There’s probably a good reason that someone made up that old saying of “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. My guess is because apples are loaded with all kinds of good nutrients for your body… like enzymes, minerals, trace minerals and potassium. And after all, our horses love them too! These important life building nutrients are all contained in Apple Cider Vinegar.
Quite a few years back I changed how I was eating due to the physical discomfort in my body. I did a fast (3 days without food!) and learned to gradually reintroduce certain healthful foods back into my diet.
As part of my new regimen, I learned about the many health benefits of and started using Apple Cider Vinegar, the good stuff with the “mother” in it! It contains an enzyme that “eats up” the toxic waste in the body.
Some of the amazing benefits I’ve learned about ACV include…
- Detoxifies the blood stream and organs
- Helps to achieve and more balanced pH
- Assists kidneys, bladder and liver
- Promotes circulation
- Supports digestion
Also for animals (including the above)…
- Deters fleas, ticks and mosquitos
- Relives skin and ear problems
- Promotes a healthy, shiny coat
I started drinking ACV in a tea first thing in the morning. One of the things it does is jumpstart my digestive system. All I know is that I am feeling so much better by starting my day with ACV/Thieves tea with honey!
At some point along the way I decided that it was doing so much good for me that I should give it to my horses too! I was already using it topically for their hooves for thrush by soaking and spraying. The ACV can be added to their water for drinking, but for me, I just add it to their daily feed. I add about a third of a cup of ACV to a liter bottle and fill the rest with water. Then I mix some into their milled flax and supplements.
Potassium is one of the key constituents offered in ACV. Did you know 75% of the body’s potassium is found in skeletal muscle and is necessary for function? Horses are able to excrete excess potassium through urine or sweating but when there is a deficiency in the body, there can be some pretty detrimental effects.
A horse with low potassium will exhibit…
- Muscle weakness
- Fatigue
- Reluctance to exercise
- Decreased water and food intake
- Restlessness
- Spookiness
Offering your horse a lifestyle with unlimited forage will help to avoid low potassium issues. It’s always good to test your hay to know what the levels of minerals are contained within it. From there you have a clearer picture on what to supplement.
An excerpt from the book, Apple Cider Vinegar; Miracle Health System by Paul Bragg ND PhD and Patrice Bragg ND PhD…
Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, in 400 B.C. treated his patients with amazing raw Apple Cider Vinegar because he recognized its powerful cleansing and healing qualities. It is a naturally occurring antibiotic and antiseptic that fights germs and bacteria in the body.
I have found that adding Apple Cider Vinegar to my horse’s daily routine has been a great boost to their health. It has added another beneficial layer to their holistic lifestyle!
Give it a try and see how your horses like it.
Marta
We live on about 3 acres of rocky limestone hillsides loaded with cedar trees and roots! While it’s not what one would think of as an ideal horse environment, it is actually a far better choice of living space, especially if your horse has metabolic challenges.
At the beginning of my horse journey, I was introduced to the benefits of creating a track system for my horses’ living environment. It benefitted their hooves, their digestion, in general their overall wellness. It was easy for me to see this was what I wanted for my horses. In addition, the concept fit extremely well with our small acreage and varied terrain. We even have access to an old road to utilize which has a great hard packed base for a trail.
As fate would have it, I acquired a couple of foundered horses (from my trimming practice) as well as a Morgan horse (a hardy breed that does not need rich feed to maintain weight and good health). Our track system has proved to be the ideal living set up for horses with metabolic issues, hoof troubles and for avoiding the problems with spring and fall grasses.
Our track contains no lush grass. It does offer a variety of plants, shrubs and trees that our horses browse as they move around the different paths on the track system. We have the benefit of monitoring our horses’ grass intake by allowing them to roam the rest of the property at strategic times to benefit them. We choose times when the sugars are lowest in the grass. When the sun is out, plants are producing their sugars for energy through photosynthesis. This is high sugar content time and should be avoided. It is at night when the grasses use up their sugar stores from the day, so the very early morning is the safest time for the lowest sugar levels.
Once the fall comes and the temperatures drop at night, grass begins to hold onto their sugar stores for its growth. This “stressed” grass is now very high in sugar. Any stressed grass will have increased sugar levels so be aware, especially for your at risk horses. Some other ways that grass gets stressed are by over-grazing, drought and frost. Even the brown grass late in the fall when it’s still warm during the day will have sugar filled green sprouts that your horse would love to snack on!
Waiting for the temperature swings to stop and the grasses to go dormant is a safe option for your horse.
Other safe options…
- Consider setting up a track system or at least elements of it for your horse. Creating a forage based, movement centered space will do wonders for them!
- Create a dry lot for your horse and encourage movement within the space through the placement of hay bags or hay piles.
- Use a muzzle and monitor their time of day out as well as the amount of time out.
- Consider a probiotic to benefit their gut health. This is a key component to overall health. Life 9 is the probiotic I love and use for my herd.
If you’re curious to learn more about setting up your own track system, take a look at Guide 3 in my community The Hearts of Horses; Empowering Through Holistic Care. You’ll find videos with information on how to create your own track system.
May you and your horses enjoy this fall season in good health...
Marta
Horses are a herd animal meant to live and roam with their “family”. This offers safety, emotional comfort and a feeling of belonging within the “family”. When we put them in living situations that are very different from their instinctual norm, we are immediately setting them up for problems. How much, what and even when we feed our horses has a huge impact on their stress level, gut health and even their emotional well-being. At the heart of all dis-ease is stress in the body. There is no greater culprit than emotional stress for wreaking havoc in the body. Soothe the animal, set up their life as nature designed for them and release the stress…
Let’s look at how we keep our horses. Horses are built and wired to move and eat continually on a daily basis. In the wild, it is normal for a herd to cover around 25 miles in a day. They browse on a variety of grasses, tree bark and plants while moving over a variety of terrain that proves beneficial for their hooves as well as the rest of their being. When its rest time they hang as a group, with a few of the mares standing watch over the herd. The track system lends to this lifestyle, mimicking how horses live in the wild.
Does your horse’s daily routine look like this? If it does, congratulations to you! Your horses are likely ulcer free and happy in their herd! Getting horses out of the long days and nights in a stall and getting them moving with the herd will increase their feelings of safety and trust. It will allow them to tap into the energy of their herd dynamics and serve to settle them within their group, relieving stress.
Browsing for food! Allow your horse to move about to access their food. Standing in one spot to eat hour after hour does not help their gut or the rest of their body! Offering a variety of whole foods is your best bet for keeping your horses gut balance. Avoiding things like processed grains and instead substituting foods like flax, chia seeds, Timothy/alfalfa cubes will go a long way for providing the nutrients needed while avoiding the stomach upset.
Adding in enzymes like Allerzyme and Essentialzyme has been a game changer for one of my guys! Clearly his gut balance was off and he was acting like a grumpy old man. He is now back to his gregarious, silly self (that’s him in the photo)! Other items like pre and probiotics, Life 9, are beneficial to keeping the gut balanced and have a place in our horse care. There are also products like aloe vera juice or bentonite clay that can offer a soothing solution to the problem gut.
By incorporating some of the things I’ve talked about above, chances are your horse is already feeling better. If there are still troubles, checking in on their emotions by evaluating their energy centers is a helpful thing to do. When the solar plexus is blocked there is a connection with feelings of not belonging, fear of abandonment, defensiveness, feeling trapped, anxiety and even feeling tired. With this knowledge, you can utilize a selection of essential oils to support your horse emotionally. I have a great chart and mini course that outlines how to identify the emotions based on the body and suggested oils to use. Grab it HERE.
If you suspect your horse does have ulcers and would like to confirm that, there is a non-invasive test that can be done. It uses fresh fecal matter to check antibodies to detect two equine specific blood components. It's called Succeed. Positive results for this test confirm the presence and potentially location of inflammation, lesions and/or ulcers. It is necessary to use fecal material within 30 minutes of it leaving the body. Results show as quickly as 5 minutes but not longer than 15 minutes. It is only available to veterinarians, so contact your vet to access this product.
I would also incorporate Healing Touch For Animals techniques to help clear the energy. There are other holistic tools that can be used as well. Tools like red light therapy, PEMF and more!
Interested in learning more about some of these areas I’ve touched on? There’s loads of information in the Guides section of my group The Hearts of Horses; Empowering Through Holistic Care.
Join our community HERE and feel empowered as you care for your horses!
All the best,
Marta
Early on, when I got started with horses, I learned traditional ways to care for them. This involved chemical fly sprays, ointments that contained potential carcinogens and other questionable chemicals in a variety of products including their food.
Along the way, as I was learning, I was drawn to more holistic ways of caring for my horses. Following my heart, with regard to these ways, has led me on a path of discovery, healing and much healthier horses!
When I first got Calli, every year she would get bit up by the little No-see-ums that come out in May at our wooded home. They would bite her on her underside and she would end up having a crusty line of gunk from her chin to her udders! Definitely gross and I'm sure uncomfortable for her.
Things started looking up when I started using a plant based cleaner on these areas of her body. The crusty stuff started disappearing and there was not as much of it covering her underside. I was super happy about that! I had been learning about these new holistic care options and part of that process was removing the products that had toxic chemicals in them. The fact that I was reducing the amount of toxins in her world was making a difference for her and helping to keep these bugs at bay.
Adding an essential oil to her daily feed was another thing I did. It served to improve her immune system. It is such a huge benefit at a very small price! Adding the oil along with the spray (which also helps to improve her immune system) really made a huge difference for this "seasonal" problem.
Another piece of this puzzle that was beneficial, because it removed toxins and sugar, was getting rid of the processed grains that we had been feeding. Processed grains have chemicals and toxins added to them along with a significant amount of sugar (which causes inflammation). All of our horses are on an anti-inflammatory diet. It is better for joints, over all wellness and, I believe, makes them less tasty to the bugs too!
As we are now into another May, I am happy to say that its been quite a few years since we've had to deal with the crusty underside! And there are few and far between reactions to bug bites now that we have addressed removing toxins and improved immune systems.
If you're interested in knowing what products I used, check out this brief video...
If you're interested in more holistic care information for your horses, join our community...
As I look back over the years, I realize I have had experiences with some pretty mysterious origins. There have been accidents, failures, even chronic issues in my body that could not be explained. What I finally figured out was, my emotions were controlling my body and my world! Let me share with you a couple of memorable experiences I had, that were very puzzling, but have shown me just how connected our emotions are to our bodies and our everyday experiences!
My first experience that showed me the power of our emotions on our physical world was the sale, or rather the lack of, of my house. It was my first house that I had purchased soon after finishing college. I lived there for about 17 years. After getting married, and not needing two homes, we put a lot of work into the house and listed it on the market. The home was lovely with many custom, rustic features added. But Not-One-Person looked at the house for the multiple years we had it on the market! I even did the “ bury the St Joseph statue” ritual in hopes of making something happen! What I came to realize was that I had not been ready to let go of the house. Emotionally, vibrationally, I was holding onto it. This realization came when there was a shift in the way I felt about the house and property. As soon as that emotional shift happened, we had multiple people looking at and making offers on the house, after so many years of trying to sell it!
Another powerful experience happened during my transition from trimming horses to educating about using essential oils with animals. My excitement about the oils was growing while my interest in trimming for others was declining. But I kept on trimming. Soon my right hand thumb started to freeze. Like it didn’t bend! That meant I was having trouble using my nippers. At this point, I hadn’t made any connection with the way I was feeling about wanting to pursue a new area of interest and my thumb. All I knew is that I was just frustrated and angry! I decided I needed to stop trimming. The very day I declared I would stop and pursue my new passion, my thumb returned to normal use! Crazy right?! Well I discovered through doing some research that the hands are governed by the heart energy center. Some of the feelings that reside here are confinement, the inability to cope, injury, distress. I think all of these were applicable to my situation at the time. It is easy to see now… that once I followed my heart’s desire, the physical issue I was having disappeared and all was well!
Over the past few years, as I have been exploring the path of gaining better connection and understanding with my horse Calli, I have come into contact with ideas that have expanded not only my mind but my everyday life with my animals! Much of this particular subject about emotions, for me, started with a collection of CD’s called The Law of Attraction by Esther and Jerry Hicks. The idea that we could create the life we choose by the thoughts we think and the emotions we attach to those thoughts was both thrilling and motivating! It lit a fire in me to learn more. It is THIS feeling, this excitement and exuberance that manifests and tells us we are on the path to big and wonderful things! I was lead to other resources such as, Releasing Emotional Patterns With Essential Oils by Carolyn Mein. This book really solidified the idea that our emotions reside, vibrationally, within the different energy centers of our body.
As I was doing my horse workshops, helping people to understand how to “read” what their horses might be feeling and how it affects their body, I found that I needed something to refer to that had the body systems along with the emotions and suggestions for essential oils. I couldn’t find anything like that, so I created one! It’s a downloadable pdf called Connecting Emotions, Energy Centers and Essential Oils and is included in a mini course with videos explaining each section of the ebook. It includes a chart with the emotions, body systems and essential oils for each energy center, graphics of the horse, dog and human showing energy center location, an explanation of how and why to use this resource, tips and techniques, an observation and notes template and additional resources. There are also videos on how to use a pendulum as well as the application of the Feelings Kit oils to a horse.
Knowing the extent to which emotions affect our bodies, for us and our animals, I think it is so worth the time to pay attention and explore this subject! I know for myself, I now choose my thoughts and emotions to create positive experiences and manifest life goals. When caring for my animals, I now have greater insight into their feelings and can provide better support for their health and well- being.
If you’re looking to know more about emotions and the body, and specifically horse related topics, join my community The Hearts of Horses; Empowering Through Holistic Care.
All the best,
Marta
