TH Equine Wellness

09/18/2026

Be mindful of the acorns

Squirrels aren’t the only ones hoovering up the Fall crop of acorns. Horses love them too. A yummy treat courtesy of Mother Nature – or are they harmful? Many people report their horses…

09/13/2026

Don’t forget, I also make halters, leads, reins, high-tie ropes and many other items. Let me know what you would like. Many colors of rope and paracord to choose from.

09/13/2026

Two new leashes. These leashes have some give to them. They also have loops on either side so you can change the handle making the length to your needs. You can also use it to walk two dogs at one time.

08/30/2026

I’ve always been fascinated by the whorls and feathers on horses.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Brctg7gkh/?mibextid=wwXIfr

The official page to accompany the book Understanding Horse Whorls by Noche Miller.
This is a place to discuss horse whorls, head shape, all the outside clues to the inner workings of a horse. Or any other animal with whorls!

08/24/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Bp97vWncU/?mibextid=wwXIfr

There’s something to be said for taking your ego out of hoof care and the horse world in general.

At the end of the day, the horse gets the final say. Not our ego, not our reputation, not how long we’ve been in the trade, and not whether we want to prove that our way is the “right” way.

Every horse is different. Every foot is different. Every situation can teach you something. You can do everything “right” and a particular horse will still make you scratch your head as to what you’re missing.

And honestly, you can learn from just about anyone in this trade if you’re willing to listen. Someone who has been trimming for 30 years can teach you something. Someone who has been doing it for 3 can teach you something. A different method, a different perspective, a little trick to save your body, or even something that makes you question what you thought you knew.

That doesn’t mean you have to agree with everyone. It means you can respect the fact that none of us have it all figured out and if someone says they do they probably stopped learning long ago.

The moment our ego becomes more important than the horse in front of us, we’ve lost sight of what this work is really about.

📸 ⬇️just needed trim without the attached ego and and back to basics.

08/03/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Bvoj4K3kW/?mibextid=wwXIfr

*** WHY YOU MUST NEVER FORCE A HORSE WITH COLIC TO MOVE WHILST WAITING FOR THE VET ***

To those who got very upset on my recent colic post, and told me I was wrong; try reading that title a few times. There is a key word in that title. Can anyone tell me what the key word is? Do I say “do not allow a horse with colic to walk”? Do I say that you never lunge a horse with colic after a veterinary diagnosis? No. I say neither of those things. It is absolutely, categorically correct to never force a horse with colic to move if he doesn’t want to, whilst waiting for your vet. You can’t “disagree” with me, as it’s not my opinion; it’s fact. So now that’s hopefully covered the small group of Facebook Vets, who have “had horses for 80 years and always walked a colicking horse”, who will have just misread the title of this post, and told me that I need to “go back to school”, we can continue.

Why do you not force a horse with colic to walk? Have a think about the worst cause of colic - a “twisted gut” (intestinal torsion). Do you think you’d want to walk briskly around, or be chased around with a lunge whip, if your intestine had twisted? Firstly, that’s actually cruelty, as a horse with an intestinal torsion is in agony, and secondly you’re about to significantly worsen the situation. So DO NOT FORCE A HORSE WITH COLIC TO MOVE if he doesn’t want to (whilst waiting for your vet).

I’ll try to spell the reasons out clearly. Why don’t you force a horse to move? At this stage, you don’t know why your horse is showing signs of colic. You absolutely cannot tell what the reason for the colic is until your vet has been. You may have owned horses for 600 years, been a groom for Grand Prix horses for 90 years, or be a qualified BHSI (yep, they are all reasons that have been on my page, with some exaggeration of duration on my part), but you aren’t a vet. You can’t listen to the guts, get a heart rate, perform a re**al exam, monitor response to pain relief, and problem solve using all of the above to conclude what is actually the reason for your horse’s colic and what the next steps should be. So don’t try. Keep the horse quiet and safe - if he wants to roll then make sure he’s in a safe field or school and not next to fencing. If he wants to walk, then let him walk. If he wants to stand quietly, then let him stand quietly. If he’s in the field then do get him up and get into the yard, ready for the vet - this is the only time you may force a horse with colic to walk.

If your horse has the worst reason for the colic signs - a “twisted gut” - you will make this much worse by forcing your horse to move. Why?

1. If there is a torsion, then brisk movement will increase the rate at which toxins leak out of the gut due to the twist, thus resulting in a much sicker horse.
2. Exhaustion- why would you force a horse in extreme pain, with no diagnosis, to walk (or worse) for an hour whilst waiting for the vet? It will simply result in an exhausted horse.
3. Pain - it is cruel to make a horse with extreme abdominal pain run around. We will give the horse intravenous pain relief before deciding if he needs to run around.

So why did my vet tell me to lunge my horse?! You’re saying my vet is wrong!!! No, no I’m not. There are many, many reasons that a horse shows signs of colic, and as vets we will (hopefully!) know if the horse likely has a “twisted gut” or even a trapped intestine (epiploic foramen entrapment) - in these 2 cases, we would never, ever advise lunging. The other causes of colic - spasmodic, impaction, displacement, nephrosplenic entrapment, to name a few - will absolutely all require movement of some description. Some require walking, whilst others will need regular trotting on the lunge. You cannot tell what is causing your horse’s colic. You may “get lucky” and we will tell you to continue doing what you were doing. This is luck, so just not worth the risk.

To summarise. If you have to drag/pull/whip/flap your arms around to get a horse with colic to move, then don’t. Let him stand quietly whilst waiting for the vet. If he wants to walk, then do let him walk, but don’t ever start lunging until you have a diagnosis. Yes, we (vets) may well advise lunging, but that is after we have examined and administered pain relief.

07/05/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1SvyMzBEEk/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Top: Our previous water buffet options remaining after the horses had made their choices.

Bottom: A newer buffet that kept some favourites and introduced a few new options.

Since “dirty” water and electrolytes are consistently popular, they stayed in rotation. I did however place them to the BACK to see if where they are located influenced their decision to drink.

This time we also added:

Watermelon water: some of it juice and squeezed with additional chunks added (which I’ve learned seem to float at varying heights, which is great it doesn’t all sit at the top)

Blueberry water: I had some mushy blueberries that I didn’t want going to waste so this worked great!

Cinnamon water: I’ve actually used this for insulin regulation so this is a good option for the EMS horses. I steeped cinnamon sticks in water overnight and removed the sticks before serving.

Pale drank 80% of the cinnamon water in the first 5 minutes of having it available, so this was a winner already!

Notes on what I rotated out:

Salt water & Clay: This one is usually very popular but I don’t think it’s something they want in a heatwave, same with the clay. Because these tend to be what is drunk first, so this was interesting to me!

Raspberry leaves: this is something I should have probably steeped in hot water. The leaves sat on top and then after the top part was ingested they were interested in it anymore.

But regardless all good information!

One of my favourite parts of offering a water buffet is that the horses tell us what they enjoy. We keep some favourites, learn from past mistakes experiment with new options, and let their preferences help guide future buffets.

As always, fresh plain water is available alongside every option.

06/09/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/14fRgFkdArN/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Horses Are Not Grazing Animals… They’re Specialist Browsers

This might be one of the biggest misconceptions in horse management.

We often describe horses as grazing animals, standing with their heads down eating grass all day. While they certainly graze, their natural feeding behaviour is actually far more complex than that.

Wild and feral horses spend huge portions of their day browsing. They don’t just eat grass. They seek out hedgerows, shrubs, leaves, bark, herbs, flowers, seed heads, weeds and even certain tree species. They constantly move across the landscape, selecting different plants to meet different nutritional and behavioural needs.

Think about a horse turned into a field with a healthy hedge line. How often do you see them reaching through the hedge for hawthorn, blackberry, rosehips or fresh leaves rather than standing in the middle eating grass?

That isn’t boredom. It’s natural behaviour.

The irony is that many of our modern horse paddocks bear very little resemblance to the environment horses evolved to live in. Vast areas of single-species grass provide plenty of calories but very little variety.

Much of the UK’s improved pasture has been heavily selected for agricultural productivity, particularly for cattle production. Ryegrass has become a dominant species because it produces high yields and supports milk and meat production extremely efficiently. The problem is that what works brilliantly for a dairy cow doesn’t necessarily work brilliantly for a horse.

Many improved ryegrass pastures contain significantly higher levels of readily available sugars than the diverse meadow systems horses would naturally encounter. Yet we continue to place animals designed to browse a wide variety of plants onto fields dominated by a single, energy-dense grass species.

Then we scratch our heads and wonder why we are seeing increasing numbers of horses struggling with obesity, insulin dysregulation, laminitis and other metabolic disorders.

Of course, metabolic disease is multifactorial. Genetics, exercise, management and overall diet all play a role. But it does raise an interesting question:

Are we feeding horses in a way that matches millions of years of evolution?

Browsing provides:

🌿 Nutritional diversity
🌿 Natural enrichment
🌿 Increased movement
🌿 Mental stimulation
🌿 Opportunities for self-selection of plant material
🌿 Access to a wide range of plant compounds not found in monoculture grass systems

Perhaps the question shouldn’t be “How much grass does my horse need?”

Perhaps it should be “How much variety does my horse need?”

Because when given the choice, many horses don’t behave like lawnmowers.

They behave exactly as nature intended — as specialist browsers.

05/18/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/18uwihHtGF/?mibextid=wwXIfr