Newsletter XXXIII
Edition XXXIII
Hi
Welcome back to this month’s HorseConscious Newsletter!
Wow, this month the mail bag is full to bursting and not just with birthday and Christmas cards! On the subject of my birthday however, thank you so much to everyone who wrote in sending birthday wishes, it was very much appreciated. In case you didn’t know, I hit rather a large landmark last Saturday and am still in the process of adjusting 
As I said though when people asked me how I felt, I can’t feel too sad because I am the only one responsible for my life. I have so much to be grateful for already and so am now starting to plan for next year to make it completely memorable.
Did you know too that my partner Elke, her twin sister and I all share the same birthday? Wild. Of course, I have a few years head start on them… lol
Thought you might like to see the birthday cake that another of Elke’s sisters baked for me – pretty cool, huh? In case you are wondering, it says, “Mark, the Englishman in Herzogenrath”, which is the little town where we live. The german for heart is Herz – get it?!
This is always a very happy time of year, I love it and always have. Birthday, then Christmas, then New Year and everyone is in such a good mood. I’m planning on a very easy today tomorrow assuming I get the newsletter out and finish a couple of other assignments. Having said that, Elke has me lined up to put up a new door on the shower and fix the vanity board under the kitchen cabinets. Yikes. Perhaps I’ll string out what I have to do online a bit!
OK, that’s enough about what’s happening here, let’s get on to the news.
Have you seen the trailer for Spielberg’s new movie of War Horse? If not, now you can:
It looks spectacular and you’re sure to need a box of Kleenex when you go to see it. However, I hope that Spielberg has done a better job of representing the horse than either the author Michael Morpurgo or the theatre production managed to. Yes, the costume puppets they used for the stage show were fantastic but as I wrote in a previous newsletter, I think there was a huge wasted opportunity to see the events from the horse’s viewpoint. To me, the horse was just a prop rather than living, breathing sentient being.
Compare this with Seabiscuit, where you at least got some idea of the character behind that little horse that enabled him to beat bigger, faster horses like War Admiral.
We all know the futility of war and the First World War seems to me more futile than any I know, so it would be great to see Spielberg let us experience that through the horse.
Have you seen the movie yet? If so, please let us know what you thought either on the HorseConscious Facebook page or the HorseConscious Community site. Both are free to join, so please let us have your review as well as your thoughts on anything else going on in your horse world. Here’s a tip for you if you want to post your review on your own Facebook wall instead, type @horseconscious in your status bar and the link to the HorseConscious page should come up automatically and then your update will appear on the HorseConscious wall too!
I’ve been exchanging emails over the last few months with Jenny Pearce, who first came to my attention when Stormy May recommend her book Zen connection With Horses. I believe that Jenny is pretty popular in her native Australia and she is coming out with some interesting ideas recently. One of these is her Six Keys to Happiness with Your Horse, which you can read by clicking the link. You can also sign up to get the video and audio lessons that go along with these and I’ll paste a link below for you. Please let me know what you think of them as we look to spread the HorseConscious message worldwide.
There has been a tremendous discussion going on on the site with regard to the question of horse slaughter: To Legalise Horse Slaughter Or Not
I have to admit to naively suggesting people sign up to overturn the Obama administration’s proposal to re-introduce horse slaughter given my lack of first hand experience of the situation in North America. For example, one HorseConscious reader named Susan wrote in saying:
“I am not for the slaughtering of horses, but I am for the humane euthanasia of horses, simply because it is a better choice than what horses are currently having to endure. So many are simply turned loose when their owners can no longer afford to feed them, thereby starving to death, and people who wish to sell them are having a hard time, because there are so many, the market is soft, and people can’t afford to buy them anyway. So many people out of work and can no longer afford to feed their beloved horses, and there isn’t a market for them out there anymore either. So, there is a glut of unwanted horses, and no outlet for them.”
This is clearly a complex and very emotive subject and I have received a wide variety of emails ranging from “we should all become vegetarians” to “horse meat can be very tender and tasty”.
Susan eloquently went on to say:
“We will not eat horses in this country, but if the people in France do, don’t judge them…. The fact is, we will soon be able to slaughter them…. And, if some of their meat is used for people who will eat it, so be it. Many people allow horses that have to be put down for medical reasons to be given to “the hunt” for the dogs to eat, rather than bury them, a practice that has gone on for hundreds of years.”
Another report I read via the Madelaine Pickens website said that a six month investigation by the EWA and other animal investigation organizations finally determined the predominant source of abandoned horses in the Southwestern US. The findings show that most or all of more than 5,000 horses a year are being abandoned after being rejected for slaughter at the Mexican border. A European Union audit report from 2010 of their horse slaughter plants in Mexico divulged that Mexico had rejected 5,336 slaughter horses out of 62,560 presented at six border crossing offices between January and October 2010. The horses were rejected under a new system of controls implemented in December, 2009. Reasons for rejection included health problems, advanced pregnancy and injuries.
Normally kill buyers who haul slaughter horses to Mexico try to fill their trailers with cattle and other animals on the return journey. So clearly they need to dispose of the rejected horses, and the most economical way to do so is to simply abandon them on a deserted stretch of road or in an isolated lot.
Then last week, the Obama White house acknowledged the profound opposition to reinstatement of federally funded meat inspectors in American slaughterhouses that process horses. In an official statement that ironically came out on the federally recognized “Day of the Horse,” Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, Under Secretary for Food Safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture said there will be no horse slaughter likely in the foreseeable future. The statement said:
“The humane treatment of horses reflects the values of our Nation.
Recently Congress lifted a ban prohibiting federal funding for the inspection of horses, which had prevented the slaughter of horses for human consumption for the past five years. While Congress has technically lifted the ban, USDA does not expect horse slaughter to resume in the near term as a number of Federal, state and local requirements and prohibitions remain in place. Furthermore, there have been no requests that the Department initiate the authorization process for any horse slaughter operation in the United States at this time.
While some horses continue to be exported to other countries for slaughter, USDA makes it a priority to ensure that these horses are transported and treated humanely. For example, USDA recently extended protection to horses delivered to collection points prior to export, reflecting the Administration’s commitment to protecting animal welfare.”
I’m sure this is not the end of this story, so please let us know what you think by contributing to the discussion here: To Legalise Horse Slaughter Or Not
A quick note to say that we had an email from Alexander Nevzorov’s office to say they are currently having a sale with up to 50% off NHE books and films. Click the image to the left to get all the details.
In the last newsletter, I mentioned Mara LeGrand’s award-winning documentary Wild Horses in Winds of Change, a documentary film about how America’s wild horses are lawfully protected but unlawfully managed by the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program.
Well, Mara very kindly sent me access to a copy, which I have now had time to watch. As well explaining the history and background of America’s wild horses including some beautiful footage, the movie also features footage of helicopter roundups and the holding pens in which the mustangs are kept. As awful as this footage looked, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to some of the conditions that are suffered elsewhere – more on this in a moment.
Like the dumping of horse near the border mentioned above, the one fact that really struck me was the enormous impact that money plays in all of this. I knew this before but when you hear facts like the following, it really strikes home what this is all about:
- Ranchers play $1.35 per head of cattle to graze their cattle on public lands
- The same grazing rights on private land cost between $12 and $15, meaning cattlemen are being subsidised thousands of dollars
- 8-12 million cattle are dumped on subsidised public lands each spring
- This is compared to the population of 30,000 wild horses
- Since 1971 200,000 wild horses have been removed from 47 million acres of public land
- 19 million acres of public land has been reallocated for other use
This is tragic. It’s just about money, plain and simple. If those numbers and my understanding are correct, then can someone please explain to me why there should have been an issue with even 230,000 horses on 47 million acres, let alone 30,000 horses on 26 million acres?
The movie features Mary Ann Simmonds, with whom I’ve exchanged several emails this year with a view to have a HorseConscious call on wild horses. Please let me know if this is a topic you would like for a call by replying to this email.
You can find out more and order the DVD by going to the film’s website at http://wildhorsesinwindsofchange.com.
The documentary talks about the suffering of the wild horses being a ‘trail of tears’ and this is further echoed by a report by renowned equine photographer Carol Walker, who witnessed a fall round up of the Adobe Town Herd in southwestern Wyoming by the BLM. You can read her report here, which tells the very sad tale of how herds and families are ripped apart.
Worse still was the the report via The Cloud Foundation (TCF) from wild horse advocate, Lisa Friday, regarding the conditions of two Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wild horse holding facilities in Utah. Friday was following up on the wild horses she found living in squalor at the Herriman holding facility outside Salt Lake, who have been moved to other facilities in the state. Despite finding the horses living in clean pens with plenty of hay, Friday’s report revealed more inhumane treatment of wild horses”
“I saw captive wild horses in Utah with severely long, curled hooves,” explains Friday. “Dozens of mustangs were very lame with shocking sled-runner feet. When I asked why their feet were not trimmed I was told they did not have the funding to hire a professional farrier and were just beginning to ‘train’ a fellow to trim hooves. I would like to see the two facilities (Delta & Gunnison) allocate funding to have the mustangs’ feet cared for by a professional. The facilities have a paid public relations specialist on staff but no professional farrier to care for the horses. Their priorities are mixed up.”
This was a follow up to her investigation in March of this year, where she revealed wild horses living in knee-deep mud, manure and urine with no dry place to lie down at the Herriman facility. As a result of her latest report and video, released by TCF, and subsequent BLM reviews, the facility is closed for the winter with plans to close permanently within the next two years.
I would rather have brought you an upbeat, cheerful newsletter but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good news for horses at the moment. I received an email from Helene, which originated from the NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable And Safe Streets) with a link to YouTube video showing another horse collapsed on the streets of New York City. I won’t show the video here but you can watch it by going to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWhmuUUeZKU
Supporters claim these horses are being worked into the ground – literally. This comes six weeks to the day after another carriage horse collapsed and died on the city streets.
NY-CLASS is a grass roots organization which goal is to end the exploitation of horses carriages in New York. The horses have to work or stand on hard pavement long hours in all weathers. They look unhealthy, exhausted and weary of the traffic. Their stalls are reported to be dark, badly ventilated and small. Turn out are non existent. Horses falling or car collusion are regular incidents.
Helene says that this “business” is kept alive by tourists and asked I could therefore give some visibility. She said the hope is that if enough potential tourists call or e-mail saying that they would not come to NY because of such a disregard for horses well being….NYCLASS’s goal could be advanced.
However in a twist, I also came across a piece which said that The Horse and Carriage Association of New York City have filed formal complaints with the NY State Attorney General’s Office, the Mayor’s Office, the NYC Department of Investigation, and with the Inspector General of the NYC Department of Health. These complaints are being levied against the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (known as the A.S.P.C.A.) and its affiliated lobbying group, NY-CLASS. You can read their reasons for complaint here: http://horsebackmagazine.com/hb/archives/12710.
I don’t wish to get drawn into this too far as I am not qualified to speak on the subject but if I had to have a guess, I would say it might have something to with money. I’m not saying for sure but it might…
OK, after all that, I was going to end up on a lighter note but it’s probably more of a fattening note actually 
What you see in the picture are bars of Printen (measuring approx. 8′x3′ or 20cmx8cm). This is a biscuit or cookie that comes only from our nearby city of Aachen. This is the window display from one of the many shops in the city that sell it. Printen are made from a variety of ingredients including cinnamon, aniseed, clove, cardamom, coriander, allspice and also ginger. The exact mixture of these ingredients, however, is a close kept secret of the individual Printen bakeries. There are also Printen with nuts (usually almonds), covered in chocolate or glaze and marzipan.
If you think they look delicious, you are absolutely right, they are, especially the chocolate ones!
Anyway, on that festive note, I would like to wish you and yours, both human and equine an extremely happy Holiday season, a very Merry Christmas and an abundant, healthy and Happy New Year!
Till 2012, best yuletide wishes
Mark
DIARY DATES:
Click Events to see a list of classes and workshops being held by the HorseConscious Teachers.
‘The world is best viewed through the ears of a horse.’ – Anonymous
THE CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS – LINDA KOHANOV
I recently saw Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a film exploring the Chauvet cave paintings in France, some of which are nearly 35,000 years old. These astonishingly sophisticated depictions of horses, bulls, cattle, stags, antelope, lions, bears, even rhinoceroses are perplexing in their incredible sophistication and expressive power.
The discovery of this ancient art gallery in December 1994 astonished theorists interested in the evolution of human creativity. As David S. Whitley marveled in his 2009 book Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit: The Origin of Creativity and Belief, these intricate murals were more than 10,000 years older than those discovered at the nearby Lascaux cave, yet “Chauvet cave had art that was not simply on par with the finest Paleolithic examples. It was, by significant margin, the oldest cave art in the world and it dramatically disproved any contention that our human artistic capabilities had evolved, over time, from simple to complex. When art first appeared, it appeared full-blown in a technically and aesthetically sophisticated fashion.”
As Whitley emphasizes again and again throughout his book, “this first art consists of true aesthetic masterpieces—works of art that fully rival our greatest creative achievements, of any time and place.”
And what were these early masters painting in Chauvet and Lascaux (also known as the Sistine Chapel of Prehistory)? Most definitely not people. At Chauvet, only one, vaguely human figure can be discerned: the lower portion of a woman’s body. A nearby image depicts a human-bison hybrid. The vast majority of the paintings are highly realistic, artistically accomplished representations of animals. Horses are the fourth most frequently painted subjects, behind felines, mammoths, and rhinos (yes, a now-extinct species of rhino roamed ice-age Europe!). And yet, these early equines are among the most vividly portrayed animals in the cave, clearly showing individual characteristics and varied facial expressions in striking detail. Many of the lions also show specific facial features capturing intricate moods and behaviors, leading Meg Daley Olmert to come to a startling conclusion in her book Made for Each Other: The Biology of the Human-Animal Bond: The cave artists “knew these animals—not just as a species but as individuals. These were neighbors, close neighbors.” What’s more, she insists, the “impressive detail and graphic skill” of the paintings “tells us those animals were not terribly frightened of us.”
Whitley, an archeologist who writes from a less knowledgeable perspective on animal behavior, had the chance to actually visit Chauvet. Even he was struck by how two different horses painted in separate alcoves were purposefully set apart from other animals, creating the uncanny impression that these horses were reaching out him. They “approach you, slowly, oblivious, and unmoved by the lions, rhinos, and other animals surrounding them,” he writes; “…they come to you in a stately and unhurried pace.”
Reading Whitley’s words and staring at photos of these evocative paintings in the oversized art book Chauvet Cave: The Art of Earliest Times, I was inspired by a compelling possibility. Having lived with herds of horses as colleagues, teachers, guides, and friends—as sentient, sovereign beings who made requests, reached out to me, communicated clearly, and quite often had their own opinions about things—it struck me that these prehistoric artists were capturing an ancient invitation, that very moment when a horse looked a human in the eye and approached, hinting at a partnership in the making, one that would profoundly change both species in the process.
The plot thickens ten thousand years after Chauvet when it becomes clear that the Lascaux cave artists were even more obsessed with horses. Out of 915 images at Lascaux, horses represent over sixty percent of the recognizable animals, followed by stags at a mere fifteen percent, aurochs and bison each at under five percent, and felines appearing 1.2 percent of the time. Wolves, generally considered to be the first animal willing to be domesticated, don’t even appear in these paintings. And here again, only one human figure abides among a bestiary that scientists now conclude had nothing to do with “hunting magic.” According to Whitley, “animal bones excavated from living areas at the mouths of the caves” revealed that “there was little if any correlation between animals painted and animals eaten.” Since then, he and a few other scientists have promoted the idea that the paintings were evidence of ritual trance states, that shamanism led to the birth of human creativity.
But what if the explanation was a bit more obvious than that? What if the most detailed paintings were ancient portraits of the artists’ favorite animals—and by that I mean individual animals with whom these people were forming increasingly trusting, intensely inspiring, transformational relationships? After all, while archeological evidence of people riding horses doesn’t show up for a good 18,000 years after Lascaux’s artists closed up shop, who’s to say that these people weren’t being called out by the animals themselves, following their lead, moving in harmony with ancient herds thousands of years before human beings developed the technology to confine and restrain the horse?
In my opinion, cave-art scientists are missing an important theory about the sudden emergence of human creativity, one backed by recent research into the evolution of the human-animal bond, my own experiences with horses as agents of inspiration and transformation, and a host of cross-cultural myths about the role of horses in expanding human consciousness and creativity. Greek, Indian, Celtic, Siberian, Middle Eastern, and Native American legends all agree that horses have the ability to carry people back and forth between this world and the “other,” the premiere shamanic act. What if these stories point back to an even more ancient truth, one that civilized men aren’t quite willing to entertain? What if these ancient paintings weren’t so much evidence of trance hallucination or a sudden leap in wholly symbolic thinking? What if they were literally capturing the power and spirit of the times, an era when the animals themselves were luring early humans into a journey of mutual-empowerment, mutual-evolution, and eventually, mutual-domestication?
This in itself, of course, mirrors the role of modern shamans who are considered specialists in bridging the visible and invisible worlds as well as the human and animal realms. I first explored this notion in The Tao of Equus, gaining considerable inspiration from Mircea Eliade’s 1964 book Shamanism and Larry Dossey’s influential Recovery of the Soul.
Among the qualities that made the shaman a cross-cultural phenomenon was the belief “that a kind of collective consciousness bound them together with the animal kingdom,” Dossey wrote. “So intimate was the sharing of the mind with the animals that shamans believed it possible to actually become an animal,” a notion exemplified by the human-animal hybrids depicted in early cave art at Chauvet, Lascaux and other prehistoric sites.
Dossey goes on to observe that “in the nonlocal, collective consciousness that wrapped man and animal together, it was not always the man who took the initiative in actualizing it. Sometimes the first overture was made by the animal. This is most obvious in the call of the shaman…and in his initiation….In the tradition of the Buryat shamans the tutelary animal is call the khubligan, a term that can be interpreted as ‘metamorphosis.’”
The cave art at Chauvet and Lascaux represents an intense and quite sudden metamorphosis of human consciousness. As David Whitley muses in Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit, “I cannot help but wonder about the centrality of the horse in this apparently shamanic art: Why? And, of course, what does the horse mean?”
What if, deep in those ancient caverns, prehistoric artists were documenting the very first call of the shaman, creating intricate monuments to the very first khubligans? And what if the spirits of those four-legged initiators are calling modern men and women to remember, to open our jaded civilized hearts and feel, once again, the collective consciousness that still binds us to the animal kingdom? Would we, in 2012, be able to change our destructive habits and reclaim the power of the herd?
Sending best wishes for much joy, inspiration, and success to you, your families and your herds in the coming year!
Linda
Now through January 2, the new Power of the Herd Web Symposium is being offered at a special rate.
“For years,” Linda says, “I’ve been looking for ways to create a special on-line course for people who either can’t attend an Epona workshop or have recently returned from a clinic with us and want to reinforce their skills, translating them more effectively into human contexts. People have also told me they wished they had an at-home course to offer Epona-based skills to friends, business colleagues, and family members. This fall, I’m happy to say, I found the perfect inspiration and partner in this effort, Mark Mottershead, who developed the HorseConscious website, originally inspired by Stormy May’s wonderful film The Path of the Horse.”
Many people had written to report that they had enjoyed Mark’s HorseConscious interview/conversations with Linda over the last two years. Together, the two have created an in-depth, ongoing, online symposium based around the cutting-edge research and skills featured in Linda’s upcoming book The Power of the Herd, due to be published in fall 2012.
“This book has gone much deeper than I expected,” Linda reports. “As I was doing the research, I found the information exciting, mind-blowing actually, and I just couldn’t wait to share it with people. The tools, concepts and historical perspectives will be useful at home, school, work, and most definitely in forging a stronger relationship with horses. And for people who have attended my workshops, and/or seminars led by Epona Approved Instructors worldwide, The Power of the Herd Web Symposium offers a deeper look at the research behind the tools and horse-facilitated activities that many have called life changing.”
The symposium has already attracted a growing international community of people who are sharing their experiences and ideas on the POTH website.
“As an approved Epona instructor with an equine-assisted coaching practice, I can’t say enough about how delighted I am to be part of Linda’s latest symposium on The Power of the Herd,” says Sandra Sell-Lee, founder of Equine Soul Care. “Both Linda and Mark have allowed a web class to emerge that is a perfect example of collaborative leadership in action, the topic of Linda’s next book. Linda’s generosity in sharing her pre-published chapters, as well as access to herself, creates a space for learning that is rare. Instead of just reading the book, and listening to a lecture, Mark engages Linda in conversations, fed by questions and comments from the participants, which are generative and creative – I feel as though I am part of something where, together, we are all evolving and learning and creating NEW knowledge! Linda’s openness to BE a collaborative leader and Mark’s willingness to create a web process that supports real-time collaboration for everyone who participates are truly awe-inspiring. And, there’s no limit on who can participate! Come and enjoy the fun! Come help change the world!”
To sample the offerings and join the symposium, go to www.PowerOfTheHerd.com. Note that you can sample the first chapter and lesson, and the accompanying conversations, before you register. Also, for those considering attending a 2012 workshop with Linda Kohanov, Power of the Herd symposium members will receive 10% off any single workshop she leads.
‘Horses change lives. They give confidence, provide tranquility. They give us hope!’ - Toni Robinson
‘The good horseman is not so much a part of the horse as he is part of the horse’s movements.’ - Alessandro Alvisi
COLD WEATHER HORSE CARE TIPS
Horses need extra attention during the cold and wet winter months. By following these helpful tips you can help keep your horse healthy all winter.
Shelter: Horses need protection from the winter snow, wind, and rain. Provide shelter in the form of a barn or run-in shed. Shelter floors should be raised so that horses have a dry spot to stand. A wind or waterproof blanket is a good idea for horses that live outside full-time. Blankets need to be removed every few days and cleaned to limit fungus growth. Having more than one blanketing option is a good idea they can be rotated if one rug gets soaked through or dirty.
Water: Fresh water is a necessity. Horses can colic without continuous access to fresh water. If you use an unheated water source or an automatic waterer, check for and break any ice at least twice per day. Using a heated pasture water tank to provide warmer water could help ensure your horse gets enough liquids.
Feed: Horses need extra feed during the winter in order to help them maintain body temperature in the cold. In addition to a plentiful supply of hay, a supplemental feed can be provided. Consult your veterinarian about the best choice for your horse, especially if your horse is older; some geriatric horses lose weight during the winter months and should be monitored closely.
Hooves: Wet pastures can lead to problems for horses’ hooves. Thrush is a common disease caused by bacteria and can affect horses that stand continuously on soggy ground. With long exposure to wet ground, hooves can even deteriorate, which can lead to lameness. Prevention is best; clean mud from your horse’s hooves daily and consider applying a thrush medication once or twice per day. A few hours on “dry land” each day or a night in a dry stall can help prevent foot-and other-problems.
Skin: Keep your horse’s skin healthy by vigorously currying its body daily. Keep your horses, the stalls, and all related equipment clean and dry to help avoid seasonal skin disorders, which can include rainrot, scratches, and ringworm.
Contact your veterinarian for additional winter horse care tips.
Explore the power of the human-horse connection as you travel the emotional journey that veterinarians at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital and owners embark on when a beloved horse becomes ill in Equine ER
thehorse.com, Oregon Veterinary Medical Association, December 14 2011, Article # 19282
‘The horse through all its trials has preserved the sweetness of paradise in its blood.’ - Johannes Jensen
A 5-STEP GUIDE TO COMPOSTING HORSE MANURE
If you care for horses on your own place then you have, no doubt, wondered about what to do with that huge mound of manure and stall waste generated by your horse. In fact, one horse produces about 50 pounds of manure per day, over eight tons per year! Add to that the bedding you use each day and in no time at all you have a virtual manure mountain!
We compost on our guest ranch, Sweet Pepper Ranch. In southwestern Idaho a tarp cover helps keep the compost from getting too dried out in the summer or too soggy in the winter.
There are other concerns related to a mismanaged manure pile: horses allowed to graze near their own manure are quickly reinfested with worms, runoff from soggy manure piles can cause serious surface water contamination problems, and then there are the associated odor and fly problems. Composting horse manure is an excellent manure management technique which has these benefits:
- The composting process reduces the size of your manure pile by about 50 percent!
- Heat generated by composting kills worm eggs, fly larvae, pathogens and weed seeds.
- Composting reduces flies, runoff and odors.
- Composted manure is a valuable addition to your pastures, garden, or yard. And, if you can’t use it on your own property, “horseless” neighbors are usually glad to take it.
We compost on our guest ranch, Sweet Pepper Ranch, here in southwestern Idaho. It’s not a complicated process. Just follow the five steps below and you’ll find that pile of manure behind your barn will quickly turn into black gold!
#1 Select a Site
First, select a site for your manure pile. Look for a high, level area on your property; don’t put your pile in a low lying area or it will turn into a soggy mess during the rainy season. Choose an area away from property lines to avoid zoning issues and problems with neighbors. A location that’s convenient to your stall and paddock areas will make the chore time easier and less time consuming.
#2 Build Bins or Piles
Constructing bins or piles helps the composting process by allowing you to construct a pile that’s at least three cubic feet it size (about the size of a washing machine) which is what a pile needs to build heat. If a pile is too low and spread out it’s much harder for the pile to heat up and compost effectively. Construct your compost bins so they are at least 8’x8’x5’, about the amount of space you’d need to store six months of straight manure (no bedding ) from one horse. If you have a tractor, you may wish to just build pile. We have a roofed structure we use to compost under, and, at least for now, I like the flexibility of not have a permanent compost structure so we can change where we want things to be located as we need it.
You’ll probably need at least two bins (or piles if you have a tractor), maybe a third for convenience. A two-bin/pile system works by piling manure and stall wastes in one bin/pile. When that bin is full, allow it to compost and start filling the second bin—or building a second pile. Once the first bin/pile is done composting you can start removing and using the finished compost. For convenience or if you have three or more horses, you may want to consider going to more bins/piles. This allows for one bin for daily wastes, another bin which is full and in the composting stage and the third for the finished compost to be removed and used at your leisure.
#3 Tarp Your Bins or Piles!
One of the most important things to do in order to have a successful compost system is to cover each of your compost piles with a tarp. This will prevent your pile from becoming a soggy mess in the winter and too dried out in the summer. A tarp also prevents the nutrients you’re saving for your pastures or garden from being washed out into the surface water and causing pollution problems.
#4 Get Air into the Pile
Turning your compost-to-be gets air into the center of the pile and will speed up the composting process, allowing the pile to compost evenly from the inside out. However, unless you have access to a small tractor or enjoy a good workout, turning by hand can be difficult. An easier way to get air to the center of the pile is to insert a couple of five-foot PVC pipes into the center of the pile with the ends sticking out of the pile like chimneys. To increase the effectiveness of the pipes, drill holes a few inches apart along the pipes.
#5 Keep the Pile Damp but not Soggy
Your compost material should be about as damp as a wrung out sponge—it should feel damp but not dripping with water. If you squeeze a handful of it in your hand, you should only be able to squeeze out a drop or two. In the summer, you may need to hose down the manure in your wheelbarrow before you dump it in the pile.
The Finished Product
Composting generally takes between three to six months.You will know when your compost is ready when the material looks evenly textured and crumbly like dirt. So get busy composting now so you’ll have something for those tomato plants this spring!
smarthorsekeeping blog, Alayne, December 13, 2011
‘There’s something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man .’- Sir Winston Churchill
Why Horses – Linda Kohanov
Why are horses such wonderful therapeutic partners and guides to human authenticity?
…In order to survive, animals preyed upon in nature have to be sensitive to emotional energy and the intention behind it. Horses, zebras and deer will often graze unconcerned as a lion who has recently eaten a big meal walks right through their pasture. Yet when an agile carnivore is on the prowl, the herd will scatter long before the cat can get close.
To read the complete article, visit Linda Kohanov on HorseConscious.
Creating a Connection to The Very Heart of the Horse- Stina Herberg
Creating a Connection With Your Horse – Practice and Focus- Carolyn Resnick
It is amazing to me how approaching a daily connection with my horses can make such a difference.
The daily connection can make the behavior of the horse be either balanced for a good ride or a ride that would be full of resistance. To get on the good side of a horse, I put my attention on letting go of my agenda and watch for when the horse and I feel a mutual connection. If you can not tell if there is a mutual connection, chances are you need to wait longer with your horse before you put on the halter. This point is so important to learn how to connect with a horse, it is worth taking some practice time to work on it. I would suggest to you that if it took days of doing nothing with a horse but waiting for a feeling of connection it would change your whole experience with horses to magical proportions.
To read the complete article, visit Carolyn Resnick on HorseConscious.
‘A horse is worth more than riches.’ – Spanish Proverb
SLOWER FEEDING IS SAFER FEEDING FOR HORSES
Horses evolved as wandering herbivores, moving slowly for hours and taking bites of whatever forage they came across in their rambles. Modern feeding practice is quite different, with some horses given all-day access to rich forage, an invitation to obesity. Other horses are confined to stalls and given two or three large grain meals each day. Between flakes of hay with high carbohydrate content, there are often long hours when these horses have nothing to eat. It should not be a surprise that metabolic problems and gastrointestinal upsets are quite common in today’s horses.
Horse owners and managers are listening to equine nutritionists who advise a return to a more natural management system. Simply stated, a better system will offer grain and forage over many hours, but the horse will be able to access only a small amount at a time. Acquiring the necessary devices and teaching your horse to use them will pay off in the long run, and your horse could be more likely to avoid colic, gastric ulcers, obesity, and the stable vices that sometimes spring from boredom.
To decrease forage intake for horses that are out on pasture, try one of the following:
- Use a grazing muzzle. These devices have small holes in the end so horses can eat, but the amount that they get in each bite is restricted.
- Put the horse in a stall or drylot for part of each day. A drylot allows room for the horse to exercise, but he can eat only what you provide instead of gorging on grass.
There are a number of devices designed to decrease speed and amount of hay consumption. An Internet search will turn up a variety of ingenious styles including nets, boxes, barrels, and tubs that hold a lot of hay, so they don’t have to be filled too frequently. The idea behind all of the devices is the same: bars, ropes, or nets block direct access to large mouthfuls of hay. The horse can pull out only small bits at a time, mimicking natural feeding behavior and keeping the horse interested and occupied for long periods of time.
To slow grain consumption, available devices range from dispensers that dribble grain out a few pellets at a time to large, heavy ground feed tubs with a series of shallow wells. Each well holds only a little grain and the horse has to work to find and eat all the grain.
Other feeders are in the form of a large plastic ball or barrel with holes spaced around the perimeter. The horse noses the feeder around, eating the pelleted or cubed feed that falls out of the holes. Like the restricted hay feeders, these grain feeders keep the horse occupied for long periods of time and prevent grain from being gobbled too quickly.
Like anything else designed to be used around horses, the feeders you select need to be safe and built of sturdy materials that will not splinter or break. Inspect the devices frequently for proper operation, excessive wear, and sharp corners. Look at the designs with an eye toward your particular horse and his surroundings. If he wears a halter, could it get caught on the feeder? If he is shod, could he catch a shoe in a feeding net or bag that is designed to lie on the ground? Home-built copies of popular slow feeders should be carefully thought out, constructed of heavy-duty materials, and routinely examined for safety.
Learn how to maintain optimum equine body condition in Understanding Your Horse’s Weight.
thehorse.com,Kentucky Equine Research Inc., December 10 2011, Article # 19259
TRAINING YOUR HORSE RIGHT THE FIRST TIME
Training mistakes can have negative and long-lasting effects that are hard to reverse.
If you’ve been riding for awhile, chances are great that you’ve found yourself traveling down the wrong training path at some point in time. Perhaps you incorporated a training technique into your routine that resulted in horse behavior that wasn’t quite what you had in mind. Or maybe a few overzealous reprimands on your part resulted in some unforeseen, undesirable modes of misbehavior in your horse that you’d like to eliminate. If we hope to remedy the problems caused by our training misadventures, we need to learn the answers to a few key questions first: How lasting are the effects of our training mistakes on our horses? Can the damage ever truly be repaired?
I recently heard a profound statement that I think says it all: When treated unfairly, the horse will never forget the trespass, but it is within his capacity to forgive it. An Arabian gelding I once owned and started under saddle had a small problem with trailer loading; he’d simply plant his feet and refuse to get in for a long time. Sadly, since I seldom needed to haul him anywhere, I neglected this weakness in his training. He was eventually sold to an endurance rider, and the trouble started showing up during loading and hauling to and from their competitive meets. Some strong measures were employed to teach him to load, and he immediately developed a bucking problem he hadn’t had before. His owner decided to sell him, but sent him to me to resolve the behavior problems first. After a few months of patient and consistent under-saddle training, he was once again trustworthy to ride.
Two fundamentals of behavioral modification therapy, desensitization and counterconditioning, had been applied to retrain this horse with a successful outcome. Desensitization is the process of making an animal less reactive to a situation by accustoming him to the fearful stimulus. In this case, I habituated the horse to loading into the horse trailer by doing it so often that loading lost the power to upset him. This, coupled with counterconditioning, helped him to develop a positive association with the horse trailer. Counterconditioning is establishing a new response to a stimulus as a replacement for an undesirable behavior. In this case, the horse’s fear of the trailer was eventually replaced by anticipation of the food reward waiting within the manger. The bucking problem was resolved both as a consequence of alleviating the trailer-loading problems and as a result of employing the behavioral principles of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment correctly in my under-saddle work. Praise and other reinforcers were delivered in abundance for appropriate behavior, while the potential for a swift correction kept inappropriate behavioral tendencies in check. Eventually, these two undesirable behaviors were dropped from the horse’s repertoire entirely.
The knowledge that consistent, appropriate training can eventually turn most of our mistakes around shouldn’t be taken as license to experiment with different training tactics. The fact is, it’s very difficult to undo a horse’s initial training, regardless of whether those early lessons were correct or incorrect. In a 1994 study, which was presented in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, I taught 17 previously untrained yearlings and 2-year-old horses to discriminate between a black and a white feed bucket for a food reward. Once each horse had figured out which color was correct, I reversed the correct color to see if he could unlearn what he had been taught and replace it with something completely opposite. In other words, if black had always been correct for that horse, once he developed consistency at choosing the black bucket every time, I stopped giving food for choosing black and instead started giving food only for choosing the white bucket. Only about a third of the horses were able to unlearn theoriginal stimulus color and make the switch to the opposite color.
Think of the implications of the fact that most horses tested were not able to reverse their initial training. Therefore, the importance of getting the training right the first time cannot be overemphasized. In fact, in similar studies of other herbivorous species (such as cattle), similar results were obtained, lending support to the theory that first training experiences are of critical importance in the overall trainability of domestic prey species. Of course, in actual horse training the rider improves the potential for retraining by guiding the horse through the learning process, whereas in these studies the horses had to try to figure everything out by themselves.
Not only are the content and consistency of the horse’s training important, but so is the frequency at which the lessons are delivered. In a Cornell University study, 15 ponies were trained to clear a small hurdle on three different time schedules; group I ponies were trained seven days a week, group II ponies were trained two times a week, and group III ponies were trained just once a week. Surprisingly, the ponies trained just once a week learned to jump the obstacle in fewer total training sessions than the other two groups, while the ponies trained seven days a week required the most training sessions to learn the task. After this experiment, the ponies were reassigned to two different groups and taught to back up, and once again the ponies trained just once a week learned the task in fewer sessions. It appears that horses, like humans, don’t learn as efficiently when things are drilled into them as they do when they have adequate downtime between sessions. To train horses effectively, we should try to allow enough time between the lessons to maximize learning.
The results of these studies are supported by the popular advice of many leading trainers. In her book The Problem Horse, Karen Bush suggests that training should follow a steady, logical progression, as attempting to teach more in a session than the horse is mentally capable of learning can lead to resistance and confusion-based behavioral problems, and ultimately to vices and evasions. The rider should achieve dominance through an intelligent approach, rather than through force, which breeds distrust and increases the potential for violent behavior. She further states that horses have excellent and long memories, particularly for unpleasant experiences, and that many behavior problems can be traced back to past events. She emphasizes that horses should be trained through repetition, association and reward, and reminds her readers that it is just as easy for a horse to learn bad behavior as it is to learn good behavior.
Trainers should never consider it too late to repair the damage of a misdirected training attempt. If the training problem has been going on long enough for undesirable habits to be ingrained, it will just take more time and patience to undo the damage. Sometimes the assistance of a professional trainer may be required to help turn around a long-term behavior problem. Many errors, however, if detected by the trainer and reevaluated before unwanted responses become habitual, can be resolved with somewhat less effort. For example, one of my horses is normally willing to cross water on the trails. When we moved to a new barn, my husband and I rode the horses out together to explore the trails in the area. We had been told ahead of time by the barn owners where the best place to cross a 4-foot deep, 20-foot wide creek would be, and as we approached the area, we discovered that the banks descending to the creek were quite steep. Since the horses had many previous experiences with water crossings, I took the mare I was riding immediately into and across the creek. The mare Steve was on balked at the steep bank and deep, murky water below. As Steve grew more insistent, she suddenly jumped from an absolute standstill halfway across the creek, and then scrambled out and up the opposite bank. Steve attempted another three crossings with similar results. I decided to climb on and give the water crossing a try myself, planning to get the mare into the creek and then to steer her upstream until she finally relaxed. When I did attempt to do it, the mare struggled so hard against my efforts to turn her head upstream that the rein broke, I lost my balance and toppled into the creek. I rode on home with tadpoles in my pockets, did some research and devised a new strategy with the intent of keeping her calm and willing throughout. The next time I went back, the mare was lightly tranquilized and I walked into the creek alongside her. This approach restored her confidence, and after several entries into and out of the water, I climbed onto her back in the creek.
The next time we went back (this time without any sedatives on board), I once again led the mare into the creek and then climbed back on and rode her into and out of the creek. The next lesson was approached entirely from the horse’s back, and when this went well I knew we had repaired the damage.
Why did the new technique work when the first one did not? The new approach resulted in success because we recognized the initial training problem early (and rather dramatically), before bad habits were set in stone, and thought out an alternate approach that alleviated our horse’s anxiety and cultivated her trust. It pays to step back and reassess training situations where the horse’s behavior indicates that something in your approach just isn’t working. It’s never too late to try to rectify your training mistakes—some just take longer to resolve than others.
horsechannel.com, Brenda Forsythe Sappington, M.S., Ph.D.
‘Horseback riding is life, the rest is just details.’ – Anonymous
THE SIX KEYS TO HAPPINESS WITH YOUR HORSE – JENNY PEARCE
Lesson 1 – The first key to happiness – connecting to your horse’s mind and emotions so that you can understand each other. In this lesson, we work through a technique to get a quiet mind and notice how YOU experience your connection with your horse and bring that to the front of your mind so that you can use it deliberately.
Lesson 2 – The second key to happiness – Understanding what to do when your horse is anxious or afraid is the second key to happiness AND the biggest key to co-operative behaviour. Introducing the comfort zone model – a simple tool that gives you a whole new way of dealing with your horse’s fear no matter how much expertise you do or don’t have.
Lesson 3 – The third key to happiness – it’s no good just helping your horse feel safe – YOU have to feel safe too, to be happy! You are entitled to not only BE safe around your horse, but to FEEL safe.
Lesson 4 – The fourth key to happiness – No more “gotcha!” This lesson appears to be about catching your horse, but it is MUCH more than that. It is about learning how to use the early warning signal that I call Not Quite Right to get great results with your horse. In this lesson it’s about getting your horse to WANT to be with you when it’s time to be caught.
Lesson 5 – The fifth key for happiness – getting your horse to do what YOU want him to do, happily. The “My grass!” game. This lesson looks like it’s about stopping your horse from dragging you around when they want to eat grass – but it is about MUCH more than that. It’s about helping our horse to be HAPPY about doing what he was asked to do – and how we can get creative about that.
Lesson 6 – The sixth key to happiness – Get your safety and their good manners as routine while you deepen the bond with your horse. On the surface of it, this lesson is about safety and relaxation at your horse’s feed time. But in reality, feed time is just an excellent place to start thinking about the whole big picture of what is – and what is not – acceptable to you with your horse. HOW we go about dealing with ANY “problem” is what will deepen the bond with your horse.
You can get the audio and video lessons that go along with these by going to Jenny’s website – www.JennyPearce.com.au. Please email me and let me know what you thought of the lessons. Thanks!
THE NATURE OF THE HORSE AS HEALER
Horses have always had to escape predators. As prey animals, their survival has forever depended on their ability to run. While horses are fast creatures by nature, they are not the fastest. However, they can typically run for longer periods of time than most of their predators.
In order to remain alive, then, they had to become better at detecting potential predators than the predators were at remaining undetected. They had to sense that they were being stalked before a predator was able to get too close, and therefore able to overcome them before they could outrun him. So the horses’ task of surviving then, becomes directly related to their ability to perceive any potential threat that enters their environment, and to react quickly to this threat.
For this reason, horses are constantly watching everything in the environment. People often describe this as “flighty” or “nervous,” as the horse can react very quickly, often without warning. Yet this is the horse’s only way of ensuring his safety. What this means as a healer is that the horse has an innate ability to detect subtle psychological shifts within a person that render him unsafe.
How is it that a horse is so finely tuned to “read,” people, and thereby offer healing, even when the answers are not obvious? Well, when a horse scans the environment, a heightening of the sensations that provide feedback for the events in the environment occurs. These sensations consist of a sight, sound, touch, taste, kinetic sense, and a variety of physiological responses including heart rate, breath rate, temperature, muscle tension, and nerve impulses.
For the horse, some of these sensations may be more acutely developed, providing more accurate, or rapid, feedback, as to changes in the environment. However, together, they all comprise a part of the horse’s survival mechanism. And the extent to which these sensations are heightened depends on the amount of vigilance the horse has to his environment.
The more vigilance to the environment, the more heightened the horse’s responses will be. What this means when working with people, the horse, as a healer, registers with his physiological response to the person, the amount and direction of psychological vulnerability in the person. For example, if the horse reacts very strongly to a person, demonstrating obvious alarm, it is clear that the emotional intensity within the person is very strong. Then by disseminating the meaning of the horse’s response — interpreting his response as a herd animal — the direction of the person’s emotion can be ascertained. For example, if the horse demonstrates what would be classified in herd behavior as protective, toward the person, he is responding to a vulnerability — that needs protection — within the person.
Due to their innate nature, horses are tremendously adept healers. And in understanding their nature, and the meaning of it, humans, armed with horses, become incredible healers as well.
blogs. psychcentral.com, Claire Dorotik,LMFT
‘Give a horse what he needs and he will give you his heart in return.’ – Anonymous
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