[RC] limited pasture/horse and hoof health - Kristi SchaafIt's interesting reading about the different philosophies in horse 'housing', since there are a lot of different ones! I have three small (one acre each) lush pastures, and I used to rotate my horses around them every few weeks and thought all was great (and I wished for even more acres of green grass). Well, I've been doing a bit of reading/research about horse health/nutrition/hoof care (Ramey, www.safergrass.org, etc), and I now realize that turning my horses out on lush pasture isn't in their best interest. It was a HUGE leap for me to willingly 'lose' some of that beautiful pasture when creating the Paddock Paradise tracks, but I think it's going to be a great payoff for the horses. More exercise + less lush grass = better health (and yes, one of the costs is a higher hay bill...sigh). I'm not to the point where I'm willing to totally cover up all that green with rock and gravel, but who knows, I might get there some day. My horses' dry lot has different areas with pea rock, shale, gravel, sand, and dirt, and my AANHCP trimmer says that it's an ideal environment for barefoot horses. It's funny how a year ago I wished I had more pasture acres and a 'less rough' dry lot but now I've gone 180 degrees in what I consider perfect 'horse land' and I wish I had some rugged, rocky, hilly sparsely grassed land! Kristi Life's a journey, so enjoy the ride (and try not to fall off) ____________________________________________________________________________________ Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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