Mental and Physical Health

Melissa and I have done several posts on the mechanics of transitioning horses to our set up when they first arrive at our farm. Today I’d like to come at this topic from a slightly different angle by talking about how the right physical settings can help adjust a horse’s mental state by minimizing stressors. This is particularly relevant for us as quite a number of horses that arrive here come with considerable mental and physical baggage. 

Like some people, some horses adapt to changes quite readily and are instantly happy in nearly any situation. Other horses don’t handle situations they perceive as stressful quite so well. Some horses may “voice” their distress with their current stressful situation in a number of fairly dramatic ways. This sometimes includes showing physical symptoms such as gas colic, ulcers, fussy eating and various stereotypical behaviours. 

Horses that arrive here with a history of physical symptoms partially or wholly caused by stress can take a year or more to fully transition into their groups. We are frequently told that the horse in question is IR (insulin resistant). I find it interesting that many of the horses that are described as IR are the ones who, whether it was obvious or not, struggled mentally in their prior living arrangements. Often they arrive with long lists of medications and supplements and pages of instructions on managing feeding and medicating to minimize symptoms. Believe me we take these notes very seriously when these sorts of horses first get off the trailer. As I tell all of our prospective clients we can have any problem at any time, but the most likely time for a problem that requires veterinary assistance is during the first several weeks of transition. 

One of the more dramatic symptoms that often presents itself in these situations is the unpredictable and sometimes rapid weight shifts that occur as the horse’s mental and physical conditions begin to stabilize. We have learned over time that rapid weight gains and losses during transitions with these sorts of horses are actually a good sign but it does not change the fact that everyone, including us, still finds them pretty stressful. The good news is that through the years after at least a hundred transitions we have never not have a horse come out happy and healthy on the other side.  However we have had a couple that we really wondered for awhile whether they were ever going to get there or not. 

There are countless stressors that can have an impact on horse health and it is beyond the scope of this blog to attempt to address them all in an adequate manner. It is also beyond the scope of this blog to identify all that we do to minimize stressors on our horses. However it’s the 80:20 rule writ large. There are a few stressors that are easy to identify and easy to correct. By solving them, we manage to eliminate most of our problems. In my opinion perhaps the biggest and most overlooked stressor in horses today is also the most obvious and that is boredom.  We address boredom and minimize a lot of other stressors by keeping our transition program simple and consistent, starting with the way we feed. 

Free choice, moderate quality pasture and hay actually addresses both physical and mental needs. Horses in the wild eat many small forage meals throughout the day and because they are prey animals they especially like to eat at night. Having forage in the guts all the time helps regulate acid production which has a lot of beneficial effects at controlling metabolic diseases AND ulcers. One of the things I tell clients with “ulcery” horses  confined to stalls is to boost the amount of forage (and reduce the quality if necessary to prevent weight gain) in their horses diet until he/she is refusing 5-10% of it. This is particularly important during the overnight hours as that is when horses really want to eat.

Having forage available all the time also eliminates the worry associated with not getting enough to eat and discourages bolting feed which can, at times, lead to impaction colics. Lots of forage also helps regulate acid production after grain feeding….important in horses with ulcers. Because so many of our horses are IR or Cushings we use a feed that is high in energy but fairly low in NSC, while being quite high in fibre. This also has an impact on reducing acid production which is good for ulcers and helps limit and control many other metabolic conditions. 

How we feed is also important. Everyone gets fed in feedbags on pasture. We soak all the feed and then add supplements and medications as necessary. Feeding in feed bags ensures that nobody can steal from one  another and at the same time we can treat, feed, supplement and medicate every horse as an individual. Because one of us stands with them in the pasture while they eat we get a real feel for their normal eating speed and eating behaviour. In addition to checking for injuries at every feeding, by standing with them it is easy to notice any off behaviors and other conditions at a very early and treatable stage; stuff that would get missed in any other feeding situation. 

Horses are very much wired to be a part of a herd and it is rare to find a horse that is truly happy when it perceives that it is alone. It has been our experience that having one or more companions to groom and play with ranks highest on most horse’s wish lists, whether or not they’ve ever shown signs of wanting friends before they arrived here. Strangely the hardest horses to transition, the ones with the most mental and physical problems are the ones that always end up becoming extremely herd bound. Along with grazing, playing and grooming take up a large amount of a horse’s day on this farm and this activity helps to keep them mentally alert which, conversely, also calms them.

While most horses do well in groups they also very much have a need for their own space. In rare instances introducing horses into a group in small paddocks where it’s not possible for them to have their own space separate from the group can create more problems than it solves. Groups work here because our pastures are big enough…20 acres or more…that horses can choose to interact with the group or with their own special friend(s) at will. They can always choose to have their own space whether that means being twenty feet from the group, two hundred feet from the group or sometimes a few thousand feet from the group. 

As the horses graze and play throughout their day they get an awful lot of low impact exercise. We have put pedometers on some of the horses and it is surprising how much they walk and run over the course of a 24 hour day. In addition to promoting a reasonable and healthy weight as well as overall fitness there is no doubt that continuous movement also greatly aids the digestive process in horses. Continual low impact movement also helps work off excess energy and is mentally calming for the horses. I say that because at times one or more horses will go from quietly grazing to exploding into a full gallop, do a lap or two (maybe equivalent to a mile or two) around the pasture and then immediately go back to quietly grazing. 

I would be remiss in this discussion if I did not quickly mention teeth and feet. This post is getting long and I won’t go into great detail here but it is truly surprising to see the poor state of both teeth and feet on many of the horses that get off the trailer on this farm. If the horse cannot eat comfortably and cannot walk comfortably everything else doesn’t matter very much. Melissa has done several posts on teeth and feet and we have probably said enough on these topics.

Melissa and I take what we do very seriously. We have learned over time that it is quite possible to feed a diet that is nutritionally adequate and correctly balanced while still struggling with an unthrifty, unhealthy horse. As we try to work through and make sense of what we are seeing we often wind up becoming more of a detective than anything else. I have listed some of the most common stressors we see and what we do to address them. I hope you can find some good in my post and I hope some of it is relevant to your situation. 

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Trigger and Moe

Tony and Hemi

Thomas, Levendi and Homer

I was pretty sure that was Maisie on the far left along with Cuffie and MyLight in the shed . . .

. . . but I had to zoom in and confirm I had the right bay mare. It was, indeed, Maisie napping hard.

Walden, Fabrizzio and Merlin were looking very alert

Griselle, Timbit and Miracle

Clayton was having the perfect afternoon, napping while Walon groomed on him

Leo, Trigger and Grand

Shod to Bare

I have written on this topic several times before but since it is a concern that never goes away I thought I would address it again. One of the most common concerns we hear about from horse owners is a lot of worry associated with removing the shoes. And they have good reason to worry, it has taken a highly skilled farrier working in conjunction with the vet to keep the horse serviceabley sound with shoes on. No wonder it gives people heart palpitations just thinking about taking those shoes off.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea I am not a barefoot nazi. At times, for very specific reasons, we have recommended that shoes be put back on one of our residents for anywhere from one to a few shoeing/trim cycles. However they have all managed to transition to being barefoot and comfortable while living on a soft grass pasture and  doing only self directed movement. If any of them were asked to return to work many would need shoes, although some I think would be just fine without.

We've learned a few things about this through the years. One, when you do pull the shoes, it is best to stretch the cycle out before pulling the shoes if you can. The extra growth will be very handy as it is inevitable that the hooves will chip off up to the nail holes. It doesn't matter how beautifully you roll and beval the edges, the chipping is going to happen sooner or later.

Two, for those that do get really sore at first boots are your friend. We have found through the years that when a horse needs boots they need boots with pads in them. We have quite a collection of easyboot epics in all sizes and we have pads that we cut to fit the boots (yoga mats work great for this).  I really like using the easyboot glue-ons with a pour-in pad even better than the epics. Most of the time the horses that need this extra help only need it for one cycle so the extra expense for the owner is short-lived.

a hoof outfitted with an easyboot glue-on with a pour-in pad

easyboot epics

Finally, our goal is not a pretty hoof, our goal is a functional hoof. Sometimes you get both in the same foot, but most of the time you don't. I find a lot of horse people really do not have any idea how to evaluate a hoof. They can see if the hoof wall has cracks or if the edges of the wall are ragged and need a trim. Other than that they often do not have any other criteria to judge a hoof, and as they are making their statements don't even bother to pick up the hoof in question and look at it from the bottom. I used to be squarely in this category myself, and looking back I now realize in the early years I made the transition out of shoes more complicated than it had to be for many of our retirees. I was determined to make the hooves pretty instead of simply allowing them to be functional.

Although we do have some very pretty and functional hooves walking around the farm, we have more that are varying degrees of ugly but highly functional. I've heard many times "his hoof wall looks dry and shelly" or "her hoof has a crack." Yes, you will see a lot of dry and shelly at our farm and what I call sand cracks (cracks that do not go all the way through the hoof wall).  Since most of the horses live outside24/7, and the stall boarders spend more time out than in, the hooves on our farm constantly go through the wet/dry cycle and we can do absolutely nothing about that. This summer has made for some particularly unattractive feet since we seem to be in a permanent wet cycle and the hooves are very soft. It is what it is and there is not a thing we can do about the weather and ground conditions except complain (and for those of you wondering Jason has that part well covered).

I could care less about shelly looking walls or little cracks. Without fail when you pick up that same hoof an owner is worried about and look at it from the bottom you see a very functional hoof. The vast majority of the horses have very weak hooves in the caudal (heel) area when they arrive and the shoes are removed. It is amazing to see how much stronger the hooves look after being barefoot for awhile. Not to mention the hoof in question is attached to a horse that used to be crippled at the mere thought of not having a shoe on it, and the horse is now galloping around the pasture with confidence. To me that should speak for itself - the hoof may not be pretty from the top but it is clearly much more functional than it has been in years.  However I cannot be too hard on anyone when it comes to pretty vs. functional hooves since it took me a long time and a lot of horses to finally have the lightbulb moment. My only defense is that sometimes I am simply a slow learner . . .

There is so much more I could talk about on this topic, I could easily write a novel, so I've tried to just hit some of the high notes. Hooves are fascinating to me, they are so vital to a horse and are constantly changing with their environment. I wonder what lightbulb moments I will have in the next several years when it comes to hooves, and horses in general. It is eye opening to realize I did not know how much I did not know, and I imagine in a few more years I'll be writing a similar type of post and wondering why I did not realize sooner all the things I will have finally learned. Horses tend to be very humbling like that. Or maybe I should say life tends to be very humbling like that.

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Donovan, Toledo and Kennedy having a group nap; Oskar and Stormy are grazing in the background

Clayton and Stormy on the move

Bergie clearly had a very good roll

George and Gibson grazing during one of our many rain showers

Lily and Maisie grooming while waiting for their turn with the farrier

Merlin, Fabrizzio and Walden

Lucky, Lightening and Thor

Hemi, Baby and Thomas

Benign Neglect

Benign neglect is one of many terms that many people use to describe the decision to turn a horse out for a period of time in the hopes that the end result is soundness.  Usually this decision is made only after exhaustive attempts have been made to return the horse to soundness. Usually some combination of the following has been done to unsuccessfully rehab a horse: stall rest, surgery of some type, joint injections, shockwave, PRP or IRAP, tildren, chiropractic care, therapeutic shoeing, use of a treadmill or aqua treadmill, very controlled under saddle work, every supplement under the sun, or any other of a number of things.  Eventually you run out of things to try, or maybe run out of hope, or are just plain tired of racking up large vet bills to continually be frustrated.  

Most vets recommend a year of turnout if all else has failed.  Some vets feel that certain aspects of the horse's program needs to be maintained during this time, usually the specific shoeing protocol, and other vets don't.  However for all of them the 12 month mark seems to be the magic time frame.  

Typically we first meet our clients when they retire a horse with us.  They get to know us through this process and realize that we really do provide actual care and the horses are not just running free with no human interaction on the back 40 somewhere.  At a later point if they have another horse that has been through a thorough yet unsuccessful rehab they will ask us if the horse can come live with us for a year of "Doctor Green."  As space allows we are happy to do this for our clients so at any given time we typically have a few horses living with us whose owners are hoping for a sound, rideable horse after a year or so.

Since the vet(s) involved almost always tell their clients that the 12 month mark is the magic time frame this tends to give the owner involved a skewed idea of what is going to happen during this time frame. In their minds if they look at the horse every couple of months they should see a gradual, linear improvement in soundness.

I've rarely seen it happen this way.  Usually what happens is the horse spends the first six months falling apart and regressing to some degree (sometimes a lot, sometimes a little) in soundness.  They've typically gone from stall rest to turnout which means their bodies have to adapt to continual low impact movement, they are not being propped up with joint injections, chiropractic care, massages, and anti-inflammatories, and the whole program is just plain different.  The horse's exercise and movement can no longer be carefully controlled anymore as they go about the business of being a horse in the pasture.  So we typically watch the horse go backwards during the first few months.  

After they finish what I call the falling apart phase then they start putting themselves back together.  However the putting together phase does not happen in a linear fashion either.  They will look a lot better, then seem to regress, then look a lot better, then maybe plateau for awhile.  Once this phase is over you hope their final plateau is because they have come sound.  

No matter how many times I tell people that you shouldn't even bother to evaluate the horse in the hopes of soundness until the 12 month mark no one ever listens  I completely understand why, because at this point they have a lot of time, money and emotional energy wrapped up in the whole process.  At the six month mark they are desperate to see how things are going because at this point their hope is that things should looking 50% better.  In my experience the horse is just wrapping up the falling apart phase but despite being warned of this the owner is understandably freaked out to see the horse looking worse instead of better.

Given that all of the horses we have watched go through this experience have been unsuccessfully treated for a long period of time by world class vets and farriers with the most current treatments available, the odds are certainly not high from the start that the process will be successful, and it is not always successful.  When it does work it is fantastic for all involved, especially since the owner was probably quite disheartened when, despite our recommendation not to, they just had to evaluate the horse at the six month mark (again we understand why they feel the need to evaluate).  

In our experience if the horse has not come sound by the 18 month mark then it probably is not going to happen at all.  My number one recommendation if you find yourself going the "just be a horse route" as a last ditch effort is don't torture yourself by constantly checking their soundness.  Decide what time frame you are comfortable giving the horse (and we do think a year is usually the minimum and 18-24 months the maximum) and then let things be.  The odds are good that if the horse does come sound the path it takes to get there will be curvy and random, not tidy and linear.  

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Griselle

Kennedy, Toledo, Johnny and Tiny

Rocky

Largo

Thomas and Chance

Lighty just realized he was all alone and was looking for his friends

once he spotted them he was off in a hurry

Lily and Cuffie 

Calimba, MyLight and Cinnamon

Norman and Traveller grooming and hanging out

Homer, Moe and Levendi

Apollo, Hemi and Thomas

Herd Dynamics - The New Horse

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about herd dynamics during introductions.  In that post I described the typical personality types we see from members of the existing herd.  We can't forget about the newcomers though and how they respond to being part of a new group. 

Some horses make the whole transition so easy it is like they haven't had a transition at all.  These horses can live with almost any group of horses and instantly make friends and become one of the gang.  The chargers don't intimidate and fluster them, they easily and quickly defer to the boss horse, and become instant BFF's with the greeters.  It is like they go out in the pasture, high five everybody, and they are an instant member of the group.  Introductions are officially over.  If only it could always be that easy! Horses with dominant personalities are usually easy as well.  They simply take charge of things and the others accept it with no issues.  However many horses fall in a more gray area. 

The horses that really give you the sleepless nights are the ones that are submissive to an extreme when finding their place in a group.  This often is because they lack social skills as they have not been turned out at all, or have only had solo turnout.  Sometimes it is because they simply need to be allowed to take whatever time they need to find their place in the group.  Even the greeters can intimidate these horses at first.  They are being so submissive that just having another horse who is being nothing but friendly trying to constantly be close to them and in their personal space worries them.  The chargers send them over the edge.  The most common response we see from the super submissive types is they go into stimulus overload and find a place in the pasture where they can hide from everyone.  

Several years ago this response would drive Jason and I around the bend.  We would freak out, start second guessing ourselves and generally have a meltdown.  We would pull the horse from the group.  Finally we got smart and noticed a pattern.  When we would go fetch the horse that was hiding in the pasture well away from the other horses and take them in the barn, the horse didn't act any happier in the barn than they did out in the pasture.  We thought we were "rescuing" them because they were clearly not happy (or so we thought) but we were totally misreading the situation. 

The horses did not want to be taken away, they would pace and call in the barn.  This made no sense to us that they would be hiding in the pasture, but when we took them away and put them in s "safe place" in a  stall to rescue them they were even more miserable.  Often they would call repeatedly to the very horses they were just hiding from.  These horses were not wanting to be separated, but what they did need was time to acclimate to the group at their own pace.  Sometimes we will put these horses in a paddock for awhile with a horse or two from their group, but most of the time leaving them with the group works best. 

Amazingly we found that if we just let things alone, usually within a few days the whole situation was completely different.  As in completely, totally different.  These horses would start integrating themselves into the herd dynamics at a pace they were comfortable with.  They would stay close to the group for awhile and then retreat for awhile.  The time they spent near the group would increase while the time they spent away decreased.  They learned that if they ignored the chargers then they stopped charging.

Often within 2-3 days they are totally past any group separation at all which is a pretty amazing change. Sometimes it has taken a couple of weeks to reach this point. Within a month or two they act like they have been part of the gang forever.  That is quite a dramatic change from hiding off in a corner of the pasture as far away as they can get from the other horses.  Often after they have been in the group for about six months they begin to move up dramatically in the pecking order and can actually become quite bossy. These horses, without fail, become the most herdbound horses.

It still amazes me that a horse that would skitter away from the hay or the water trough if another horse even looked in their direction, or better yet the horses that would not even approach the hay or water if another horse was nearby, can wind up being one of the bossier horses in the group.  However we've seen it happen many times.  Twice we have seen it where horses that were described to us as always being the bottom of the pecking order wind up being the boss horse in their group.  Of course they didn't start there, but six months or a year later there they are telling everyone what to do.  You have to allow these personalities the time to integrate at their own pace. 

Too many people want to react like Jason and I used to react:

"Get him out of there!!"
"He can't handle being with other horses, he is just too submissive."
"He's going to lose too much weight and I won't torture him like this."

In reality most of these horses aren't submissive at all, and even though we interpret their responses as being miserable they want to stay out with the others.  They do need to be allowed to take their time becoming part of the herd dynamics.  Have I mentioned they need to be allowed some time??

I'm glad Jason and I watched and learned.  It has helped us read these situations a lot more accurately.  I also need to mention two very important things:  One is we have very large pastures relative to the number of horses in them so a horse never has to feel - or be - trapped.  Point two is that our pastures have excellent grazing the majority of the year so the horses can eat to their heart's content without having to be in the middle of the group. I can't emphasize enough how important these two points are to the process.  Taking either of them out of the equation would present challenges that would be hard to overcome.

Like most things with horses it is impossible to predict exactly how any horse will react in a given situation.  We've learned to be patient and to do our best to interpret situations based on horse language and behavior and not human responses.  This is much easier said than done, especially for us!  However I think the results speak for themselves, and anyone who visits the farm finds nothing but happy, content and well adjusted horses.  Even the ones that gave us some sleepless nights at first.

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Lucky, O'Reilly and Noble

Johnny watching me from the woods (Wiz behind him)

Homer and Levendi

Lotus, Faune, Winston and Titan

Asterik and George

Renny and Fuzzy

Darby, B-Rad and Lighty

Tiny, Johnny and Rampal

Herd Dynamics During Introductions

Transitioning new horses into a group is always an event that owners worry about. We stress over it as well although for different reasons. The owners worry about the social aspects while we worry about someone getting hurt. Through the year and with a lot of horses we've never actually had an injury happen during group introductions but you never know when the streak will end. We are talking about horses after all.

When introducing horses to a group the concept that he horses have reinforced to us repeatedly through the years is introducing a horse into a small group has the potential for a lot more drama than introducing a horse to a large group. The dynamics I like the least are introducing a third horse to a group of two, or a fourth horse to a group of three. It is almost guaranteed big drama for awhile because the herd dynamics are being changed so drastically. I'm not saying always and never here, obviously sometimes introducing a third horse is super easy, but if I'm strictly looking at the odds I'm going to be a lot more nervous about the small group introductions.

On the other hand we find that the easiest introductions are with a larger group. For as playful, active and rowdy as the Big Boys can be at times they are, without question, the easiest group on our farm for a new resident to join. Why is that? Because they function in a manner that comes a lot closer to resembling a true herd dynamic than a small group of 2,3 or 4 horses. When we've had occasion to introduce a new guy to the Big Boys the drama usually lasts about 3 minutes. There is some nose sniffing and squealing, but everyone doesn't even bother to participate. They lift their heads to see what is going on and then flick an ear as if shrugging and saying "oh it's just some horse, not all that interesting," and go back to what they were doing. The net effects on the herd dynamic is minimal with them so the drama tends to be minimal as well.

When we introduce new horses the existing members of the group typically respond to the new horse in one of four ways:

-The "chargers" are the ones who tend to dart aggressively towards a newcomer in an effort to run them off. They are acting like a kid on the playground saying "these are MY friends and you can't have them." Charging does not come out of dominance but because they are insecure. Some of the chargers are more serious about it than others. We've got our own form of profiling going on around here as the chargers typically have a common background. They are the ones that usually had very minimal or no turnout prior to living with us. The more serious chargers are usually the horses that had limited turnout and hadn't been turned out with other horses in a long time. They are extremely possessive of their friends and are still insecure about keeping them. Usually the chargers only stay this way for a couple of years. After a couple of years these horses typically move out of the charger group and into one of the other groups. The chargers also tend to be the most strongly herdbound horses.

-Then we have the "greeters." These are the horses that never miss any of the action, be it running and playing or meeting a new horse. There is nothing aggressive or negative about their response to a new horse. They just view the newcomer as an instant friend and want to get to know them and become best friends immediately. New horses usually latch onto a greeter for obvious reasons for the first day or two while they get to know everyone and then they start to branch out. I've yet to see the top horse in the pecking order be a greeter. They are friendly enough once their superiority is established but not in the same way as a true greeter.

-The "indifferents" are pretty self explanatory. They don't feel the need to be a charger, nor do they feel the need to have a meet and greet session with a newcomer. Their response to a new horse is basically neutral. After the first day or so of sticking closely with the greeters new horses often like to pair up with one of the indifferents for awhile. It is a low stress horse for them to be around as they aren't being pressured to interact constantly by a greeter and it lets them step back and take things in for awhile in a more neutral relationship.

-Finally we have the "boss" horses. These horses may also be a greeter or indifferent, but it is also very important to them that a newcomer understand that they have the power. Boss horses are not chargers, they aren't insecure like the chargers. Once the newcomer acknowledges their high ranking in the group they drop it quickly and move onto being indifferent or a modified version of a greeter.

Next I was going to write about how the newcomers to the group tend to act but I'm out of time for now so it will have to wait until another post!

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I took this picture in the Big Boy's pasture. From where this picture was taken I was a mile from the road. The run-in shed to the left is where Rampal, Clayton, Rocky and friends live. The run-in shed in the middle is for the Big Boys, and the shed to the far right is where the mares, Norman and Cuffie live.

Leo, Grand and Chance

Faune and Gus grooming each other

Hemi, Thomas and Tony

Dutch and Wiz

Gus and George having a grooming session

Johnny and Sam

Transitioning to Retirement

Over the last few years of living on a retirement farm a few common themes have emerged. When horses first arrive their owners are typically very worried about the same thing. Without question the two most common concerns are transitioning out of shoes and transitioning to living out 24/7. We have some stall boarders here but even the stall boarders are out of their stalls more than they are in them, which in my opinion is the right way to do stall board. Coming in at a close third place on the list of worries is their horse being integrated into a group for turnout.

I've touched on the hoof issue a lot in previous posts so I won't dwell on it here. Transitioning out of shoes does not make *our* list of things to worry about. Don't get me wrong, more often than not the feet are a mess and the horse has been following a very specific therapeutic shoeing protocol. The owner has good reason to be concerned because they have a vet and a farrier, and usually a trainer as well, telling them that without *this* shoeing package things will be ugly for the horse.

This is one area where years of experience are on our side. We've successfully and comfortably transitioned lots of horses out of shoes. Horses with navicular, horses who have foundered, have pedal osteitis, club feet, underrun heels, sheared heals, ringbone . . . you get the idea. I will say again many of these horses would need to be shod in order to stand up to the rigors of routine work, but for being a retired horse on soft turf they are more than fine. In fact over time, as I've said many times before, soundness *always* improves. We also have the good fortune of working with a gifted farrier who has a true talent and feel for transitioning a horse out of shoes. This is a *very* rare person to find. With some horses we use boots, sometimes along with pour-in pads, for anywhere from one to a few trim cycles before going completely bare. For a topic that causes so much stress for the owners it would be one that we worry about the least!

Another common area of concern is the worry that their horse loves to be in their stall. I do not question this either. In most typical boarding set-ups the barn is where good stuff happens. With the best thing being they get fed. Food is number one on a horse's list of needs to feel comfortable and happy. If food comes from the barn then the barn is where they want to be. The barn is where most of the other horses are at any given time. Since horses are herd animals and need to feel part of a group the barn is filling that role as well.

We've transitioned some hard core fence runners to loving 24/7 turnout. The funny thing with these horses is they tend to still be all or nothing type personalities. Except they switch from running the fence wanting to come in to pacing, pawing, stomping, stall walking (or spinning!), wall kicking, screaming and other type behaviors to let us know they are demanding to go back outside. The caveat here is *compatible* groups that are turned out on large acreage relative to group size with free access to forage (grass or hay) for all of the horses.

Third on the top list of concerns is transitioning into a group. Believe it or not in our experience the larger the group size the easier this is to accomplish. The smaller the group the more drama there is, because the relative effect on herd dynamics is a lot bigger. The Big Boys, our big group of active, rowdy geldings, is by far the easiest group for a new horse to acclimate too. There is minimal drama, in fact I would go so far as to say no drama most of the time, when there is a change in this group. They have a true herd dynamic in their group. On the other hand when we introduce a horse into a group size of about 5 horses or less the drama level is high and the process takes a lot longer.

I can't tell you how often we've heard that the vet thinks their horse should be turned out with 1 or maybe 2 other horses. The vet thinks that the horse will be too active in a larger group and exacerbate whatever soundness issue led to retirement. In our experience we have yet to see this be an accurate statement. Prior to essentially making my living dealing with herd dynamics I would have agreed with this perspective. Several years of managing herd dynamics later I've changed my opinion. Obviously you need to pick the right group for the horse, pairing appropriate horses together based on personality, activity level and age. Again since we have multiple groups to choose from we have an advantage here.

I often hear people talking about turning out their elderly horse with their young horse. "It keeps them young" is the common statement. For some elderly horses I agree with this, it does keep them young, and we have a couple of groups that are a mix of old and young. However for some elderly horses it doesn't keep them young but instead makes them old. They don't like having to constantly defend themselves because they aren't as nimble as they used to be or they don't want to play and get tired of being harassed. This makes the horse feel insecure at best. Or maybe the scenario changes and what used to keep the horse young is now making him old, and at this point it is time to change groups and we've made this change a few times as the need has arisen.

Well, I feel like I've been preaching from my soapbox the whole time I've been typing this post so I think it is time to step down. We don't have all the answers or the key to the universe even though I've made it sound like we do. I should probably go back and edit the tone of this but it is late and I just don't feel like it. :) However we do have a lot of experience in transitioning horses out of shoes, out of stalls, and introducing them to groups. Hopefully it might be helpful to someone!

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MyLight and Cuffie were frisky today; Maisie thought about joining but she opted for watching along with some head tossing for good measure

Stormy and KennedyGus getting up from a roll with Faune nearby

Faune decided to roll too

then Winston decided that rolling seemed like a fine idea
Rampal and Kennedy
Darby, Alex and B-Rad
Alex
Dutch and Wiz
Sebastian
I tried to capture Johnny and Rampal grazing in the afternoon sun; it didn't work out so well
Harmony, Cuffie and MyLight