 🐴🐴🌾
Declaration of InterdependenceWe invite you to breathe vital energy and restorative herd health into this Equus Independence Day - in honor of horses, mules,...
“Synchrony ~ Cohesion ~ Collision avoidance “
In the latest webinar I watched with Lucy Rees and Samantha Couper on Equine Ethology, Samantha made the point that there still isn’t really a workable theory in mainstream science that actually describes how horses organize socially - we know that “dominance theory” -that is to say, a linear hierarchy- does not describe wild horse behaviour. Horses in the wild have shown that they go to great lengths to avoid conflict where at all possible!
Lucy proposes what she calls the “predator escape” theory.
She describes - from her observations of herds that actually are living amongst predators- that in order to thrive (which requires successful predator evasion ☝️) horses show 3 key strategies in their daily lives that certainly serve to that end, if not only that end.
Horses naturally tend to “flock together”, to go towards each other- very obvious to see, if they feel uneasy for instance.
Then they “do what the others are doing” - run the way the others are going; or stand if the others are standing.
And “do not collide”- colliding would potentially mean death, since being on the ground when hunted means you’ll likely get caught.
Equine ethologists agree that cohesion and synchrony (“go towards the others” and “do what the others are doing”) are innate. Even the youngest foal exibits these behaviours.
But collision avoidance needs to be learned! 💥Foals are taught this from the first days of life by the other herd members -in no uncertain terms.
The implications that these concepts have for horsemanship are quite profound and interesting to explore 💡
Cohesion ~ Synchrony ~ Collision Avoidance - how might this show up in our horsemanship? 🐴🌾
This is a very real theme- that there is much struggle around.
We have been very deeply schooled to have a certain view of what “good condition” looks like.
And often times, we are actually dealing with obesity in these horses in “excellent condition”.
Many thanks here to the “hoof as barometer of health”- the horse can look as pleasing as one would like, but the signs are there to see in the hoof.
Perhaps the difficulty lies in how to keep a well muscled horse, rather than a fat horse- since feeding calories it super easy! You get that shiny, rounded look- and then you reckon, your horse is in tip top condition and health.
It is becoming clearer and clearer, that these horses are in fact subjected to accumulative health issues from obesity over years.
🐴🌾
Loved getting out into sandy bushveld that these guys call home 💙🐴💙!
Shared some info through the lens of SAEFIA - Consciousness, fundamentals coming out of neuroscience (Polyvagal Theory) as it relates to horsemanship, what “agency” and “communication” can feel and look like and how they influence a perception of safety (or the lack thereof)
….and my first love- healthy bare hooves -and a little intro on how I have learned to get horses there…
I would agree- it is a classic!
Official FB Page of Eponaquest Worldwide based on the work of international author, lecturer, facili
A couple of photos from our afternoon spent with Equines Facilitating Learning 🐴🌾😃
Co-regulation: a natural phenomenon
!Next workshop 26 May- The Gift of Boundaries!
"Our bodies know they belong; it is our minds that make our lives so homeless” John O’Donohue
🩵
"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you."
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Lovely afternoon of testing out where we’re at 🐴
And then a bit of brain 🍳 while we try work out how to fix up and improve what we have created 🤣💪🤓
Thank you ladies and gentlemen
1 May: our morning 🐴 many many thanks to Tasneem Dindar and Natalie Venter for coming into the space and being up to getting a little horse party going 🎉😃🤗
So easy to forget, just how special engaging in practice can be- for both horses and humans.
What does this have to do with horses..?
Everything.
… when will the horse industry at large come around to take responsibility for the generational pain and trauma inflicted on horses by this obsession with separating/isolating horses.. from their mothers, from their fathers, family groups and friends…
Goodnight from Kenya!
The orphans in our care never sleep alone. At the Nursery, the youngest babies bunk up with a dedicated Keeper, who provides care and comfort throughout the night. At Reintegration Units, older orphans graduate to communal sleeping arrangements. In the wild, baby elephants sleep surrounded by their herd. We try to replicate that experience for our little charges, while also ensuring they receive the oversight required.
Learn more about our pioneering Orphans’ Project, which has successfully raised more than 300 orphaned elephants to date:
sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/projects/orphans
Priceless 👌
Buck Brannaman has a lot of funny things to say about people and horses, these were two of my favourites at the recent Dallas clinic.
To someone with their horse in a tie down, (kind of like a standing martingale). 'Maybe by the time you come in here tomorrow you'll be so handy, you can take that thing off and give it to someone you don't like.'
Regarding the idea that good training will hold on a horse regardless of who buys it, 'When someone tells me they want a push button horse, I say you might as well buy yourself some fairy dust. You'll bring that horse down to your level in no time'.
You can't help but like the man.
🧐
Editor’s note: Horses, as well as humans, suffer from being in close proximity to wind turbines, strongly suggests a study performed last year at the School of Veterinary Medicine, Technical University, Lisbon, Portugal. The study was written up as a Master’s thesis, titled “Acquired flexural ...
This does indeed come up daily in my work- here with my own horses as well as with clients horses.
Before you even start, you’re having to take into account what a sprung pelvis might mean for your horse 😞
One client has just come full circle realizing that she is exhausted from trying to do right by her horse- who is physically, mentally and emotionally pretty ruined from the work he was subjected to in his younger years.
This echoes for many of us, and we simply cannot do all that would be needed.
So we have to find it within ourselves to part ways again with those horses…
And share the idea that perhaps slowing down and letting our horses grow and mature without undue demand may take us ALL further than we know right now…
Plot 48 Of Farm Nooitgedacht
Muldersdrift
1739
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Welcome Paulus! The arrival was a bit more tumultuous than Demi’s …all will be well ❤️✨
Welcome Demi- a new chapter of being Horse waits to be written 😊🐴🌾 #naturalhorsecare #herdlife
Much curiosity and exploration ☺️
Farm family morning adventure🐿🌾 # farmlife #naturalhorsecare
When Cobra had wiggled through the fence and grazed his way about 1,5km up the hillside- I thought I would just go fetch him by car, quicker than walking…halter is always in the box…
….when one is very busy fixating on capturing a 🐝….. the wider, wonderful and rather obvious is often often missed🤣 Happy Friday 🐴🐿🌾 #rewilding #naturalhorsecare
A peaceful Sunday morning 🐴🌾
#naturalhorsecare
Welcome to your new home Lady Wonder 🐴🌾🐿
Our old guy is not shy to have a spa day 🪷
While I’m hoping for the first beautiful summer rains to enliven that puddle- these teenagers are just having some straight forward muddy fun in the sun 🐴😂🐴 #naturalhorsecare #equinewellness
I went out with the horses this Saturday morning 🌾 Mostly so peaceful, birds calling all round, sound of munching horses.
Cobra -curious about the potential use of a broom ☺️🐴 #horseplay
Dinner time for the “wildlife” 🐴🐔🐭🐶 😋 Enjoy yours as much as they are theirs 🌾 #naturalhorsecare #naturalhoofcare #farmlife
Aaand: today’s version of “coming in from Sweethorn camp for dinner” 😂 Love it- giving it stick, even our beloved Golden Nugget of a mature 30 years, keeping up with the youngsters and their occasional need for speed ❕❗️❕ …if it seems like there’s a horse missing… there is. Cobra did some acrobatics through the paddock fences & is galloping along in a totally different camp 🤦♀️😂❣️
