From The Eyes Of a Horse

This post is about understanding things from a horses point of view.

Horses eyes are very active during the day, dusk, dawn and at night. Horse's eye's are designed to provide higher sensitivity vision in dim light  and even better vision in higher light levels.

http://horsetalk.co.nz/2012/11/21/vision-horses-more-than-meets-the-eye/#.UfWadxNxAeE

A Horse has a much lower sense of colour than us humans. While a horse can make out green and blue, it's vision is mostly in grey.


The horse has two blind spot's:
1. Directly in front of it's nose four feet in front of it
and
2. Behind the tail

Jumping a horse is a huge matter of trust because when jumping a horse and you get close to approaching the jump, the horse looses vision and has to rely on the rider to safely guide them over it.

Horse's are also not able to focus their eyes the way humans and most animals can. When a horse is looking at an object in front of it, it will usually bob the head away then into the object as it's trying to focus on what it's seeing.

A horse will usually spook when something moves quickly in it's vision but it hasn't had time to focus on the thing and determine it a threat.


I have this funny story that happened to me last year.

I was outside playing spotlight with a bunch of my friends and we were doing it in the pitch black and in my horse's paddock. We all got told to hide so I went and hid. It had been about 5 minutes and absolute quietness, then a heard a crunch of leaves. I thought It was the spotlighter but I saw no torch flash. I waited quietly for about another minute when out of nowhere something tickled against my neck. Long story short, I screamed! I thought it was a spider, but when I looked up into the glowing eyes of my horse. I knew it was the whiskers on her muzzle. My horse looked at me like I was a freak and then walked off into the darkness and began to graze.



See how amazing a horses vision is???
She found me in the pitch black and could still see well enough to go and have a midnight snack!

I have also heard stories of horse's jumping huge obstacles in the dark.
And it's all thanks to God's great gift of night vision.

Because if you think about it, in the wild, predators would be hunting at night and if the horses couldn't see, how would they know where to run?

Another thing that helps the horse is there great sensing skills, but I will leave that post for a few days.

I hope you guys enjoyed this post :)
Till next time!
 

Native NZ Ponies: The Kaimanawa's

Today I was thinking how much my filly Chancy is starting to look like a Kaimanawa pony, so I decided to write a post on the special nz ponies.
Kaimanawa's come from the Kaimanawa ranges in New Zealand.
These ponies are very good tempered and when handled correctly they make perfect all-rounder ponies and children's ponies. They are quiet and curious. Due to running on the ranges through winter and summer they are very hardy and because the steep country they are surefooted.

Quite a few of these Kaimanawa's have made it into the spotlight.

Ever heard of the Wilson sister's? If not you should look them up!!
These girls are AMAZING and also happen to have the most popular Kaimanawa stud in NZ.
Their stud is http://www.showtymhorses.co.nz/pages/Kaimanawas.html

These girls rescue and adopt Kaimanawa's and train them to be superstars!

One of the Wilson's sisters Kaimanawa's named Watch Me Move that was mustered from the ranges as a yearling, went on to win the 2012 Pony of the Year title at 2012 Horse Of The Year show.



If you want to check out some awesome sites about Kaimanawa's, there is Keeping Up With the Kaimanawa's on Facebook. They will keep you well updated with the musters and etc.

Here are some photo's of the Kaimanawa's. I DO NOT OWN THESE IMAGES.





CHECK OUT THE KAIMANAWA PAGE >>
http://kaimanawaheritagehorses.org/

Did You know that you can adopt Kaimanawa's?
Check out the link above for more details :)


I hope you guys liked this post and I hope you all do your homework on the Wilson sister's if you have not already :)

Why Do Horses Roll?

A know a lot of people probably know this answer but I shall post about this anyway.

There are a whole lot of reasons a horse will roll, such as they do it for the pleasure of a good scratch on the ground or you may have just washed them and they are trying to help out by rolling in a muddy patch.
Other reasons a horse may roll is because its having abdominal pain like colic and they roll to try to get comfortable.
Horses without winter rugs, roll because when the mud sticks onto their coat, it traps the warmth in.
Some horses even roll because the mud acts as a sunscreen and some what prevents the sun from burning tender places. They also roll to stop insects from annoying them, the dirt acts as a bug shield.

If a horse rolls with a rider or tack on, this becomes dangerous because the horse could crush the rider and the tack. And lets not forget.. Horses aren't light.
A reason horses sometimes do this is because they tack is hurting or pinching them and making them uncomfortable, so they try to roll the pain away.

There are so many other reasons like the are stretching, shedding their winter coat, scratching their back or want to roll  just for fun :P

Spec's having a good 'ol roll :P

Huggable Horses

Who says a horse can't hug? Take a look at these photos below....
They are truly  ADORABLE!


These photos I do not own or hold copyright for :)

A mare and foal sharing a hug

Huggles

My own mare Specere hugging the ground :P


Sorry I recently have not been posting but I just got a new laptop so I am planning to start some epic new stories :)



 

A Highly Recommended Horse Site!!

I really recommend this site as it is all for completely natural horsemanship and it has great tips! http://www.naturalhorse.co.nz/

I totally believe that natural is the better way for your horse but im not pressuring you to go natural. Believe me a lot of people will not believe you and think you are crazy but does it really matter what the people think or how your horse feels?



Defiantly Read these articles:


HORSE PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

NO HOOF=NO HORSE-THE PROS AND CONS OF BAREFOOT AND HORSE-SHOES!

IT'S NOT A HORSE FASHION SHOW SO DON'T GET SUCKED INTO THE RUG HYPE