Clicker Training And The Importance of Poo.

Yes thats right....The importance of poo. As you all may have gathered I am a great believer in horses being kept as naturally as possible. 'Tucking the horse up in bed' goes against all its natural instincts. Horses only sleep in 15 minutes burst, for four hours a day. So in a stable they do not sleep peacefully all night, but get bored. They cannot satisfy the natural urge to wander about. As herd animals they rely on other members to alert them to passing lions. Its no good telling them their are no scary lions.....Unless there actually are where you live. So in a stable, alone, they are probably on full alert all night. Anyway I digress.

So, our horses live out 24/7.  That being the case all the poo is in their fields, not churned up amongst straw. This gives us two major benefits.  One, we get to hang out in the field with the herd for longer each day, which increases our bond with them, and allows us to observe their natural behaviour.  At a glance we can tell if all's well. Two, we are intimate with their pooing habits. Poo is a great indicator of health. We can see if its a bit loose, a bit hard, sandy, wormy etc. We also know exactly how many poos there should be.....Yes I have counted them many times!!! This gives us an advantage in managing their diets. We are on sandy soil, so at the first indication of sand in the poo, we feed bran mashes with pysillium in.

In so many bigger yards, the actual yard managers rarely get their hands dirty, so can't possibly know whats going on with the horses health. When I ran a bigger yard, I always did the poo picking myself for this very reason, and am proud that in 10 years I had no laminitus and only one colic (and that was a new pony that I wormed as you do, without knowing she had never been wormed and the vast amount of worms that died caused a blockage).

And so to the weather report!!  Its finally turned milder....although we are still expecting a cold Easter. Anyway we have been taking advantage and have started to work the ponies. All except the Shetlands have been out on various walk-outs, either ridden or in-hand.  My former partner-in-crime, Tess came and rode Daisy, who was like a cat on hot bricks....full of the joys of spring, including showing how well she could rear!! The only drawback with milder days is going back in the evenings to put rugs back on. Although the sunsets are lovely and its nice to have a goodnight kiss from Charlie.

Charlie has also resumed clicker training.  He may be a surfer dude with his laid back attitude, but he doesn't forget a thing.  Especially when carrots are involved.  We are practising him standing glued to the 'target', while I move around him, and he has been an absolute star.