Summer!

Merry Christmas! The summer has been a bit all over the place, so far. We've had a couple of very hot days followed by torrential rain and a week of single-digit overnights, which has been disconcerting, to say the least! It has been abscess weather but luckily (or by fantastic good management!) only one of the Pine Hill horses appears to have had an abscess. Phew.

It has been a frustrating couple of months with Annie's feet. About September, Annie started to become sensitive in her hooves - something she only exhibited for the first two weeks after her shoes came off. At first, I assumed it was the spring grass, or a change in feed. I had changed her from KER Low GI Cube to Hygain Balance as she was in with the young horses and they were all being fed Balance. Annie has not been particularly sensitive to feed in the past - certainly not in her hooves.

It got to the point where I simply couldn't ride her on anything but grass. The one comp we managed to go to was our first HRCAV dressage day and, after warming up beautifully on the grass, she could barely manage to get around the first test on the sand and I retired her. So disappointing. And not a great day to exhibit a lovely big barefoot horse. Reckon I was in with a chance to win the damn thing, too!

This went on for two months until I got Di Snow, a local bodyworker and equine nutritionist, out to give Annie a treatment. While chatting during the treatment, and whingeing about Annie's newfound hoof sensitivity, Di asked what I was feeding her. I said, "The usual - Hygain Balance, lucerne chaff...oh, and Rose-Hip Vital for her joints." Di said, "Ah. Rose-Hip Vital is just sugar, basically. It's made from fruit sugar. Could be your problem."

And it was. I took Annie off it and within a few days there was a marked improvement. A month later, Annie is back to walking on gravel and working comfortably on our hard, dry arena. Just goes to show how even a couple of tablespoons of sugar a day can dramatically affect a horse's hooves.

These are Annie's hooves now:

Fronts

Hinds

Front near. Note the big frog but also the wall separation.

Annie's hooves are now about 80%. There was some hoof wall separation and no doubt getting back to true rock-crunching will take a little longer. I'm pretty annoyed at myself! But you live and learn, don't you?

Things are ticking along at Pine Hill. We are now taking a limited number of agistees, and have started our ambitious water project. We will be linking our three dams and pumping stock water up to a header tank at the top of the property. Water will then be gravity-fed to troughs around the property. Once again, an Equicentral design is our template but, since we are also setting up a working stud with resident stallions, there are ergonomic factors that need to come in that aren't really addressed in Jane Myers books.

So, we have a mare and foal paddock right out the front of the house, and another paddock that adjoins it. These two back onto the very large 'Back Country' paddock with its spring-fed creek and rocks and wildlife where the youngstock and broodmares are spending their summer. It's lovely. We also have a more Equicentral 'cell' of three paddocks that use a central 'loafing' area.

The next four months will be spent on the water and fencing more paddocks up the top end of the property. We will create another 'cell' of three or four paddocks around a central 'loafing' area. These areas are like big yards with shelter and the only water source. They are surfaced (we are using plumbers grit) and the idea is that horses are only every in one paddock at a time and use the loafing area for all the standing around they do under trees or around water. This saves the paddocks and minimises those horrible bare dust/mud areas created by this behaviour.

Pinehill Ellen

And here is our little filly, born mid-November to one of our Stock Horse mares. This girl is just a bit gorgeous and loves a scratch!

Merry Christmas and have a safe and happy New Year. Lots more to come at Pine Hill next year, no doubt!

We now have a website so feel free to have a browse - www.pinehillequestrian.com.au