With my long interest in working ponies, and being steeped as I am in British native pony breeds and especially the Fell, I am always pleased and surprised when I learn of a new breed of working pony. It can be so easy to assume that Great Britain and to a lesser extent Europe have been the sole enthusiasts of small equines for work. So I was thrilled to learn of the Hequ (previously known as the Nanfan), a breed from the 7th century in China.

Hequ horse by gill_penney courtesy Creative Commons 2 license (2)

Not unlike the Welsh Pony with its four sections, there are three types of Hequ: the Jiaoke (or Jiaode), the Suoke and Kesheng. The types vary in characteristics based on where they are from. They range in height from 12.3 to 14.3 and are typically used ridden, including local racing, or for light draft work. They are uniquely adapted for life at high altitude. Hequ are sure-footed and show good endurance and recovery from exertion. While they are referred to as horses, they have many characteristics of the pony phenotype, such as a wide forehead, a broad and deep chest, a well coupled loin, legs of medium length, and a well-sloped shoulder.

This breed came to my attention because of arising health issues. (1) The issues were reported after changes in grazing management. The issues ended up being due to a lack of selenium in areas where the horses were grazing and were resolved with selenium supplementation.

Because I’ve been dealing with (minor) health issues related to grazing management in my Fell Pony herd, I couldn’t help but notice a parallel between the Hequ and my ponies. For my herd it was copper, not selenium, that needed to be supplemented to resolve the fading of their coats. It can be so easy to forget how important minerals are to good health and how changes in grazing practices require us to pay attention to changes in the nutrient content of the forage that is the foundation of their health.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

1. “Modern Problem for an Ancient Breed,” Equus #502, Autumn 2020, p. 17.

2. Photo by gill_penney and used via Creative Commons 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

I had a new farrier out to trim my ponies’ hooves. Technically he’s not really a farrier; he calls himself a barefoot trimmer. I have recently come to an enhanced appreciation of that vocation. I hadn’t realized that indeed there is a difference between trimming hooves and trimming to mimic an ideal hoof on an equine living a barefoot (rather than shod) existence.

Two different hoof shapes

I asked the trimmer about the shape of one of my ponies’ feet. They are more oval than round; you can see hers and a rounder hoofprint in the photograph. This pony hadn’t ever had her hooves trimmed before I purchased her, and I have known she and I are on a journey to getting her feet healthy. The answer the trimmer gave about the shape of her foot surprised me but made perfect sense.

I had learned a few months before that a healthy foot on an equine living on perfect terrain develops an arch in the quarters of the hoof wall (think 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock). The arch allows the hoof wall to compress onto the ground when under full bearing weight, enabling it to absorb concussive forces and then spring back to arch shape again. (Click here to read my previous post on hoof arches and how hooves are dynamic structures. A photograph of an arch is included there).

Conventional hoof trimming as I was taught has the hoof wall nipped and filed to be in a plane, all one level all the way around. What happens, then, when the hoof meets the ground under full bearing weight? What happens if there’s not an arch in the wall to absorb some of the concussive forces of landing? The barefoot trimmer suggested to me that those forces may push forward and backward on the foot, elongating the shape of the hoof into an oval. Of course, every equine is different, with different shock absorption abilities based on conformation and other factors, so even if two ponies are trimmed conventionally it isn’t necessarily the case that they will both develop oval hooves.

There is, naturally, good news in the trimmer’s explanation of my mare’s oval hooves. Each time he trims, he makes sure there is an arch in the hoof wall, so in time we should see my mare’s feet become more round and more healthily shaped. I look forward to watching the process!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony: What’s Possible, Practical and Powerful with Small Equines, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover!

It was dusk, and I was out swapping ponies from pasture to paddock and paddock to pasture.  I had handled three when I noticed I had blood on one hand.  A quick scan of my hand led me to conclude I wasn’t injured, so then the question was where did the blood come from.  I examined the three ponies I had been handling and found nothing, so I thought perhaps I had wiped a bug bite I had been scratching on my neck.  But then when I went back to the barn for the next phase of pony movement, I found a trail of blood drops on the ground about thirty feet long.  So I went back to again examine the three ponies I had been handling who had had access to that area all day.  Still I found nothing.  Maybe a barn cat had made a kill and carried a bloody prize somewhere? 

I finished my chores as darkness fell with no further information to explain the blood I’d found.  I went to bed puzzled, but since I hadn’t seen any unusual behavior from any of my ponies and I had a reasonably plausible set of explanations, I decided perhaps the blood wasn’t pony blood after all.

The next morning I discovered I had been a poor detective.  I went out early to check on the three ponies that I had been handling the night before when I found the blood.  Sure enough, Madie had an injury.  It was a puncture wound on her cheek; I apparently had brushed it with my hand when haltering her.  In hindsight I realized I had seen her be a little tender about chewing a treat I gave her.  Sigh.  The wound had obviously bled well the night before, but I cleaned it up and treated it with my healing products.  Then I made arrangements to transport her to the vet to have her checked.

Madie of course has her foal Aimee at foot.  I felt so fortunate that I had been taking Aimee on trailer rides for nearly two weeks so the trip the vet with her mom wasn’t too much of a stretch for her. Especially since my truck was in the shop so I had to borrow a truck and trailer and ask Aimee to step up into a higher trailer.  It turned out it was the unload that was more challenging for her!  It took her a bit to figure out how to jump down those extra few inches.

I had been a poor detective by not doing a thorough physical exam after I found blood.  I had checked back, neck, flanks, belly, and legs but I hadn’t thought to check faces.  Lesson learned!  And I’m grateful that no harm came from my error.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

I love my bareback pad but it’s time to move to a saddle.

When winter began last year, I set myself a goal of riding to the summit of Parker Peak, the highest point in Fall River County where I now live.  It would be a ride from home of about 3 miles one way with an elevation gain of about 800 feet.  What I didn’t realize when I set that goal is that there would be interim goals to accomplish first.  One of those is buying a saddle.

During my first decade with ponies, I would more often work them in harness than ride.  For the occasional short rides that I did do, I had a bareback pad with stirrups that worked well.  In hindsight I realize that many of those rides didn’t have severe elevation changes in them.  In my new life in South Dakota, though, where my house sits in a valley and so much of interest is ‘up,’ elevation change is to be part of my riding. 

Early in my teamster career I learned to look at hair patterns after removing harness to assess whether my pony had experienced any discomfort from harness fit or wear while working.  I naturally began doing the same whenever I removed pack saddles or my bareback pad.  After riding a few hills here, it became clear from those post-ride evaluations that having a saddle would be necessary for my pony’s comfort and for mine.

It didn’t take long into my Fell Pony career to learn that fitting a saddle to a Fell Pony is a non-trivial exercise.  I’ve read lots of threads over the years on various social media, which is how I learned that saddle fit is one part pony, one part person, and one part type of riding.  After I learned this, I wasn’t surprised that there was rarely consensus about the ‘right’ saddle for a Fell because there were so many different permutations of how a saddle was fit to a person/pony partnership.  My bareback pad seemed like a good solution for a long time.

In the meantime, I learned more and more about proper harness fit.  Numerous articles with my colleague Doc Hammill resulted in a book on harness.  My take-away from that project was that to buy a saddle for my ponies required taking equal care and concern as we had documented in our harness book.  Again, my bareback pad seemed like a reasonable compromise.

Now, though, I’m ready to invest the time to find a saddle that works for us in our new situation.  The bareback pad’s compromises have become problems that must be addressed to accomplish my goals with my ponies.  Three areas in particular are problematic with my bareback pad.  First, with my Fell Pony mount’s well-laid back shoulder, the natural girth groove is forward of the withers and the construction of my bareback pad and its girth pull the pad forward onto the withers, especially going downhill.  I can sit back further to correct this on flat ground but downhill travel is still troublesome.  And then the stirrup leather rings are forward of the girth, so posting a trot, for instance, puts downward pressure on the spinous processes of the withers which is completely unacceptable.  Finally, the stirrup position is compromising my posture when riding, throwing my legs forward.  Poor posture on my part ultimately adversely impacts my mount.

Life works in mysterious ways.  When I finally became ready to move on from my bareback pad, some consensus emerged amongst like-minded equestrians regarding saddles for my situation.  I am now engaged in saddle fitting processes with three different saddlers, and I’m learning a lot.  The biggest unknown at the moment is how many saddles I will end up with when I emerge at the other end of this journey!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

My book Harness Lessons with Doc Hammill and Friends is available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

“There’s lots of laminitis in the Black Hills.”  My stomach dropped when I was told this, shortly after moving myself and my pony herd to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  My ponies of course are considered easy-keepers, so I always worry about them developing any of the diseases of over-indulgence.  And my first spring here has certainly made me feel how incredibly fertile this environment is compared to the high elevation landscape where we all lived in Colorado. 

In Colorado, I had pony metabolic management well in hand.  By that I mean that I managed them in a way that respected their natural cycle of fattening in the summer and slimming in the winter.  Coming into spring each year, I had the herd in the moderate range of the Henneke Body Condition Score, where “ribs cannot be visually distinguished but can be easily felt.” (1)  Through twenty years of pony ownership, I never had to deal with laminitis or the other health problems of over indulgence.

This spring I am recognizing some errors in management that I made during the winter.  In Colorado I sometimes had to increase the amount of hay I fed to keep my ponies’ weight from dropping too far when the weather got tough.  This past winter in South Dakota, the ponies were full time on dormant pasture.  When the weather got particularly cold and/or snowy, I supplemented with occasional tubs of hay.  I was basing this on the condition of the lead mare, which was a mistake because she was not representative of the rest of the herd, who were all heavier.  So this spring, they’ve all come into warmer weather and green grass with a little more ‘cover’ than I like to see. 

My late husband and I, on our numerous trips to England, would come home and look at my ponies with a critical eye.  Often I would feel like my ponies had less substance than the ones we’d seen, but after one trip, Don pointed out that many of the ponies we were seeing had much more flesh than mine do except late in the year.  More recently I’ve had my hands on ponies bred by other people, and I was surprised how much flesh they had on them for the time of year.  I was reminded of a study that found that many owners don’t know how to assess healthy body condition in their equines. (2)  Equally likely is that equine owners don’t understand or manage to the natural cycle of fattening in the summer and slimming in the winter, with that second part - slimming in the winter - being the challenging part.

A recent visitor said, “Your ponies don’t seem obese.”  No, that’s true.  On the Body Condition Score, obese is considered to be when it is hard to feel the ribs, and I can still feel their ribs.  Nonetheless, I’m keeping the mares in for half days, following the lead of a like-minded equestrian here in the Black Hills.  I will feel more comfortable with their current weight when the grasses start to die back in the late summer.  And you can be sure that next winter, I’ll be careful with that extra hay!

1. Camargo, Fernanda, et. al.  “Body Condition Scoring Horses: Step-by-Step,” thehorse.com, article #164978, 1/15/19.

2. Morrison, Philippa, et al.  “Perceptions of obesity in a UK leisure-based population of horse owners,” 9/25/15, as found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595036/

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories about what’s possible, practical, and powerful with small equines in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Sleepy Willowtrail Fell Ponies. The one standing up is the lead mare. The fully recumbent one is 9 months old. They definitely prefer hard bare ground for their napping location.

We likely have been told how important good quality sleep is to our own health.  It turns out that the same is true for our equine friends.  New research in 2019 found that the majority of horses studied are not getting enough sleep in their usual environments and that there is a correlation between inadequate sleep and collapse with associated injuries. (1)  Veterinarians say that equine owners should know how much sleep their equines are getting to avoid the risk of collapse.

We know that our equine friends can sleep standing up, but it turns out its important for them to sleep lying down each day, too.  Dr. Michael Hewetson at the Royal Veterinary College says, “A normal horse requires a minimum of one hour’s REM sleep per day which requires the horse to lie down.  If a horse lies down for less than that, they have an increased risk of sleep deprivation which can lead to collapse.” (2)  REM sleep can occur either when a horse is lying down with its head still up but resting it on the ground or when the horse is flat out on its side. (3)

The 2019 study by Juan de Benedetti of Brunel University, Uxbridge, found that 20 percent of the horses monitored were lying down less than one hour per day, and nine percent were lying down less than 30 minutes per day.  The longer rest periods (35 minutes on average) were between midnight and 3am and the next longest (25 minutes on average) were between 9pm and midnight.  These were horses “living most of the time in a stable and turned out in a field or paddock at least for a few hours every day.”  (4)  Dr. Hewetson says, “At the hospital we see cases of sleep-deprived horses due either to an underlying painful condition or because the horse is insecure in its environment.” (5)

In normal herds, one or two members remain alert while the others rest.  Often it is the lead mare, as shown in this picture.  She gets rest when a ‘second-in-command’ assumes the watch duty.  This system can be disrupted by stalling, by herd groupings that are unstable, or by an equine living totally alone, leading to sleep deprivation. The articles I read suggested that large barns with their many comings and goings and diverse noises can be problematic for some equines regarding adequate healthful sleep.

Foals, of course, sleep more than mature equines.  A university of Georgia study found that the average foal is resting lying down 32 percent of the time during the first week of life.  By four months of age, they are resting lying down only 5.1 percent of the time.  As a foal matures, more of its rest time is done standing, up to 23 percent when they’re older from 3.6 percent in the first week.  (6)  I have observed that up to at least a year of age, I’m more likely to see weanlings resting lying down than adult ponies.

I never thought about it until it was stated in an article and I recognized it to be true, but equines in paddocks or on pasture tend to prefer to lie down on hard-packed or heavily grazed areas, as shown in this picture. (7)  It may be because it’s easier to get up quickly on firm footing.  It may also be that sound carries more easily across an open area than into grass and the same with being able to see, and for prey animals the quicker information arrives, the better.

When I see an adult pony lying down, I am immediately watchful.  I wonder if they are okay or experiencing some sort of upset.  With this new understanding of the importance of their sleep, I will try to be thankful for their recumbent rest rather than worry about it immediately!

1. “Study shows sleep pattern concerns,” The Westmorland Gazette, December 2019, p. 29.  Courtesy my colleague Eddie McDonough.

2. Same as #1.

3. Mariette, Kim.  “Help Your Horse Sleep Better,” Equus #497, Summer 2019, p. 47.

4. Same as #1.

5. Same as #1.

6. “Sleeping Like a Baby,” Equus #497, Summer 2019, p. 50.

7. Same as #3.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

The red line shows that there is a very slight hoof arch in Rose’s foot after several weeks of daily rides on a somewhat hard surface. The hoof arch assists with impact absorption.

A light bulb went off when I finally understood what I was reading.  I had seen it but never realized what caused it.  Brilliant!  A pony hoof is even more dynamic than I realized!  I was thankful again for the many hooves I’ve trimmed so that I could understand what was being described.

I am grateful to a fellow Fell Pony enthusiast for the book I am reading with the title Insight to Equus:  Holistic Veterinary Perspectives on Health and Healing.  I am in the midst of a long section on the equine hoof where the author is making the case for equines living a barefoot life.  I have always found that approach to make sense.  I am familiar with the experience of many owners that equines living barefoot often maintain their own hooves in near optimal condition.  Dr. Tomas Teskey repeatedly makes the point, though, that the ground conditions have to be right for this outcome.  My ponies have never lived on the right sort of ground for them to not need trimming.

One of the many incredibly important observations Dr. Teskey makes in his book about a natural hoof is that it is beautifully designed to absorb impact.  It is not a rigid structure which is why a horseshoe which is rigid can be such a detriment to the health of the hoof as well as the horse as a whole.  In fact the equine hoof has a number of structures inherent in it that enable it to absorb impact.  One of those is a hoof arch.

Dr. Teskey says that hoof arches are typically seen only on barefoot horses running on dry rough ground that are not conventionally trimmed.  So many of us are taught that a hoof should have a flat surface where it hits the ground, and we are taught to file to that sort of flat surface when balancing the hoof.  Not so fast, says Dr. Teskey!  Equines running on dry rough ground need all the advantage they can get from their hooves to absorb impact, and because hooves are not rigid, they can and do expand when encountering a rough surface and then contract again as they become airborne.  When we trim, of course, we are trimming in that airborne phase, so we aren’t actually seeing the plane of the hoof that meets the ground.  “Picking them up and looking from the side is a good way to see and feel the arch…  In healthy hooves, the arch flattens slightly as the hoof bears maximum weight…  During hoof flight, … structures recoil back to their original shape and are ready to immediately engage the ground again.”  (1)  Dr. Teskey also describes many other ways in which the arch assists healthy equine activity.

Once I understood what he was talking about, I couldn’t wait to go out and look at my ponies’ hooves.  Our ground this winter has been pretty soft, so the only pony I expected to see an arch on was my mare Rose that I am riding regularly on the ranch lane and a nicely graveled trail.  The picture here shows a very slight arch in Rose’s foot.  Awesome!  I then confirmed that all my other ponies have very flat hoof surfaces.

From now on when I trim, I will watch for a hoof arch and not file it away if it exists.  If they have it, they obviously need it for the life they are leading.  I am thinking about trimming and hooves with new appreciation!

1. Teskey, Tomas G., D.V.M.  Insight to Equus:  Holistic Veterinary Perspectives on Health and Healing.  Self-published, insighttoequus.com, 2019, p. 102

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more discussions about holistic pony ownership in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I was feeling out of sorts, but pony chores still needed to get done.  In the course of moving ponies from one place to another, I fed a treat to a pony that I usually don’t treat.  I gave in to the look in her eyes that said, “I know you’ve given treats to the other mares; what about me?”  I immediately knew I was going to regret the decision.  In my experience it takes as long as three months before a pony who’s been given a treat will stop looking for one.

It was right after the holidays, and my brain was a little foggy and I was a little achy.  I was pretty sure I knew what the source of my discomfort was; I had gone off my usually healthy diet and eaten more sugary foods than normal from Thanksgiving through New Year’s.  I had cleaned up my act but then relapsed on a long road-trip, eating leftover Christmas cookies to pass the time.  After that, though, I ended up having trouble walking.  It took even longer to clean up my act than it had before.  This wasn’t a new downward spiral for me; I’d been here many times before in my life.  I knew I needed to shape up, but I also knew that I would likely succumb to dietary indiscretions again; history has definitely repeated itself in my life in that department.  Then I heard a podcast that gave me new insight and new motivation.

The title of the podcast (click here) was about detoxing the brain.  What really sucked me in, though, was the link the doctors made between poor dietary choices and decision-making.  I was obviously well aware of the link between poor dietary choices and inflammation in my body.  But what was new to me was the link between poor dietary choices and brain fog and the downward spiral of poor decision making that results from that brain fog.  It turns out then when our body is inflamed, so is our brain, though we rarely recognize it because we feel so out of sorts.  And when our brain is inflamed, with brain fog being a tell-tale symptom, we tend to make decisions differently.  Instead of making decisions with long term benefits and strategic goals in mind, we make decisions that result in shorter term gratification.  And those shorter term types of decisions tend to be self-fulfilling.  Eat the leftover cookies as a treat on a long ride in the car rather than avoid them, then suffer even more and make more bad choices.  It’s not just a mental cycle; there’s biochemistry behind it, too, which is what makes it so challenging to undo.

So, getting back to treating that pony….  I wasn’t feeling well, and I made a decision to feed her a treat which made her happy in that moment and I was happy too because I made her happy.  But when I’m feeling well, I don’t succumb to that look from those big brown eyes, and instead her manners are better and our relationship can be focused on expanding her skills rather than me fending off her attempts to get in my pockets.  And I am happy because she’s a better pony than she was before.

Now that I understand the impact that poor dietary choices have on my decision-making, I see a lot of patterns in my life that perhaps I can now reshape.  I’m more motivated than ever to stay clean!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

Stories like this one populate my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I grew up in the temperate part of Oregon, so I had early experience in my life with gray skies and damp ground conditions.  I didn’t start to raise pastured livestock, though, until I lived in the dry high country of Colorado where rocky ground and powdery snow were common conditions.  The contrast in environments I’ve lived in helps me understand that management strategies vary, by necessity, from place to place.  My first visit to Indiana and Ohio showed me again that management does vary depending on where you are.

I bought my first pony more than two decades ago, and I was fortunate to have a pony mentor to help me learn how to manage my new hooved friend in my Colorado environs.  My grass was seasonal, and when it was green, it was rich.  Hay was an important food stuff for many months of the year.  My mentor showed me that dry lots were a crucial part of managing ponies where we lived.  That continues to be the case even today where I am in South Dakota.

Dry lots have several advantages in managing ponies.  Ponies are such easy keepers that they often can’t handle living full time on pasture with its ready access to food.  At the same time, regular movement is crucial to ponies’ mental and physical health.  And it is rare that a human partner can provide that sort of movement through work as British native breeds traditionally had.  We just don’t have lifestyles that allow us to use our ponies day in, day out, all year round.  Dry lots – large bare paddocks – allow ponies to wander about but not have constant access to grazing.  (The track system advocated by Jaime Jackson and others has similar advantages.)  Dry lots also allow ponies to be kept in herds where important social interactions can occur.

On my visit to the Midwest, I saw how several ponies that I bred were housed in that environment of deep soil and humid weather.  The ponies were kept for most of the day in stalls.  Their owners had learned that this was the best way to manage their easy keepers and still have them in their lives. 

When I was more naive I might have been horrified that the ponies spend so much time in their stalls.  Why were they not on dry lots where they could move about and reap the benefits that movement and intimate interaction with other equines provide?  Then I saw a ‘dry lot’ and it was anything but dry; more like a mud lot this time of year!  In some places, I suspect the only way you can have a dry lot there like I am used to here is to pave it, which of course has consequences that aren’t ideal for equines either.  Instead the ponies I saw were given daily access for several hours to a covered arena with equine-appropriate footing where they could run around, often with equine companions. 

Once when I advocated a dry lot as a management tool to another pony acquaintance, she was horrified by my stance.  She had had a pony once in a dry lot that had grown weeds, and the pony had been poisoned by one of them.  Obviously a dry lot in one part of the country may be a good management tool for ponies, but it isn’t necessarily a good tool somewhere else.  Other strategies are needed to deal with the mental and physical health of easy keepers.

I am grateful for having the opportunity to visit the Midwest and see how some ponies are kept there.  I visited in winter, and I suspect that management strategies vary around the year (and certainly by location and owner).  I am thankful for the owners of my ponies who have put so much thought into finding situations where their ponies can be healthy and content and still be part of their lives.  They are blessings in my life, just as are the ponies in their care.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories like this one about the practicalities of owning ponies can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

A blessed sight: Matty eating!

It was perhaps an unsurprising way to get introduced to my new veterinary community.  Some might even say it was inevitable when moving nine ponies down in elevation by five thousand feet, over 300 miles, to new forage and water and management, that there would be something go awry.  That it took a week before I had a pony off her feed was what caught me by surprise.  I checked the ponies at sundown a week after we arrived at our new home, and Bowthorne Matty was laying down in the pasture visibly uncomfortable and occasionally rolling while everyone else was contently grazing nearby.  Fortunately, although it took 24 hours, Matty is once again doing fine.

After my first lines of defense in such situations didn’t instigate improvement (probiotics and Flunixin Meglumine), I called and introduced myself to the local vet who came highly recommended to me long before we arrived here.  Dr. Stevens is only fifteen minutes away, which is such a blessing compared to veterinary proximity in other places I’ve lived.  I transported Matty to the clinic at 7pm, and Dr. Stevens examined Matty.  She found a tight ring in her large intestine.  She tubed mineral oil in nasally and gave her additional medication and recommended I walk her until signs of improvement or otherwise. 

Matty did initially show interest in hay after we got home, and she did pass a small pile of manure while we were walking.  But then she lost interest in hay and attempted to lie down and roll while we were walking.  Dr. Stevens referred us to Sturgis Veterinary Hospital, about two hours away, so for the second time that night I loaded Matty and her son Willowtrail Ross in the trailer and we hit the road at 1:30am.  Neither Dr. Mez nor I were terribly awake when we greeted each other at 3:30am, but in time we developed a good relationship.  He examined Matty and ran blood tests and diagnosed Matty with a mild torsion of the large intestine.  He said that he did not consider her case to be urgent or dire and that he would keep her and observe her and keep me informed if she improved or if she would indeed require surgery to resolve the issue.  I was thankful for this wait-and-see approach.  When he also told me I wouldn’t be able to observe the surgery (due to insurance coverages), I headed for home.  After feeding the ponies in the corral, I went to bed at 7:30am after a 24 hour day, arising again at 1:30pm to find a message from the vet clinic.  Matty was eating and passing manure and able to come home.

Red lines show the extent to which Matty was bloated with gas at her worst.

Both Dr. Stevens and Dr. Mez asked me if Matty was bred.  Now I know why:  torsions of the large intestine are most common in pregnant broodmares.  They are thirteen times more likely than stallions or geldings to be afflicted with this problem.  While Matty is not bred, the at-risk period for broodmares extends to 120 days post-foaling, and Matty is just at the end of that window.  Preventive measures include slow changes in management, regular access to fresh water, and consistent feeding routines. (1)  All of these were challenged during our transition to our new home, added to which Matty is the head mare and may have felt additional stress about caring for her herd in our changed situation.

While we were observing Matty, Dr. Mez asked me if she was usually as round as she looked that early morning.  My answer was a guarded no; the mares all do look rotund this time of year after being on pasture, but Matty’s shape looked unusual to me.  Seeing her now, as shown in the photograph that looks to Matty’s rear from overhead, it’s clear how unusually shaped she was.  The red lines indicate how distended her loin area was with gas.

I am very thankful to Dr. Stevens and Dr. Mez for their care of Matty.  And I was flattered when the staff in Sturgis asked if I had a Fell Pony stud at home because they had a client with a mare who might be interested in breeding to him!

1)      https://www.rossdales.com/assets/files/Colic-and-colon-torsion-in-the-mare.pdf

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

More stories about helping my ponies be healthy can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

It wasn’t until I put the second pony on a transport that I realized it, and even then it took a few days more.  A sudden change in my life had caused me to need to rehome four ponies quickly.  Two of the ponies I delivered myself into the hands of their new owners.  It was the other two that I delivered to a third party that showed me so much.

When I parted with those two ponies, I was in tears.  One had shared life with me for nineteen years, and the other for thirteen.  We had done a lot together, and I considered them friends.  It’s normal for me to cry when I say good bye to a pony.  This time, though, was different, as these two showed me.  Neither of them would look at me as I said my final good bye.

I try hard to never be angry around my ponies or to have an argument with another person around them.  Over the years, they’ve shown me they don’t like that emotion.  Research has indeed shown that equines respond differently to happy and angry faces.  “Psychologists studied how 28 horses reacted to seeing photographs of positive versus negative human facial expressions. When viewing angry faces, horses looked more with their left eye, a behaviour associated with perceiving negative stimuli. Their heart rate also increased more quickly and they showed more stress-related behaviours.” (1)  One researcher said, “It's interesting to note that the horses had a strong reaction to the negative expressions but less so to the positive.”  I certainly have perceived that difference in response with my own ponies.  They are much more reactive to negative stimuli than positive.

The tears I shed as I said good bye were not angry ones, though, so I didn’t think the ponies would be affected.  I was wrong.  My tears were full of grief, heavy with emotion.  I underestimated these two ponies and the effect my emotions had on them.  One transporter later told me that the pony in their charge perked up after 24 hours.  The other was labeled a hard traveler, and it took her even longer to come around.  These ponies did react to my grief, and if I could apologize to them, I would. Next time that I am emotionally heavy when saying good bye, I will try harder to make it easier on my departing pony friend.

1)      University of Sussex. "Horses can read human emotions." ScienceDaily, 9 February 2016. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160209221158.htm

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

More stories about the amazing relationships ponies make possible can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Many years ago, I was told by my vet to worm carefully if I ever expected that the worm load was high in a particular pony.  He had seen a yearling killed after being suddenly and heavily dewormed; he said it was because the worm burden was too high for the equine to safely eliminate.  I have never taken worming lightly since.  New research sheds light on the interaction between worms, gut microbiota and inflammation. (1)  Reviewing the research gave me new perspective on my vet’s sad story.

The research was conducted in Ireland and studied two different equine populations:  a group of yearlings and a group aged 1 to 7 years.  Two different wormers were used in the study, though only minor differences in results were observed between the two wormers.  There were differences observed, however, in the different, though not rigorously different, age groups.

The major finding of the study was that use of chemical wormers changes the diversity and abundance of the gut microbiota and causes changes in inflammatory markers.  The study recorded the gut microbiome characteristics at Day 0, Day 7, and Day 14.  The reduction in diversity and abundance at Day 7 was resolved by Day 14.  Both groups also showed changes in inflammatory responses from Day 0 to Day 7.  In both groups, the inflammatory responses were resolved by Day 14. The inflammatory responses were both local and systemic. 

The two groups of equines in the study had different microbiome populations, which the researchers attributed to both age and differences in environments.  Also, “The greater magnitude of changes seen in Group 1 compared with Group 2 may reflect a greater malleability of the still-developing gut microbiome in the younger horses, and/or greater numbers of animals in the former.”

I had always been told to treat worming as a medical procedure that required supportive therapies to be effective.  Probiotics in particular to restore the gut microbiome were recommended, and this study makes it clear why.  It takes up to two weeks for the gut to get back to normal after worming, so asking our equines to continue working during this period without therapeutic support is likely taxing to their systems.  Supporting broodmares seems to be especially important according to related research.

In their paper, the researchers suggest several interesting ideas.  First, that further research like theirs is easy to conduct because small strongyles are ‘ubiquitous’ in equines, with the worms possibly being present as adults but certainly as encysted larvae that can live up to 3 years in the intestinal wall.  This perspective supports the idea that we as equine owners are charged with controlling parasites in our animals rather than getting rid of them entirely.  The researchers then go on to suggest that worms may play a role in responses to inflammation in horses, so there may be opportunities to put them to beneficial use.  Eradicating them completely, then, may not always be in our equines’ best interest.

When I think back to the sad story told by my veterinarian, it’s clear why a young heavily infested horse might adversely respond to deworming, especially if not supported therapeutically.  I have always considered the probiotics on my shelf to be my jug of gold, and this research supports that valuation!

1. N. Walshe, V. Duggan, R. Cabrera-Rubio et al., “Removal of adult cyathostomins alters faecal microbiota and promotes an inflammatory phenotype in horses”, International Journal for Parasitology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2019.02.003

 © Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

More stories like this one can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

After I eat an apple for breakfast, I divide the quartered core between the ponies.  It hadn’t ever occurred to me that there might be a problem with this until I read the headline, “Are Apple Seeds Bad for Horses?”  It took me a few days to get around to reading the article, so I kept wondering what I would learn.  Also, I have an end-of-year holiday ritual called ‘wassailing the ponies’ that includes feeding apples to my ponies, so I was very curious if I could safely continue the ritual.

Wassailing Madie in 2017

It turns out that apple seeds have a very small amount of cyanide in them.  That fact was the inspiration for the article whose headline I saw.  The author concluded that it would take a dose of upwards of 270 apple seeds to harm a 200 pound human, so a vast number to harm an equine.  Most apples contain 20 seeds or less, so it’s very unlikely that a human or equine could suffer adverse consequences from apple seeds under normal circumstances.  Other fruit pits are more problematic, including peaches, plums, and apricots – more for their fibrous nature than the cyanide they contain.  (1)

So I will continue my habit of sharing my breakfast fruit with my ponies, and I will continue my wassailing ritual.  The ponies and I will all be happy!

1. Thunes, Clair.  “Are Apple Seeds Bad for Horses?,” article #171544, thehorse.com, 5/6/19.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

More stories like this one can be found in my book The Partnered Pony: What’s Possible, Practical and Powerful with Small Equines, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Wood chewing isn't exclusively reserved for fences.  Some pony has worked on this fallen lodgepole tree.

I thought I was the only one.  I thought it was just my ponies that, all of a sudden and seemingly without reason, would start ravenously chewing on our wood fences.  Then I read an article in Equus magazine (1), and I learned I’m not alone after all!  Of course the ponies do have their reasons for this behavior.  It’s my job to find out what those reasons are and if there is anything I can do to stop their destructive behavior.  I was hoping the article in Equus would have some clues.

My first fence chewer was my second pony.  He was just two years old and had been living in a herd in a large rough pasture before coming to me to live solo in a much smaller paddock.  This was before I had learned the advantages of companionship.  To redirect his destructive behavior, a friend suggested cutting willow switches for him to chew on instead, which I did for several months until he settled into his new life’s routine.  Occasionally, though, he will chew on wood still, so I knew that I had more to learn.

I was once so desperate to redirect one pony's behavior that every evening I harvested willow switches for him to chew on.  Yes, the goats often got some, too!

Next I began researching and addressing possible causes for the behavior.  I first ruled out cribbing because it is definitely wood chewing; it doesn’t have the air intake characteristic of cribbing.  Dental issues are another possible reason for wood chewing, but that didn’t explain the behavior I was seeing either.  Then I thought it was a nutritional issue.  Some sources suggest that wood chewing is a phosphorus issue, and indeed sometimes the chewing would start when the ponies had run out of their loose, free-choice minerals that contain phosphorus.  But the wood-chewing would sometimes happen when they had plenty of minerals.  Other sources suggest that it is a copper issue.  I have indeed seen less wood chewing since I started the entire herd on a regular copper supplement.  But the wood chewing didn’t completely end.

Then I returned to the idea that it’s a behavioral issue.  Indeed one pony in particular is hardest on the fences when I am gone for most of the day.  Perhaps it’s boredom after he’s cleaned up all the hay I put out for him.  Perhaps it’s anxiety about my absence.  But there are times when I’m gone and he doesn’t work on the fences at all. 

To protect my fences from being damaged, I looked into ‘paint’ that could be applied to make the rails unpalatable.  I didn’t like any of the commercial products available, so I devised a mixture of neatsfoot oil and cayenne pepper.  When I treat the rails with this mixture, the ponies will no longer chew on the rails.  It doesn’t of course address the underlying issue, whatever that issue is.

I was hopeful that the article I saw in Equus would have a solution to my fence gnawing problem.  I guess I can take some solace that it didn’t have any explanations beyond what I’d already considered.  What I did learn, though, is that studies have found that the behavior is typically during cold wet weather, “perhaps because of an instinctive urge for more roughage as temperatures fall.”  (2)  We have cold weather all winter here, but most of the time it’s quite dry (think powder snow that is coveted by downhill skiers.)  It’s in the late fall and early spring that we have wet snow and cold, and indeed that’s when fence chewing is at its worst here.  I tend to think the ponies are, in the fall, grieving the end of the grazing season, and in the spring, pining for the start of the grazing season!  This at least gives me a possible behavioral motivation.

I did run across one explanation elsewhere that was illuminating.  It turns out that lodgepole pine is higher in phosphorus than other woods, and equines will often choose to chew on lodgepole fences before other types of fencing.  My fences are built exclusively of lodgepole, so I haven’t seen this selective chewing.  It did make me wonder, though, if perhaps the ponies need even more phosphorus than they can get out of the minerals I make available to them. 

After seventeen years, my wood fences are in need of being rebuilt.  Because our lodgepole forests have been decimated by a beetle epidemic, wood fencing materials are a little more scarce than they once were, so I’m slowly replacing the wood fences with metal.  I’ll be glad that the new fences won’t be destroyed by chewing, but I’ll remain mindful that the ponies were chewing for a reason, and I need to make sure they have ways to address their needs.

1. Frank, Katie with Melinda Freckleton, DVM.  “Winter Wood Chewers,” Equus #421, October 2012, p. 11.
2. Same as #1.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2018

More stories like this one can be found in my book The Partnered Pony:  What's Possible, Practical, and Powerful with Small Equines, -available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

The title of an article about some new research read “Fat Ponies Will Work for Food.”  Ponies being in the title certainly caught my attention.  And I’m thrilled that ponies are meriting the attention of researchers.  I was, though, disappointed at the implied surprise that ponies are willing to work.  Ponies of course have a long and storied working history.  Nonetheless, I read the article to learn what the researchers had found.

Researchers in Australia constructed a feeder that had two sides with sliding doors.  Overweight ponies were given access to the feeder, and after consuming a small amount of hay, the door was automatically closed on one side and opened on the other.  The ponies had to walk around the feeder to access the other door.  The feeder design resulted in 3.7 times more distance traveled per day.  It also resulted in a decrease in body condition score, a decrease in cresty neck score, and a decrease in body fat percentage.  That’s all obviously really good news.  For those ponies that were food motivated, the feeder design also resulted in improved insulin sensitivity, also good news. (1)

Keeping weight off ponies who aren’t in regular work is a challenge for all of us.  Melody de Laat, PhD, BVSc, of the Queensland University of Technology, in Brisbane, said, “Low-intensity exercise of enough duration can be difficult to achieve in ponies that are not ridden regularly, if at all. The dynamic feeder enables a pony owner to exercise their pony without longeing or walking the pony.”  de Laat added, “If owners don’t have access to a dynamic feeding system they could consider walking their pony by hand—just bring him along on the daily dog walk.”  (2)

A quick internet search suggests that a dynamic feeding system isn’t readily available, but there are other ways to get ponies to do low-intensity exercise on their own.  I have had great success feeding on a track system (click here and here for articles on the subject.)  In the Australian study, they got the ponies to walk for two hours twice daily.  My track feeding system has the ponies walking one hour four times a day.  And while the researchers found benefits to physical health, I have also found that the increased movement has benefits for mental health.

Although the title of the article wasn’t entirely accurate – the ponies walked for their food, they didn’t work for it - the title did do the job of enticing me to read further.  And the research expanded my appreciation for the benefits of getting ponies to move on their own.  It is so important for both physical and mental health that ponies move in the course of their day, either through work or being encouraged to do so otherwise.  Anything that can help owners help their ponies with that objective is helpful indeed.

1. Janicki, Kristin M. “Study:  Fat Ponies Will Work for Food,” thehorse.com article #136575, 9/18/17.  And de Laat et al, “Sustained, Low‐Intensity Exercise Achieved by a Dynamic Feeding System Decreases Body Fat in Ponies,” Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Sep-Oct 2016, at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5032883/
2. Same as #1.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2018

More stories about sharing life with ponies can be found in my book The Partnered Pony:  What's Possible, Practical, and Powerful with Small Equines, available internationally by clicking  here or on the book cover.