Sorry about the hiccup yesterday. I’m not sure what happened except that nothing happened. No blog. I wrote one, but it didn’t post. So, there you go. Sometimes there are just no answers – but life (and this blog) march on anyway.
The good news about yesterday’s mishap is that people had more time to learn about the previous blogpost which stayed up for two days. So, YAY for the Bucket Fund and Champ! (Story linked here.)
APRIL’S BUCKET FUND RECEIPT FROM DREAM EQUINE THERAPY CENTER!
Hooray for all of you readers who supported (both financially and emotionally) the Bucket Fund Orphaned Nurse Mare Foals ‘Heartbreak Kids’ rescued by DETC.
I’m not sure if all of you caught that the draft colt, Norseman, was adopted by one of you readers!! Thaaat’s what I’m talkin’ about! And, on top of that lovely placement, we collected $1685 towards foal pellets and loving care. Wonderful! Thank you one and all!
- Our April Bucket Fund Receipt!
Here is a note from Terri, the Director of DETC:
Dream Equine Therapy Center volunteers, horses and foals would like to thank Horse and Man Group for their generous donations during the month of April. Raising orphan foals is very costly especially when you encounter medical issues and ICU type care like with little Armstrong.
We strive to find quality homes that are right for each individual horse and monitor them throughout their lifetime.
6 foals were adopted in the last couple weeks and awareness was raised about the nurse mare industry and the simple solution of using Hormone Induced Lacatating Mares. We thank you for your support and hope you continue to bring light to this horrible industry.
Sincerely,
Terri Stemper
Founding Director
DETC
UPDATE ON GLORY AND FAITH’S FOALS!
I know you all want to find out about little Glory (the mini-mare from the Junkyard 4 who finally gave birth last week) and Faith (the Percheron mare from the Junkyard 4 who gave birth quietly while everyone was watching Glory).
Both mares and babies are doing swimmingly!
Here are pics of Glory’s adorable colt who as of yet, has not been deemed with a suitable moniker. I will call him Sir Couldntbecuter of Florida.
UPDATE: I JUST FOUND OUT THAT GLORY’S FOAL IS NAMED “CLOUD DANCER”!
- Sir Couldntbecuter of Florida (not his real name). Glory’s colt.
- Glory with her colt
- “Hello World, it is ME!”
FAITH’S COLT, “INDY”!
Faith’s colt is the spittin’ image of his father, Indy, who didn’t make it from the Junkyard safely. He passed from complications due to the horrendous environment. However, he did know some days of love and tenderness from BHFER before he said Goodbye.
What a treat to have a new foal who has the same blanket, the same coloring, the same facial markings and the same eye (according to Theresa from BHFER)! In a tribute to Indy the sire, they have named Indy the son.
Theresa says that Indy’s legs are so long, he is still getting used to using them. His ‘getting ups’ are pretty good but his ‘laying downs’ are not so pretty – yet.
- Indy, spittin’ image of his sire.
- Still working on the leg part…
BENEFICIAL PLANTS FOR YOUR PASTURE
A reader sent this pdf to me and I wanted to share it. However, I couldn’t find the source page so I had to reprint the whole thing for you here. I wouldn’t want to misquote it and I think the information is really interesting.
It is kinda like a recipe for a great horsey vitamin salad! Mix it up and your steeds will fare much better! So, if you have a pasture to seed, or if you just want to know what could be good for your horse to eat around the farm or in your hay/grain/supplement, check this out.
Also, for those of you who hand graze your animals, this is a handy chart. When I had to hand walk/graze my show mare, I always wondered why she chose to eat the plants and grasses that I couldn’t identify. HOW DID SHE KNOW what to eat? I found that fascinating. So, here is a long list of research for you!
The link between nutrition and health is so fundamental that it is not surprising that herbs can provide a valuable source of ‘medicine’ for grazing animals (e.g. horses, ponies, cattle, sheep, goats, llamas etc.), simply via their nutritional content (esp. minerals). The fact that they also provide some pharmacologically-active ingredients, in many cases, is a huge bonus. It is an injustice to call so many of them ‘weeds’.
Animals are very attuned to their eco-system, when allowed to roam and when fed and husbanded in a near-natural manner. Because of this, they self-medicate, given the opportunity (zoopharmacognosy). This is more by way of maintaining health than curing illness, in most cases, although stories abound of seriously ill animals healing themselves, when released onto the Prairie in the USA or into the New Forest, the Breck or the Romney Marshes, in the UK.
It is my belief that a variety of herbs should therefore be available to animals, on a self-help basis, to provide a powerful force for strong growth and development and for a robust immune and healing system. It could be argued that such provision is a welfare measure. These herbs can be part of pasture sward but it stands to reason that there should be a ‘reserve’, since farming confines larger numbers of animals on a given acreage than Nature would allow, which means that the grazing animals will eat out the herbs very rapidly from open grazing ground.
On a farm, headlands, roadways, woodland, hedges, gateways and, perhaps, dedicated land must provide the reserve. There follows a list of herbs that I believe can be valuable to horses and farm animals. Not all are necessary, on any given unit. Some will not grow on every type of land or in every habitat. Some are very deep-rooting, which therefore provide a way of dredging up minerals from deeper in the ground than grass swards can. These can therefore be used as fertility accelerators, in that they could be grown and then returned to the soil as a form of green manure. It will not escape the reader’s notice that many of these herbs would be dubbed ‘weeds’, in a conventional farming sense.
- List of beneficial plants
AND FINALLY, JUST FOR FUN
I thought this image was really beautiful…
- Pregnant zebra mare
HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth… if you like this, please pass it around!
- Click here for the Bucket Fund! Let’s make sure Champ NEVER goes back to his previous owner!
Copyright
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I found the link to the original document for you http://www.alternativevet.org/Beneficial%20Plants%20WS019-07.pdf
Could we get an update on Armstrong too? And I am SO jealous of whoever got Norseman, I fell totally in love with that sturdy little horse, having recently acquired a draft cross, these horses are amazing and are even big in the “personality” department.
Thank you for posting the list of herbs. I have been a fan for many years of the equine herbalist Dr. Hilary Self also of the UK. In the “good old days” before so much in the way of chemical fertilizer, toxic spraying and the overwhelming rise of the “monoculture” form of farming and farmland management, diversity in grazing was what kept livestock healthy. We are lucky up here in Oregon to have abundant sources of organic herbs and beneficial plants to add to pastures where our horses are kept. here’s a little tip esp in dry climates, if you have field fence – goes by horse fence, non-climb, wovenwire, etc., – e.g., metal fencing NOT BARBWIRE!!!! – if you plant herbs and beneficial plants right on the fence line the condensation overnight (dew) will add a tad bit of water to the growing area and really help grow them without the need for additional watering.
A note on cleavers, this is a sticky “weed” that if you are pulling it because it’s growing enthusiastically where you might not want it to grow, first know cleavers is an amazing immune booster and horses will seek it out when they are feeling a bit under the weather. And second please wear gloves because it’s really tough to deal with the sticky stuff on the plant when it gets on your hands.
A really good book to read on the use of beneficial plants to assist horses nutritionally is A Modern Horse Herbal. The author covers all and more of what’s on the list so generously provided and discusses in even deeper detail the benefits of each.