Akal Ranch

07/01/2024

03/30/2024

Raven has been in training at WhiteRaven Equestrian for almost two months now and is doing really well. Yesterday she was introduced to long lines and it was very nicely non-eventful. This is how it should go.

I’m happy to have found a training team that is willing to go at a pace that works for her, while keeping her curiosity and building her emotional intelligence.

AR Tru Blue Raven will be three years old in a couple of months.

Tamber Lucas
Ginger Larkins
Whiteraven Equestrian

03/22/2024

Updated: We have a couple of rare openings for self-care board. 2 paddocks with run-ins. Locked tack room, 60 x 85 indoor arena, 12 x 12 shared feed room and hay storage. Inside stalls available for bad weather days. We can feed hay 1x/day with flexibility to cover vacations, etc.

One side has a track suitable for IR/EMS or Cushing horses. The other side has an attached grass pasture for seasonal use.

Email horseartist at gmail for more information and to schedule an interview. We are a small private facility with owners on site.

Close in Pleasant Hill with easy access to I-5, Creswell, Dexter, Eugene and Springfield.

08/14/2023

Wonderful thoughts here from 20 years ago

https://www.facebook.com/1182951931827008/posts/2253009968154527/?mibextid=37120aUUPrDeJY5x

Sadly both Dr Reiner Klimke and Susan Hayes Woods are no longer with us, but this edited interview from 1995 is a pignant reminder that modern dressage started to go wrong over 20 years ago...

SUSAN’S INTERVIEW WITH DR. REINER KLIMKE AT THE AACHEN CHIO JULY 1995

Susan: I was watching you as you schooled Biotop in the indoor arena this morning, and it was wonderful. I noticed you were working him in a fat snaffle, and I wondered if you could talk about the importance of working in the snaffle for upper level horses.

Klimke: I ride at home only once a week on the double bridle.

Susan: Do you mean for most of your Grand Prix horses, or for this one especially?

Klimke: All. I want to have them very light in my hand. It is easier when they are really “through”, and they take the bit and take your hands. Then they are not afraid to come out to the double bridle.

Susan: Biotop seems to be very “out” to the bridle–there is not a lot of overflexing.

Klimke: And when he goes in extensions, the neck and frame extend too. And yet there are horses who make their extensions with overflexed necks and they score just as well…

Susan: Can you explain that?

Klimke: Well, when I tell you this, I don’t want to sound jealous, but I live for classical riding. Classical riding means that the horse must go: that is, the energy must come through and the horse reaches forward. But the judges don’t always mark accordingly. I don’t mind; I know what is right. I have been in this sport for nearly 40 years.

Susan: I also saw today that you were doing a lot of work on the basic paces, and simple transitions.

Klimke: Yes. The horse must go forward and he must be happy. If the horse is happy and he trusts you, then you can teach him. If you punish him, that is wrong.

Susan: They never forget. Is there any place for punishment in riding?

Klimke: I hate to punish a horse. It must not be. It can happen to anybody. Sometimes you lose your patience, you try to make the horse a slave. But it is not right. Sometimes you see riders blowing up, even here, with top riders. I say to myself, “Poor horse, I wouldn’t like to be in your stable.”

Susan: Why does it happen? A lot of these riders will teach and talk about riding classically, and mean to do it, but then it is different here. Is it the pressure?

Klimke: I think everybody wants to win. Perhaps they think if they make a horse tired it will be submissive. Sometimes it may work, but if you really look you can see what is wrong. Some judges don’t have a really good eye, and they judge by punishing mistakes, like too many or too few strides in a pirouette, for example.

Susan: Too much counting and not enough…

Klimke: Yes. The principle is: how is the walk, how is the trot, how is the canter, how is the acceptance of the bridle, how does the back work–all of these things. And in addition, the figures. But they deduct too much if a figure is not 100% okay. You see? If you make a pirouette and the horse really uses his hindquarters, and maybe the pirouette is a little big, you should not be given a 5.

Susan: That’s a little extreme.

Klimke: Yes. It can be at least a 6, can also be a 7, when the horse really canters classically. Even if the circle was too large, remember that you must deduct from 10. The judge must be able to see the main achievement of a horse and rider, in a movement.

Susan: This brings up another question, and that is–there are some amazing equine athletes here, and some of them get a lot of points because of that. Where are the places in the Grand Prix test where the talent can’t cover up the problems with the training?

Klimke: I look only at the way that the horse moves, in all three gaits. He must come from behind, with a swinging back. The head and neck must seek the bit. I hate it if the horse comes behind the vertical and stays there. When the horse is really “through”, you must be able to open and close the frame, and keep him reaching into the bit. And right now, in the judging, in my opinion, this doesn’t count for enough. But sooner or later, good riding will be rewarded. You must not lose your patience, you see. And don’t give up.

https://woodsdressage.com/ for the full interview and about Susan Hayes Woods

Concordia Equestrians.
Register as a Friend or Professional and help us make the world a better place to be a horse www.concordiaequestrians.org

07/24/2023

This is an excellent article on Equine digestion and feeding.

https://www.facebook.com/100064190430439/posts/661298872686455/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

I seem to be getting more of these questions in the group as well as on posts in other groups so although I have covered this subject more than 1,228,996 times I guess it is time for 1,228,997. This effort goes back to the dawn of my group because it is a very common subject and the replies are almost always wrong.

“I just got this new horse and she’s underweight. What’s the best way to get weight on her?”

I’ll start with the answer and follow up with a very simple explanation.

Grass forage. Full time high quality grass forage, hay and/or pasture. Some complete or concentrated feed is important as well but not more than 20% of total intake.

Pouring pounds of concentrated feeds, raw grain or, God forbid, sweet feed is not going to help and will almost certainly hurt the effort to rebuild the animal.

There are graduate courses on the equine digestive system so it’s a fairly complex subject on how everything does what it does and why it does it. I’ve probably had about 80 or 90 classroom hours on the subject including wading around the entire mess on a necropsy room floor. Not a great experience for a horse lover especially with a dead bay gelding staring at you the whole time.

I’m going to boil the whole thing down for you in a few paragraphs which is all you need to know to understand how to treat an underweight horse.

The equine digestive system starts with the teeth which grind the forage that horses naturally eat at a rate of about a pound per hour for about 20 hours a day. This is convenient since the average 1,000 pound horse should eat 20 pounds of forage per day. Sixty million years of evolution suggests that this formula is no coincidence.

Next comes the stomach which is very small relative to the capacity of the entire gut. The horse’s stomach continues to break down the forage before sending it to the small intestine where just about every nutrient is absorbed. Protein, vitamins, fat (we’ll cover this later), minerals.

About the only thing left at the end of the small intestine is fiber. SInce grass is such a terrible source of energy and nutrients the horse must make use of everything available so all that fiber gets dumped into a big fermentation vat called the cecum. In the cecum the fiber is broken down in a fermentation process that requires about 36 to 48 hours to complete before the leftovers end up on the muck pile. The primary byproduct of this process is volatile fatty acids which are easily absorbed by the horse to be used for current energy requirements and stored as fat for later use.

This is why forage is the best way to successfully support weight gain in a horse. It’s how the entire system is designed to work.

Here’s the rub. The cecum is the end of the line in the factory so if anything upstream isn’t working properly the fat factory isn’t working. So let’s start at the beginning.

Teeth are important to processing forage as well as general health. If the teeth aren’t grinding the forage properly it’s difficult for the rest of the gut to take up the slack. Pointy teeth can cause pain which suppresses the horse’s appetite.

If you have a new horse with a sketchy background coming you should have already made an appointment with your dentist.

Next stop is the stomach which is also very important to the process even though the food isn’t in there very long. What we put into the stomach and how much is going to be critical in successfully promoting weight gain.

We know that the stomach is very small and designed to process about one pound of forage per hour for about three hours before pushing it downstream.

So what happens when we put a six pound bucket of feed in front of our horse that consumes it in 20 minutes? Lot’s of bad stuff.

We all know that the system only runs in one direction and since many horses don’t have a self limiting appetite they are going to clobber that meal so by the time the last bite hits the stomach after 20 minutes the first bite has been dumped into the small intestine without nearly enough processing to be effectively digested bogging down the entire mess.

Like every digestive system, efficiency is based on rate of passage and if anything messes with that things begin to break down and go pear shaped. And the rate of passage is just the beginning of the breakdown.

A 2008 study of racehorses revealed that a diet heavy in starch resulted in a 265% increase in moderate to severe ulcer scores! The common belief is that OTTBs come to us loaded with ulcers because of stress and anxiety but the most likely culprit are the high starch high volume feeding programs they are on.

Ulcers are painful and suppress appetite as well as reduce the ability to effectively process food. If you have a skinny horse with a sketchy background you should consult your vet about treating for ulcers. I can’t offer vet advice but you might want to pick up a couple of tubes of Ulcerguard and do a couple of weeks of maintenance doses to see what happens. If things improve it’s a pretty good indicator of what’s the problem.

But wait, there’s more!!

Horses, like most of us, use bugs (microbiome) to process their food. The small intestine bugs are designed to break down certain things including carbs. The cecum fermenters are designed to process fiber. When we put a whole bunch of high starch feed into the system the small intestine bugs don’t process all the carbs and the whole mess ends up in the cecum where the carb bugs overwhelm the fiber bugs and it’s hindgut armageddon.

Google “equine hindgut acidosis” if you want a more complete clinical explanation but essentially this condition limits the production of volatile fatty acids. In severe cases it can result in death. Horses can be eating 20 pounds of sweet feed per day and die of starvation.

Finally, large meals of hard feed, even low starch feed, will suppress a horse’s appetite for forage. I mean if you want me to eat my salad don’t put three pieces of pizza on my plate!

So, the new horse is coming from the rescue or the auction or a sketchy background and she needs to go up a body condition score or two here’s the program.

Teeth, tummy, tootsies. Feet? What’s feet got to do with it? Pain is an appetite suppressant.

Have teeth checked and floated if needed. If the horse is coming from a neglect situation the first thing that goes away to save money are dental visits, followed closely by the farrier.

Consider gastric distress. Assume that there’s something bad going on from a little upset tummy to full blown ulcers. I would immediately start a gut supplement like Ulcerguard or Outlast until you have a consult with the vet.

Provide access to high quality grass forage. Alfalfa can be helpful for gut health but should be limited to 15% of total forage. Alfalfa is high in protein and protein calories are harder to process than fiber (good carb) calories.

Feed multiple small meals. For a 1,000 pound target weight horse a meal should never exceed five pounds and three pounds or less are better. Three three pound meals are a great place to start.

Until teeth are up to date I would assume they aren’t great and feed a complete senior feed like Purina Equine Senior or Buckey Safe n Easy Complete.

This is a whole nother article but a complete feed is designed to be fed as a forage replacement for horses with bad teeth. They are characterized by high fiber and low fat content.

Once teeth are cleared as good we can switch to a high calorie low starch feed like Ultium or Safe n Easy Ultra.

If teeth are determined to be in poor condition we can increase the amount of complete feed to 10 or 12 pounds per day.

Adding large amounts of fat to the diet will be counterproductive. Horses don’t have gall bladders and for 60 million years they did not have easy access to concentrated plant fats so they aren’t really great at processing fats.

Horses will learn to process fats but it requires a few weeks to ramp up and they will do just fine on grass forage. Fat should be used for energy requirements for horses in heavy work, yet another article.

The National Research Council tells us that a 500kg (1,100 lb) horse in no exercise requires 16,500 calories per day to maintain weight. Twenty pounds of grass hay is somewhere between 16,000 and 17,000 calories. Adding ten pounds of high calorie feed is another 1,6000. All horses are individuals so some horses require more and others require less. I know one thing for absolute certainty and that is if you have a 1,000 pound horse that you are dumping 32,000 calories per day into something is wrong with the horse,.

Too many groceries are just as harmful as too few. Fix the horse, fix the weight problem.

If you found this information helpful please consider buying some hay for my old, useless mares (Raven is stuffing her face below).

All contributions are consumed and appreciated!

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jimthefeedguy

06/27/2023

Thought I would add a few updated photos of Raven as a two-year-old.