The Difference A Year Makes

I have been thinking a lot about how different things are this year from last. It was about this time last year I discovered the wild horse keeping method through the Wiki site and Jamie Jackson's book, "Paddock Paradise". With the recent addition of Munchkin and my reading the book, "The Soul of a Horse" by Joe Camp ( I highly recommend this book!) I have been going over my blog and thinking a lot about the changes in how I see things and mostly how different Frankie is since this time last year.

Last year at this time I had Frankie and Emma living in their small paddock, not moving around, eating off a round bale and Frankie was hardly getting ridden. The reason Frankie was not getting ridden much was because we had such a horrible winter for this area and everything was wet and slippery. Normally that would not deter me from ridding but Frankie was so pent up with excess energy riding him was like riding a freight train. I was even having to deal with bucking and a little rearing, something he never use to do. So all this made me not want to ride him even more because I always felt like we were going to wipe out on the wet ground not to mention I was not having fun! Something had to change!

LIVING SPACE CHANGES

 

In February of last year I found the Wiki site and was blown away by my new revelation of how I could enlarge their living space. My very wooded lot made it impossible financially for me to clear more pasture space but a track I could do. The track went up quickly and was in use by the Spring. 

FEED  CHANGES

At this time last year I was feeding from a round bale and giving Frankie a small amount of soaked alfalfa cubes. Now it was not much but I think the alfalfa didn't help with his excess energy. I went to my local feed store and explained my issues and needed a feed that was for an easy keeper and was mainly just a natural product that was not grain based. We got our answer, so now he gets a 1/2 lb of  Purina Nature's Essentials Enrich 12, AM and PM. Because Frankie has a lot of problems with his digestion and is prone to sand colic he still gets his AM dose of Assure with a very high quality probiotic in it and in the PM, once or twice a month he gets a weeks worth of the Assure Plus (sand clear).

Hay is now pulled from the round bale that I leave covered in my driveway and the slow feed nets are filled from that. 


After reading Joe Camps book it totally hit home that I needed to lower my nets, I had them up too high. So today I walked the track and lowered all the hooks making the bottom of the nets rest on the ground. Neither Frankie or Munchkin have worn shoes ever if not in a long time so there is not any worry of them snagging a foot. 

OTHER CHANGES

This Summer I worked with Frankie on some new clicker training projects. He is well trained in this process and knows my kiss noise to be his YES signal. I had several close calls with him during last winter with him bolting off with me. He was very hard to stop when I first got him and while he had improved significantly he still needed work. After the bad riding winter we had I wanted an emergency stop signal so if he tried to bolt off with me again I could stop him. Frankie being a fast study learned my signal quickly, first from the ground and then the saddle. We had a couple of opportunities to test it last summer while racing home with a friend and her horse and it worked wonderful as when my signal, both body and verbal, was given he screeched to a halt! 

The other change of course was the arrival of Munchkin. Frankie and Munchkin play and run a lot. I think I actually see Frankie smiling at times. I hate that it took Emma to pass for my husband to allow me to get Munch but even he knew that Frankie could not be alone and I assured him that Munchie would not cost much more than Emma had. In my husbands defense money is very tight this year as it is with so many and we really have to be careful as to what we take on.

THIS WINTER

Things are so different. Frankie is very calm and I have not had one single problem with him while riding this Winter. I have even been riding him bareback again which was something I was to afraid to do last Winter. Both horses seem so happy on the track and use it all day, they even sleep out on it now! Both of them have great feet and I am lucky to have a farrier that is good at the barefoot trim. I can not even imagine putting shoes on them ever, for any reason. I feel good about all the progress we have made and I love the track. It has in so many wonderful ways, changed our lives.