Merry Christmas

Wishing everybody a wonderful Christmas and enjoy your New Years!

Bathing Routine

Ace was feeling pretty good the other day and luckily I had my camera at hand. I believe looking good and feeling good starts from the inside. He is fed good quality hay and a vitamin-mineral supplement (plus cookies). To keep him looking good here's how:

For bathing he only gets washed with plain water after every ride. I make sure to get all the sweat and dirt off him. I believe soap is not good for horses since it removes natural oils from the horses coat. A good plain hose down removes salt and makes them cooler but always use a sweat scraper and remove the the layer of water from the coat. Water left on a horse heats up from the horse's body temperature and can prevent or impede the natural cooling process of a horse, so make sure you get as much off as possible.

For his mane and tail about once a month I will wash the hair with a tiny about of shampoo. Then while still damp spray some detangler, let that sit for awhile to let it do it's magic. Then very carefully start at the ends with a very wide tooth comb and slowly brush out the hair. Never use a hair brush, that puts out to much hair and those long tail hairs take years to grow. This is the way I do his hair so it doesn't get all caught up or matted and I never have to cut anything out.

Well I'm sure everyone has there own routine and ways of doing things. I thought I would share mine, I think they working pretty good. Take care!

Breyer Poltergeist

I haven't brought a model in a very long time, not that I don't want to buy all the pretty horses but saving up for a house priority number one. That is until I saw Breyer's new Halloween horse Poltergeist. I don't collect decorators, themed or anything not found naturally... but I fell in love.

 I love his white face with pink touch, lip kiss spots and short tail. The demon rider is stenciled beautifully, as are the flame leg markings. My husband thinks his the best model his ever seen and loves that he glows in the dark.

Only thing his rump sits very high, much higher then my other Ruffians. I thought has peg might have been put in wrong but I have found out that they are all tipped forward like this.

 Love this super spooky guy.  

 

To Blanket

As a first time horse owner standing out in the cold winter wind I wondered if my horse needs a blanket. After lots of research I believe for my horse in Southern California, (24°F or -4°C is around coldest it gets) he doesn't need a blanket. This flow chart is great in my opinion, if Ace didn't have the coat of a wooly mammoth, was super old or sick he would get a blanket.

According to most research as that's needed for Ace to stay warm is food. As the temperatures decrease, a horse's feed requirements increase. Increasing feed intake increases heat production in the horse’s body. This is connected to the fact that the process of digesting long fibers produces heat as a by-product. Allowing horses free choice hay is the surest way to keep them nice and warm.

So fluffy!

Blanketing can really upset the thermoregulation in a horse. The animal tries to warm up parts of the body left exposed to the cold such as head, neck, belly and legs, in the process they become over-heated in those parts covered by the blanket. A horse cannot increase heat in selected area’s of the body. The whole body cools or the whole body heats up. Sweating under a blanket is more of a problem metabolically to the horse than people realise. 

So no blankets for Ace, just some good hay to keep him toasty warm. This is my opinion and I know very person is different. I did a lot of reading on this subject and a Natalija Aleksandrova has written a great article.