If you’re like me, general horse magazines hold little interest unless they include at least a couple of topics on something natural, alternative or new in the horse world.
But that’s about to change when Equine Naturally, a new quarterly magazine is launched at Equitana. Daphne from Equine Excellence has realised there’s a gap in the market, with ever increasing numbers of horse lovers who are looking for something different to the norm.
Topics on the agenda include: Acupressure, Acupuncture, Chiropractors, dental care, energy reading, essential oils, herbal remedies, homeopathy, iridology, Kinesiology, massage therapies, naturopathic medicine, nutrition, photonic therapy, rehabilitation, Reiki, thermal imaging, pasture management and Natural horsemanship to just name a few!
Equine Naturally is committed to the horse and horse owner from pleasure to performance. Each issue is about enhancing that relationship and bond by providing relevant and up to date articles, products and services that will only enhance the quality of life and enjoyment with our horses.
Equine Naturally is a complete resource for health and training – a first of its kind in Australia.
And I’m proud to say, the story of my property’s development will feature over the first few issues in my article ‘Naturalising Your Property’. So come along to the Natural Horse World booth – 229 at Equitana Sydney to get your copy, or if you’re a Facebook fan, keep up with the news on the Equine Naturally Facebook page.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Property Progress So Far:
As of early October when this was written, we have moved on-site in caravans, and have constructed several electric fences to keep the 2 herds separate, each with their own ‘track’ system to limit the grass intake while still providing movement and access to water and dry areas. This has kept damage to the soggy pastures to a minimum, as the tracks essentially become sacrifice areas.
While not complete yet, the tracks are gradually being extended which provides a set amount of new grass to the horses every day or two depending on the weather. If we have a cold frosty night, they get grass hay instead of high sugar grass.
Interestingly, we were not feeding hay daily until we noticed some of the horses chewing the wooden fence posts – as soon as they were fed a small amount of grass hay each night, they stopped the chewing which was obviously related to a need for dry roughage to balance the green grass.
We have made a 3m x 9m gravel standing area for the main herd, with their mineral feeder there, and are noticing the difference in their hooves already. This was easily constructed by laying some old shade cloth down, edged with wooden and plastic poles then covered with road gravel and blue metal crusher dust. The horses often choose to stand there, especially after wet weather.
The crusher dust has been discovered to alter the PH in the horse’s hoof, which helps combat seedy toe and thrush.
We are getting on top of the thistles by hoeing them out, and collecting them to mulch the new veggie garden – a thick mat of thistles and horse manure is killing the grass and will be dug in to provide some great compost for the garden.
The next big job is to pick up rocks in the far paddock being cut for hay, and finding a way to deal with the cape weed that doesn’t involve spraying as the goats have access to the area most of it is in. I’m going to try mowing it as close to the ground as possible before the flowers spread seed.
Chickens were acquired so a basic chicken house was built bordering the bush section to give them shelter from hawks and eagles. They are doing a great job of scratching through the undergrowth and providing eggs.
With the planning application approved by council, its now full steam ahead with lodging the building plans so we can hopefully have everything constructed before hay making, as the current hay barn is being used for storage.
I’m sure it will all fall into place and I look forward to writing the next progress report.
