I’m definitely embarrassed that it’s been three years since I last posted anything, but, in my defense, it’s been a very busy time with a lot of exciting changes! Since that last update, we’ve taught several hoof care clinics, done a number of presentations for veterinarians and chiropractic doctors at the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association‘s annual conferences, recorded video classes for the International Veterinary Chiropractic Association‘s first-ever virtual conference, were interviewed for a couple more White Stallion Ranch Cowboy Up! podcasts, and become regular consultants to a major zoo regarding the hoof care of their ungulates (mostly giraffes). And those are just the highlights!
But the most exciting news of all is our establishment of Enlightened Equine Workshops, with our flagship offering being the Hoof Care for Horse Owners Workshop — a four-day workshop aimed at the horse owner, hoof care professional, and other equine-related professionals who want to better understand the why of hoof function & form from a whole-horse perspective. Held at the White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, Arizona, this Workshop consists of morning lectures on hoof care theory, anatomy, trim evaluation, boot fitting, hoof pathologies, and a whole host of other topics. Afternoons are reserved for trim practicums using cadaver legs, combined with a number of demonstrations including horseshoe removal, leg & hoof dissection, and tool sharpening, plus live training and trimming demonstrations — all in all, the most comprehensive Workshop offering we could envision. You can see the Workshop schedule here. Note that we limit new student enrollment to a maximum of twelve (12) to ensure adequate one-on-one time in the practicums.
And there’s more news as well! For the past several months, we’ve been working on putting a hoof care certification program together: coming up with the format of the program, contacting various subject experts to teach some of the more advanced topics classes, figuring out the best way to tie it into our existing Hoof Care for Horse Owners Workshop — all the things you’d imagine would be involved in creating a high-quality, comprehensive hoof care education program. What we’ve come up with is a three-level certification program model structured after the bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and doctorate degree concept. That’s to say that the first level is the foundation level, where the student learns all of the basics of hoof care; the second level is the specialization level, where the emphasis is on a deeper understanding of hoof care principles; and the third level is a research-oriented education where the student pursues research into a particular area of interest in hoof care.
We’re confident this certification program will set a new standard in hoof care education. It focuses on the whole-horse aspects of hoof care, with the goal of producing the highest-caliber hoof care professionals, and is intended to be an affordable alternative to more traditional methods of learning hoof care while setting and maintaining strict quality standards. It will be taught by industry-acknowledged experts, with all first-level content delivered in-person. And all in-person classes will be held at the award-winning White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, Arizona, which is a fantastic facility with absolutely everything we need to ensure a convenient, comfortable, and safe learning experience.
The certification program starting point is the Hoof Care for Horse Owners Workshop, and we’ve already added a day to the May workshop schedule called the Advanced Practices Day: Core Classes. Although this six-class day will be a requirement for those seeking certification, it’s open to everyone. Topics covered will be: Trimming the Laminitic Horse, Understanding Navicular Disease, Basics of Equine Behavior, Equine Lameness Identification, Equine Foot Radiography, and Fundamentals of Equine Nutrition. These are the subjects we believe to be absolutely crucial to the success of the professional hoof care provider.
We’ve also established an Enlightened Equine Workshops YouTube channel, and created twenty (20) brief videos (so far!) covering a number of topics, with more to come. Check them out.
Thanks for listening! My goals for the Enlightened Equine blog for the next few months include updating the entire site to make it more mobile device-friendly, and providing more content on some key hoof care issues I’ve started writing about but not yet finished. And if you’re truly interested in understanding the details of proper hoof care, consider joining us in Tucson for one of our Workshops; I guarantee you won’t regret it! And if you have any questions, please be sure to let us know…
Without a doubt, COVID-19 has slowed down – or stopped dead in their tracks – many of my typical chances to “spread the word” about proper hoof care these past two years. From cancelled local speaking engagements and university classes to national conferences, it’s definitely been much quieter than usual. But fortunately, the latter part of last year turned out to more than make up for many of the absent events, and 2022 promises to be even better!
In late September, Liberated Horsemanship held its most successful Gateway Clinic to date. Evenly divided between new and returning participants, they all tackled the 5 days of lectures and 167 cadaver legs at the award-winning White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, AZ. Beautiful scenery, first-rate accommodations, food, and amenities, and an ever-helpful staff – what an absolutely perfect clinic location, which is why we’ll be back!
In mid-November, Dora and I were presenters at the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association‘s national conference in Albuquerque, NM. This professional organization is comprised of veterinarians and doctors of human chiropractic medicine who’ve received further education in animal chiropractic. I did a 2-hour presentation entitled “Equine Hoof Imbalances and Their Whole-Body Implications” on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday, Dora and I had the opportunity to lead three laboratory sessions where Dora trimmed horses while I explained what and why we do what we do. All three sessions were well-attended, with excellent questions from the doctors, and it was great to see the obvious improvement in movement in all three of the horses Dora trimmed! This was my second time presenting at the AVCA’s national conference, and we look forward to a long relationship with this group. More on that subject later.
As is often the case, we had a Christmas holiday at the White Stallion Ranch where an unusual opportunity to speak happened to present itself. Russell True, one of the ranch owners whom I’ve known since 2000, does a regular podcast with author and retired rancher H. Alan Day (brother and biographer of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) entitled “The Cowboy Up Podcast”, and asked me if I’d be willing to be interviewed about natural hoof care on their podcast! And so the three of us sat for about an hour discussing hoof care as well as some of my “past lives,” as I like to call them. You can listen to the podcast here.
On to 2022…
The Equine Affaire will return to Columbus, OH this April 7th – 10th, and yours truly has once again been asked to do a couple of presentations. The lecture is entitled “Cause & Effect in Equine Hoof Form: The Correlation between Hoof Shape, Conformation, and Movement,” during which I’ll discuss how proper hoof form is – or should be, if your hoof care provider is doing his/her job properly – the consequence of conformation and movement, and not the other way around. Dora and I will also be doing a hoof boot fitting demonstration, where we’ll show how to properly measure a hoof to get the best boot fit possible. Unfortunately, I don’t yet know when these presentations will be scheduled; the contracts arrived just this week! So stay tuned…
The very exciting news is that the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association (AVCA) has approved Liberated Horsemanship as a Continuing Education provider, which means we’ll now be sharing our knowledge directly with veterinarians and animal chiropractors from around the country on a regular basis! Our first vet/chiropractor-only event will be held this October at the White Stallion Ranch, and will focus on the inseparable connection between hoof and body health. If you believe your veterinarian or certified animal chiropractor would benefit from a more in-depth knowledge of equine hoof health and disease (and who wouldn’t?), and how they affect the entire horse’s well-being, please help us spread the word. You can read more about the 4-day clinic here.
And, Liberated Horsemanship will also be returning to the White Stallion Ranch to hold our 5-day 2022 International Gateway Clinic. As I mentioned above, last year’s clinic at the Ranch was an enormous success, and we hope to have as many participants this year for this absolutely unparalleled event in the world of hoof care education. Registration is now officially open and space is limited, so register soon!
Meanwhile, the introduction of my new Hoof Boot Fitting Gauge has been going well. I keep trying to find the time to finish up the “official” Enlightened Equine Products website, but life seems to have a way of foiling my attempts thus far. Also, I’ve completely redone the product ordering process to incorporate the shipping costs at checkout, thus fixing an issue that’s plagued me (and some of you as well!) since I first began selling Heel Balance Gauges several years ago. You can find the new order page here. And note the current special I’m offering: a white boot gauge, a Hairline Angle Gauge (for Scoot Boot fitting), access to the web-based Hoof Boot Fitting Calculator (FlexBoots and Swiss Galoppers to be added soon), and a Carrying Bag with your or your company’s name on it – all for $115! If you’re a hoof care professional, this device is sure to save you considerable time and frustration when it comes to fitting boots.
There’s no doubt COVID-19 has impacted all of our lives, and Liberated Horsemanship has certainly been no exception. So when we started planning for our annual U.S. and U.K. Gateway Clinics for 2021, it became apparent we were going to have to make some changes — particularly in venues.
Enter the White Stallion Ranch. This award-winning, family-owned-and-operated guest ranch in Tucson, Arizona has been my “home away from home” vacation spot since 2000, and I’m extremely grateful to them for working closely with us to arrange special rates and accommodations so we can hold what will almost certainly be our only 2021 clinic offering – either here or abroad – at their amazing facility! And while the clinic schedule won’t allow us time to enjoy all of the ranch’s wonderful activities, we’ve arranged to have a slow mountain ride so everyone can experience the beauty of the Sonoran Desert from the back of a horse. Plus, we will have full access to all of the ranch’s incredible meals (special dietary needs accommodated) and their many and varied activities (heated pool, evening entertainment, recreation room, bar, fitness center, movie theater, and many more), all set against the backdrop of the most diverse of the U.S. deserts and home to the giant saguaro cacti that have come to symbolize the American West.
The clinic instructors will once again be Dr. Bruce Nock, Ann Corso, and myself (you can read a bit more about the various instructors’ credentials here), plus my wife Dora (Field Instructor, Certified Hoof Care Professional, and Licensed Straightness Training Instructor) will be joining us to provide support and translation assistance to any German-speaking attendees.
Make no mistake: If you’re serious about learning proper hoof care — as a career, as a horse owner interested in trimming his/her own horse’s hooves, or as a horse owner or zoo animal hoofstock handler who wants to be able to understand and recognize what constitutes correct hoof care and why — this is definitely the clinic for you. You’ll be learning from professional educators (not just “people who trim hooves”) with over 60 years of combined hoof care experience, and well over (dare I say it?) 100 years of combined experience as educators. This clinic has been attended by people from over 20 countries, and is constantly being updated. You’ll not only learn trimming theory, and spend lots of time honing your skills on cadaver hoof trimming, but you’ll also study all of the other management issues that affect the hoof form and function of all hooved animals: nutrition, environment, social setting, etc. And — especially important at a time when there is so much incorrect and unscientific information about hoof care available — we’ll discuss other trimming “philosophies” and their issues to help you sort out fact from fiction. You can check out a typical clinic schedule here.
One final and important note about the clinic itself: Liberated Horsemanship has always allowed anyone who has previously attended a Gateway Clinic to attend any future clinic offering — no matter where — for only our actual costs. In other words, once you’ve attended a clinic you’re welcome back any time for nothing more than what we have to spend to house and feed you. In my mind, this is an extremely valuable bonus; as I’ve mentioned, we’re constantly updating our material, and this gives you a low-cost opportunity to keep your skill set current and enjoy the company of other like-minded people!
So give some serious thought to joining us this September in Arizona; I guarantee you won’t regret it…
For several years now, I’ve wanted to give my Austrian-born wife Dora the opportunity to answer some questions about her work as a licensed Straightness Training Instructor and certified natural hoof care professional, and her thoughts about the relationship between the two. Not, mind you, because she’s my wife, but because I daily witness the amazing work she does with horses, and recognize she has a great deal to offer the horse world.
Straightness Training, for those of you who may not be familiar with it, is a method of training that embraces the idea that the role of horse training is to acknowledge and address both natural and human-created asymmetries in the horse’s body and consequent movement to slowly and methodically bring the horse’s body into balance. It also recognizes that the goal of classical dressage wasn’t to win pretty ribbons at the local horse show, but to have a horse so athletically and mentally fit that it could successfully perform the high-level dressage movements as preparation for mounted warfare. Extensive study of the works of the old riding masters of dressage such as Pluvinel, Guérinière, and Baucher led Dutch-born founder Marijke de Jong to develop a system of unmounted and mounted exercises designed to strengthen and supple the horse’s body and create a strong, willing partner for whatever discipline you may be interested in. And it works!
Dora also studied natural hoof care with Liberated Horsemanship (which is how we met), and continued on to become a Certified Natural Hoof Care Professional and Field Instructor. And she’s noticed a strong connection between the results of her work in Straightness Training and her hoof care, which is one of the topics we’ll explore with her in our upcoming interview. So please join us for this Facebook Live Event, and bring your questions! And meanwhile, if you’d like to read more about Dora prior to the interview, you can learn more on her website.
Now that we’ve examined the caloric impacts of forage and processed feeds on the horse’s diet in Part 1 and Part 2, respectively, let’s take a look at what happens when grass pasture is added to the mix.
According to Dairy One‘s data, “pure” grass pasture has a Digestible Energy of 911 calories per pound with a Standard Deviation of 171 calories, based on 8,436 samples, while mixed, mostly grass pasture (MMG) has a DE of 962 calories with a S.D. of 127 calories, based on 18,544 samples. That translates to 95% of grass pasture having a DE value between 569 and 1,253 calories, while 95% of mixed grass pasture has a DE content between 708 and 1,216 calories. Why so much variation? Because so many factors affect the amount of sugar in, and therefore the calorie content of, grass. Time of day, time of year, amount of moisture, amount of sunlight, temperature – all these and more influence sugar content.
Attempts to actually measure pasture calories are far more common in the cattle industry than in the horse world, but the process is the same regardless of what species is grazing on it. Most often, a device called a plate meter – either the rising or falling type – is used to collect a series of measurements in a random manner throughout the pasture. These devices work by using a (usually) round, weighted plate of a known size to rest on top of the forage, and the distance from the plate to the ground is then recorded. The plate meter must first be calibrated, however, by taking a distance measurement on forage of the same type, clipping the forage under the plate to post-grazing level (with horses, generally 2.5 cm), and then drying and analyzing the forage sample for calorie content. Although simple in concept, many such samples are required for the calibration process to ensure reasonably-accurate meter measurements – a time-consuming endeavor. But by first collecting and analyzing these samples, a correlation between forage height (the distance measurement) and calories per square unit can be derived. After calibration, the amount of calories in a pasture can be fairly quickly and easily estimated by collecting and averaging a set of measurements. Plate meters are available with a wide range of features from several companies, but you can also construct your own for very little cost.
Using a homemade falling plate meter. Image from www.fieldcropnews.com.
But…before you spend either a fair amount of money on a manufactured plate meter, or a fair amount of time constructing and calibrating your own plate meter, you may want to consider the following: Research has shown that horses’ rate of consumption of grass pasture varies greatly – and not in an entirely predictable way – depending not only on how much time per day they spend on grass pasture, but also on type of horse, temperature, time of day, season, grass height, grass composition, grass density and other factors, making any attempt at calorie calculations for grazing extremely difficult. For example, grazing researchers at North Carolina State University (Dowler, L.E. et al. 2012. “Determination of Pasture Dry Matter Intake Rates in Different Seasons and Their Application in Grazing Management.” Journal of Equine Veterinary Science 32: 85 – 92) note the following –
…this finding still suggests that horses have the potential to consume relatively large amounts of forage even when grazing for a relatively small portion of the day. These results suggest that DMI [dry matter intake] rate decreases with increased grazing duration and that the extrapolation of 24-hour DMI rates (eg, 2.5% of BW [body weight] in DM/d [dry matter per day]) to grazing periods of <4 hours may result in the underestimation of actual DMI. This may have implications for horse owners trying to manage BW/caloric intake of horses by reducing grazing time, in an effort to manage or prevent various diseases (e.g. laminitis, equine Cushing disease, metabolic disease, insulin resistance).
In other words, the relationship between pasture time and the amount of grass consumed is definitely not a linear one; rather, horses with limited pasture time tend to up their rates of pasture consumption, particularly in the first 4 hours. Simply put, this means: 1) even if the calorie content of a pasture is known, you cannot predict how many calories a horse will consume in a given amount of time with any reasonable degree of accuracy, and 2) you cannot use limited pasture time as a means of reducing calories without almost certainly limiting feed and/or hay availability as well. Interestingly, horses on continuous 24-hour grazing were found to voluntarily consume very close to their total calculated daily energy requirement, with no additional feed and/or hay required.
To further complicate this already-complex situation, some horses simply cannot eat green grass without developing metabolic problems, while others can happily eat green grass all day long and never have an immediate issue. Usually, the older the horse, the more often grass consumption becomes a complication. Because the reasons for these differences in tolerance are not well understood, it falls to the owner to determine whether or not grass causes difficulties for their particular horse. In keeping with my sentiments about mimicking nature in feeding, my personal preference is to allow horses only a very limited amount of green grass, based on the idea that the feral horse in his aboriginal environment is never in a position to eat mouthful after mouthful of green grass. Feral horses have evolved to eat sparsely-spaced dry, bunch grasses, and have to travel up to 12 miles every day to find sufficient calories; contrary to the increasingly common notion that domestic horses should have as much hay as they’ll eat, feral horses do not have unlimited access to forage, and certainly not to green grass. Expecting a horse to not overeat when plopped in the middle of the horse equivalent of a candy store all day strikes me as completely unreasonable.
Furthermore, I am becoming increasingly convinced that, like Type 2 diabetes in humans, we can help prevent the development of metabolic problems by feeding our horses as if they already had metabolic problems i.e. severely limiting the amount of green grass they eat. So, some sort of properly-designed (which, by the way, most of them are not) so-called “track system,” in which whatever forage present (mostly grass hay, perhaps with very small and widely-spaced-apart patches of green grass) is spread out over as large an area as possible to force the horse to move to be able to eat, seems to be the best situation for our domestic horses at present.
So there you have it: Although we can use average values to give us a rough idea of the calorie impact of grazing, just as we did with hay and with feed, the (even greater) number of variables affecting not only the forage itself, but also the horse’s rate of consumption, mean that such “guesstimates” should be used only as a very rough starting point for diet planning.
Based on what little published research has been done on the pasture dry matter consumption rates of horses, the average of the rates of consumption reported in these studies is 0.127 pounds of dry matter per 100 pounds of body weight per hour, plus or minus 0.032 pounds per 100 pounds body weight per hour. But keep in mind that that value is only reasonably accurate for longer grazing times – say, those over 3 or 4 hours. So instead of using that value, I’ve taken the 3-, 6-, 9-, and 24-hour measured grazing rate values from some North Carolina State University research, and extrapolated the intermediate values to create the following chart –
Make no mistake: This is a very rough estimate of calories consumed through grazing, as you’ll note by the wide range of values between the Low and High numbers. The next step towards improving the accuracy would be to use actual measured calorie values from your pasture, but, again, it’s still going to be an approximation.
In an attempt to make things a bit simpler, I’ve created an Equine Diet Planner in MS Excel, which you can either download for use on your own computer or use online within your browser.
As you can see in the screenshot of the Planner below, it incorporates the University of Minnesota weight calculator, which calculates Current and Ideal Weights, and then continues in the following section to calculate Required Calories by entering daily riding times.
The next section allows you to choose the amount and type of hay you’re feeding, or enter your own hay sample results, to calculate Total Hay Calories. Similarly, the feed section computes Total Feed Calories from the amount and type of feed, including allowing you to use values for a brand not on the drop-down list, which you can either obtain directly from the manufacturer or have tested by an independent testing laboratory.
The pasture grazing section has several choices for types of pasture, and then estimates Total Pasture Calories based on grazing time and whether or not your horse is muzzled. As I’ve noted above, pasture consumption is undoubtedly the most difficult to predict, but this will help give you at least a point of departure for diet planning.
Finally, the Summary section at the end adds together the previously-calculated calorie values to give an overall picture of your horse’s diet. It also cautions you when the calorie intake exceeds or falls short of the calories required to maintain proper (ideal) body weight by more than 5%.
I would strongly encourage you to use this Planner to develop a better understanding of what and how much your horse is currently eating versus what he actually needs to maintain a healthy body weight, and I would encourage you to share it – and the information/videos from the first two parts of this series – with your friends and your barn owner as well. Because of the very large number of variables involved, though, please remember that ultimately the only certain guide to whether or not you’re under- or over-feeding your horse is an honest eye!
To wrap up both this Post and this series, here are a few things to keep in mind:
Be honest about your horse’s weight. If you can’t be objective, ask someone else to take a look. Better still, use accurate measurements in the weight calculator and trust the results.
Be honest about how much you actually work your horse. Time spent tacking up, walking to and from the arena, etc. doesn’t count as work time, nor does simply sitting on your horse while he walks around. Think of it this way: If you wouldn’t be sweating and/or breathing hard doing what he’s doing, it’s not work and shouldn’t be counted as such.
Be honest about what and how much your horse is eating. Weigh everything. Do the math, and figure out the best way to feed only what he requires to attain/maintain a healthy weight, spread over a 24-hour period.
Have your hay tested. It’s relatively easy and inexpensive, and since hay should far and away constitute the bulk of every horse’s diet, knowing how many calories are in it is important.
Remember that you can’t feed muscle onto a horse. If your horse has a bad top line or otherwise lacks muscle mass, increase his work load and feed the consequent higher calorie demand; don’t expect to put healthy weight on a horse with just food. And don’t try to rush either the weight loss or the weight gain process; feed for his calorie requirements, and things will take care of themselves.
Consider your particular situation when planning your horse’s diet. If you board, you may have very little to no control over certain aspects of your horse’s diet, such as pasture time or brand of feed, so control what you can: Use a grazing muzzle, reduce the amount of feed, increase the amount of hay, etc.
Remember that things can, and do, change. Your horse’s current dietary requirements may be very different from his requirements several years ago. Be aware of the impact of pasture time on his diet, and adjust his diet accordingly.
Finally, be logical in your approach to feeding. Consider how nature feeds the feral horse, and remember that mimicking nature will generally yield good results. Keep in mind there is plenty of bad advice out there, including from those with PhD and DVM after their names. If what is offered is inconsistent with what I’ve presented in this series of articles, be suspicious!
