Holistic Horse Education

Holistic Horse Education Ethical, force-free, science-based horse care. Hoof care/trimming education + practical content. Rescue & rehab. R+ lifestyle. Online courses + clinics.

Available for demos/events.

28/04/2026

This looks like a crack, but it’s not really a standard hoof crack. In this horse, it’s more like a chronic internal scar. He always grows this black line through the same area, and it’s likely much deeper than the outer hoof wall, probably involving the lamina and maybe even the bone. It’s been stable for years and hasn’t caused any soundness issues. I keep it resected so the area stays clean and we don’t trap pathology in there. Sometimes good hoof care is just careful long-term management.

I’m using products from .co HoofIX Pink on the frogs and Blue Balls on the resection.

21/04/2026

Ever wondered what a digital pulse is and why horse people talk about it so much?

This is the pulse felt in the vessels supplying the hoof. Learning how to find it can give you useful information about what may be going on in the foot, especially if it feels stronger than normal.

It’s one small piece of the puzzle, but a very handy thing for horse owners to know how to check.

20/04/2026

Let me know what you think this is in the comments.

I’m using a wire brush hoof pick and and HoofIX Blue from .co

18/04/2026

I had a fun afternoon stuffing around with the boys and Sally’s recumbent trike. We’re going a fitness program 😅 so the Ollie and Bramble came be slick looking unicorns at 🦄

I’m using positive reinforcement to train and do husbandry tasks.

It’s amazing to see how far little Bramble has come after his traumatic brain injury a few years ago. His sight hasn’t returned in one eye but he’s so much more confident. Hopefully the work and careful diet will help his build some muscle again. He’s really lacking top line.

I’m using Hoof Spray, Shine Suds and a wire brush hoof pick from .co

One thing I keep thinking about is just how much control we have over horses.We control where they live, what they eat, ...
17/04/2026

One thing I keep thinking about is just how much control we have over horses.

We control where they live, what they eat, how much they eat, when they eat, who they live with, whether they get to go outside, whether they get companionship, whether they get enough forage, whether they are stressed, whether they are comfortable, and then on top of all that, we control the training.

That is an enormous amount of power to have over another living being.

I was trimming a horse last week and the owner had an apple in her pocket. The horse knew she did. She used pressure to back the horse up and then she played with his mouth. The horse got frustrated and bit her.

And honestly, that should make us stop and think.

From the horse’s point of view, there was food right there, but also pressure, expectation, uncertainty around what was expected and a new person in the mix (me), and restriction. That creates conflict. Then when the horse reacts to that conflict, we blame the horse.

But the real issue is that we put the horse in this situation and people often do not understand how upsetting and confusing this can be for the animal. They think they are doing something fun. They think the horse is being rude or naughty. When really, the horse may just be frustrated, conflicted, frightened, and not coping.

We do not get to control every part of an animal’s life and then act shocked when they have feelings about it.

If a horse lives with restricted food, stress around resources, isolation, pressure, confusion, and discomfort, and then we walk in with something highly valuable in our pocket while using training that relies on the horse feeling uncomfortable or frightened enough to respond, we should not be surprised when that creates emotional fallout.

Food is an incredibly powerful reinforcer. That means it can be used beautifully, ethically, and clearly, but it can also be used very badly.

If you are using food while also relying on pressure, discomfort, fear, or intimidation, you are creating conflict.

If you are expecting a horse to perform something they do not understand, pressuring them through it, then showing them food, and then punishing them for trying to get the food, that is not fair. That is not clear. That is not ethical.

It is our responsibility as owners to get educated.

That means learning about species-appropriate living, access to forage, social needs, stress around food, emotional state, frustration, correct interpretation of body language, and how reinforcement actually works.

It also means understanding that training with food is not just handing out treats. It is a real skill, and if we are going to use it, we need to learn how to do it properly.

A few simple things that help:

Don’t keep treats in your pocket where the horse knows they are there but cannot access them. This is effectively teasing them and causing frustration.

The same goes for having feed, buckets, nice hay, or grass in sight that they cannot access. It all creates stress around food.

Don’t use food alongside pressure, discomfort, fear, or intimidation and assume that makes it kind.

Make food as calm and predictable as possible.

Food should be free flowing and fibrous. Low sugar, high fibre feed like hay or chaff.

You can use the horses regular feed so it’s not a novelty.

Because horses deserve better than being confused, frustrated, and punished for reacting honestly to the situations we create for them.

If you want to learn the foundations of using food reinforcement in a way that is clear, calm, and fair for the horse, that is exactly what I teach in my online course.

Want to know what to do next?Turn the bag around.Stop choosing feed based on the front of the bag and start with the ing...
14/04/2026

Want to know what to do next?

Turn the bag around.

Stop choosing feed based on the front of the bag and start with the ingredient list.

Because before you worry about the marketing words like “safe,” “cool,” “low starch,” “complete,” or “metabolic,” you need to know what you are actually feeding.

If the ingredient list is vague, heavily processed, full of by-products, meal, added oils, added iron, mineral premixes that don’t tell you what’s in them, grains, or extra sugars like molasses and honey, that is already telling you something.

It is telling you this feed may be designed more around cost, palatability, shelf life, ease of manufacturing, and marketing than around being the simplest, healthiest option for the horse.

That does not mean every horse needs exactly the same diet.
It does mean that simpler, more transparent ingredients are often a much better place to start than a mystery pellet with a fancy name.

Then look at the analysis.
(I’ll do a separate post on that, because that part gets more detailed.)

That is where things like starch, ESC, fat, fibre, protein, iron, minerals, and suitability for the individual horse matter.

And that is also where a lot of owners start to feel overwhelmed, which is understandable, because equine nutrition can get complicated quickly.

So no, you do not need to become an equine nutrition expert overnight.

But you do need to stop relying on marketing to make decisions for you.

If you want to learn to do this properly yourself, the NRC Plus course is really thorough.

And if you don’t want to jump right into the deep end with the numbers and specifics, that’s okay too. There are some excellent independent equine nutritionists out there who can help you build a diet that actually suits your horse.

That is something I can help with too.

The goal is to help people stop wasting money on bags that sound good and start feeding in a way that actually makes sense for their horse.

The horse feed industry makes a fortune off confusion.The first problem is that the average owner genuinely does not kno...
12/04/2026

The horse feed industry makes a fortune off confusion.

The first problem is that the average owner genuinely does not know what they’re looking at.

They are not standing in the feed store mentally sorting through starch, ESC, fat, by-products, fibre sources, oils, fillers, palatability enhancers, mineral balance, or whether the ingredient list is even specific enough to mean anything.

They are looking at the front of the bag.
The pretty name.
The promises.
Maybe the word “safe.”
Maybe “low starch.”
Maybe “metabolic.”
Maybe “cool.”

And then trusting that somebody upstream has done the right thing.

But upstream is often just sales.

The produce store worker might be lovely, but a lot of them are not properly educated in equine nutrition. They are selling what the rep told them, what moves off the shelf, what customers ask for, or what they have heard repeated often enough to believe. Then the feed reps themselves are often selling within the company line.

So owners are often making decisions in a chain of marketing, not a chain of independent knowledge.

And that is where the real problem lies.

Because by the time an owner gets to the point of buying a bag, they often think they are making a careful, loving, responsible choice. They are not standing there thinking, brilliant, I’ll buy the cheapest by-product-based filler with vague ingredient groupings and a shiny label.

They think they are helping.

That is exactly why the industry gets away with it.

And Australian horse feed absolutely has this issue with by-products and vague category language. Not all bagged feeds are equal, and a lot of them are built around what is economical, available, palatable, and marketable, not what is the clearest, simplest, cleanest option for the horse.

Then those same feeds get dressed up in words that sound scientific, calming, performance-based, gut-friendly, metabolic-friendly, or premium.

That is the bit that needs to be called out.

Because owners hear “premium” and think quality.
They hear “low starch” and think safe.
They hear “complete” and think balanced.
They hear “metabolic” and think suitable.
They hear “cool energy” and think that sounds good.

And sometimes none of that actually tells them what they need to know.

Simpler feeding matters.

In a lot of cases, if people stripped things back and fed more simply, more transparently, and more intentionally, many horses would probably do better and owners would waste less money.

Not everyone has the time or confidence to balance everything from scratch.

But as a general direction, simpler is often safer than a mystery bag with a glamorous name.

The real issue is that complexity protects the industry.

The more confused owners are, the more they rely on branding.
The more they rely on branding, the more the company controls the narrative.
And the more the company controls the narrative, the less pressure there is for true transparency.

So the heart of the issue is this:

The horse feed industry benefits from owners not knowing how to read a feed bag properly.

And underneath that is the softer truth:

Owners are often undereducated in this area, overwhelmed, and trying to do right by their horses in a system designed to sell them solutions.

That is why education matters.

Not because every bagged feed is evil.
Not because everyone needs to formulate every feed from scratch tomorrow.

But because owners want what’s best for their horses, and at some point we do have to stop handing that responsibility over to marketing.

Address

Yarra Glen, VIC

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Holistic Horse Education posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Holistic Horse Education:

Shortcuts

Share

Category