Cultural Differences...and a little poll

[Tia]

When I moved to my little part of Canada, I really didn't think there would be that much difference between how Canadians, local to me, manage horses in relation to how Brits manage horses; well it surprised me to find out that there really is no comparison.

Right from when horses are backed right through to feedstuffs. It's interesting when you move country and you initially find out certain things, to which you immediately discount and sometimes even go so far as to say "gosh how bizarre - well I don't do things like this and never will". It's even more interesting to look deeper into why they do things and you find yourself actually agreeing with certain practices and before long you end up doing exactly the same as them.

Over here chaff is not available - it is classed as the sweeping ups from the floor of barns and no-one would EVER feed their horses it. I found this a bit strange - but now I completely understand why it is not fed and even if I returned to England, there's no way I would ever feed it again unless for medical reasons.

Backing horses much younger than in England. Once again, something I never in a million years expected to do, but now I do it and I can see massive merits for both the horse and the handler and once again leaving horses till they are 4 would never be an option for me regardless of which country I am living in.

Bits; well over here we have some weird and wonderful looking bits. If I had been looking at these bits 10 years ago, I'd have thought "goodness!" at a few of them; well this really doesn't have much to do with which country I am in, it's just I have a greater understanding of how bits work now. However the difference it does make by being over here is that I never hear anyone saying "goodness!" at any bits available over here....and I don't ever think it either without trying to find out how this bit works and if it makes sense to me.

So here's a few things which I'd like to ask to see what the answers may be and I'd be most interested to hear about other cultural differences that you have experienced in different parts of the world.

 

[Weezy]

Spin it round Tia and you will see the differences in culture I have seen over here!

Chaff - WTF is that!

Backing - we do it from 2 years onwards

Bits - I reckon a lot of what we use is deemed deplorable over here - snaffles were V unusual when I was growing up!

 

[Tia]

You're right....and I can totally imagine how you would have thought horse keeping is quite odd in the UK compared to Spain. I've only been gone a handful of years and already I think that such a lot of what we do in England (very often without thinking about it) is a load of bollox.

 

[Skhosu]

On the other hand-I don't agree with seeing something as acceptable because it seems towork,e.g I don't like twisted snaffles and the one I was shown would never go near any horses mouth of mine. Seratta's? They're a generally accepted thing in spain,correct?

 

[Blackhawk]

I spent most of my youth in the States, and kept horses over there. Moving over here was a massive culture shock. I was totally bewildered at things like rugs, and had to get to grips with terms like stable, head collar, good-doer etc when I was used to stall, halter, hard keeper, etc.

Feed was totally over my head, as were a lot of gadgets.

Having lessons over here were hard, and I still use American terms when referring to horses and riding. Usually met by bewildered looks.

 

[Weezy]

Triple, Serretas are not mainstream in leisure riding, but they are something that we all grow up with. They are misused, don't get me wrong, but they are useful pieces of tack, used well

Tia and BH, I STILL cannot get my head around why people rug their horses so much over here

The variation and variety in feeding is ridiculous and the husbandry of horses here still leaves me very bemused!

 

[hadfos]

I feed chaff on the understanding of slowing piggy feeders down and fibre???Always open to opinion and would love to know why not over there??You know why,lol!!As regards bits i am lucky my boy is in a french link and has never got any stronger,so needs nothing more complicated,bits dont scare me i am usually mystified,there are that many i would love to know what they all do???Sadly dont think i will live long enough for that,apmsl!!

chances are most do the same they just change the shape,lol!!x

 

[Skhosu]

What are they useful for?

 

[Weezy]

Control and submission!

 

[Blackhawk]

[ QUOTE ]


Tia and BH, I STILL cannot get my head around why people rug their horses so much over here

The variation and variety in feeding is ridiculous and the husbandry of horses here still leaves me very bemused!

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd never used a rug until a few years ago. I just looked at it thinking WTF!? How does this work then?! LOL

So embarrassing! I do admit sometimes I wish I was back in the Sates where it all seemed more simple (in my opinion, as that's what I'm used to!)

My boy is currently rug less, and is just getting some mix.

 

[Tia]

Well with the chaff; it adds hardly anything to the horses digestive system. Generally there is so little in a feed that there is little impact on the amount of fibre given to the horse...hence a waste of money for horses on hay. Straights and compound feeds are what is available over here - purely to do a job of nutrients. For horses who bolt their feed and owners paranoid of choke, then the feed is usually wetted down.

Weezy and BH - yep the rug thing is a big difference. I do rug mine but not till the temperatures are down to -10 celsius.

 

[flohelf]

Horse keeping is no different than child rearing, education, food or whatever is different fromone culture to another. Says a lot about the culture too... Spain which is so close to where i live in France is like another planet to me as far as horses are concerned.

 

[Weezy]

My horse is the only one ATM that is being turned out naked - it maybe single figures in the morning but it is 13+ in the day and she is unclipped and I like my horses to have the sun on their backs! I do not own a HW rug and never will. Even when clipped a decent MW with a fleece underneath will suffice.

As for mix BH, the only reason I would feed it is because it looks nice LOL!

 

[Skhosu]

I don't rug unless I have to, I have to with my pathetic boy, with the others they don'tneed it.
How does the seratta work though, from the pictures/descriptions I have seen it appears to be via studs pressing into the nose?

 

[piebaldsparkle]

Yes, Yes and Yes!!!

Can see why people would feed chaff, but feed it as my mare needs no hard feed, but does need a couple of supplements to keep her digestive system on track.

 

[Blackhawk]

[ QUOTE ]
My horse is the only one ATM that is being turned out naked - it maybe single figures in the morning but it is 13+ in the day and she is unclipped and I like my horses to have the sun on their backs! I do not own a HW rug and never will. Even when clipped a decent MW with a fleece underneath will suffice.

As for mix BH, the only reason I would feed it is because it looks nice LOL!

[/ QUOTE ]

Mine only gets a small portion so he has something to look forward to on an evening. I know, I'm soft.

I agree it does look good though!

The first time I rugged a horse I was working part time at a livery yard. One of the grooms asked me to rug up a large ID type. I looked at her like shed grown an extra head and asked what on earth for!

She left me to it to put it on and you would've laughed at how long it took me!

 

[Christmas_Kate]

I fail to see why people would happily feed chaff yet wouldnt see the benefit of feeding hay mixed with straw from a haynet? I DO feed chaff, but as everyone knows it's because ponio is such a good doer. This year i hope to introduce Fibre cubes in a trickle feeder, as I don't think chaff is worth the money.

I've only ever lived in England, and never been abroad even for a holiday, so i imagine my horse knowledge is biased towards the English way of thinking. But nowadays I don't always follow the grain. I find gut instinct the best way.

Basically I'm very open, and am happy to listen to new ideas, old fasioned methods which might not be deemed PC etc etc, but only take them on board if I think they are of relevance. i always keep ideas and methods in the back of my mind just incase one day they will be of use to me.

I think sometimes people are too stuck in their ways and miss out on an awful lot by not taking notice of what our friends abroad are doing.

 

[hadfos]

Arghhh i see,makes perfect sense!!!My boy is prone to choke as he a greedy pig but his feed always wet with water or beet!!!Rugs for me mean i do not need to clip,he stays warm and copes with the level of work i do with him without sweating loads!!You know what british winter like,one minute ya guy is basking in sun the next it bloody snowing!!!What i would give for proper seasons so my boys coat knows what it is doing,lol!!

 

[hadfos]

My boy only gets basic pony nuts,needs nowt else fat tw-t,lmao!!Must have the worlds best tb good doer

obviously gets his vits and c/flex,garlic!!!x

 

[Weezy]

[ QUOTE ]

How does the seratta work though, from the pictures/descriptions I have seen it appears to be via studs pressing into the nose?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, it is pressure on the nose. Some are more than studs, more teeth, those are the ones tha can draw blood, others are bound with leather, so not cutting, and some now are literally just made of leather. They are usually ridden with a bit that is shanked and curbed. The Spanish, as a rule, have VERY good hands and are very light with their pressure. Spanish horses have the natural high head carriage and serretas are a better way of containing the pressure than putting pressure on their mouths.

 

[Skhosu]

hmm.. se I would disagree with using that, difference of opinion and all that.

 

[Halfpass]

I sat on my youngster just before her 3rd birthday. I had no problems with it and I am pleased I did it when I did. Many people didn't agree but I felt she was more than ready. She is now rising 4 and is a calm horse that has very few issues. She is currently turned away for a few months and her training will continue in Jan / Feb and I would definatly do it like this again.

 

[henryhorn]

Thought hard about your questions and I suppose I answered one wrongly, alfa A is a sort of chaff isn't it..
I wouldn't ever start my youngsters before 3 and preferably three and a half, mostly because I have seen how their bodies develop from 2-4 and they need that time to grow.
I think in your case however the quarter horses and paints are a different type altogether, tough with an inbuilt strength a lot of the UK horses just don't have.
Ours keep growing until they are at least 6, so because we tend to start schooling them from the time we ride them they need to be almost fully developed to cope.
I also find under three year olds have a limited capacity to learn, there comes a plateau where you have to wait a bit, then move on again with their education.
I don't think you can say a hard and fast rule re age ever, some horses and ponies cope ok, others need time to mature.
As for bits some that look evil are actually gentle in the right hands, a plain snaffle can pinch and cut with bad hands, so I am always happy to look at new ones.
I was very shocked when we rode horses in Mexico into the jungle, for a start one three year old had three curb chains on and threw it's head the second you touched the reins. At the first opportunity my husband sneakily removed the lot, it responded as any normal horse would and settled beautifully. I had a wooden saddle on which the horse obviously found comfortable with massive blankets, I however ended up with a sore bum!
Those horses amazed me, at one point the guide was ahead of me, his back hooves were level with my horse's ears the slope was so steep yet neither horse missed a footing and powered up like nothing I had ever witnessed previously.
They were former mustangs imported, so I can see why riding one of those at two would have caused no problems!

 

[magic104]

Hay and haylage contain up to 6 – 8% protein, so are able to satisfy some, or all, of the horse’s daily requirement depending on his demands. Alfalfa, on the other hand, not only contains much more protein, at 12 – 15%, but the quality ie. the level of essential amino acids it provides, is also higher, making it much more suitable as a protein source for performance horses and breeding stock. Fibre is also broken down in the hindgut & releases energy slower.
I dont start my horses until they are 3 even if they appear physical mature they may not be mentally mature. I have never had a problem, but then they are handled daily, they may have worn a rug, will have been shown in hand so will have worn a bridle. They are bitted to what suits them, Mo has a very large tongue, that is taken into account. Because she can be a bit stronger when jumping she wears a pelham which she goes very well in.

 

[magic104]

Was just reading another post which had a link to Farmers Guardian & there is an article in there re Chaff/Chop;

The stomach of the adult horse is relatively small - about the size of a rugby ball. Very little actual digestion occurs here, and therefore most digestion occurs in the small and large intestine. Naturally, the horse would graze for up to eighteen hours per day and the horse’s stomach continuously produces acid, but saliva is only produced as he chews.

As a result the onset of gastric ulcers is often linked to a lack of fibre. Fit competition and race horses on a diet high in concentrates but low in fibre are most at risk. However, gastric ulcers can be a real problem to the leisure horse if left stabled for long hours with nothing to eat.

There are a number of fibre feeds available on the market providing similar energy levels to working cubes and mixes, such as Super Molichop Shreddi which is a unique combination of chaff and sugar beet. Sugar beet is a “super fibre” as it is highly digestible and provides slow release energy for stamina not fizz.

From a welfare point of view the horse has an innate need to chew. The stabled horse should have more or less free access to fibre to satisfy this need. This can be hay or haylage or one of the excellent bagged fibre products available on the market today, such as Super Molichop Original or Herbi.

 

[lilym]

having been to the processing plant for a big feed company famous for their fibre feeds, i can assure you that their chaff isn't floor sweepings! problems can be caused by any type of feed not just chaff.

 

[lilym]

yes i see your point! it always makes me laugh when feed reps come round and say this new fibre feed takes twice as long to eat as hay = crap!! my 3 prove it time and time again!! but i do feed it so they think they have a feed and it's something for them to look forward too and a useful thing to mix their vits/mins with.

 

[henryhorn]

Sorry probably a bit flippant in my reply re chaff, what I actually meant is in our case Alfa A is a feed we add to our hard rations that slows down their eating speed and helps their digestion by being fibre, not that it didn't contain any goodness.. We do take it's content into account, but also regard it's constituency as chaff like..
it helps stop our horses bolting their food and provides energy as well.

 

[TGM]

The chaff question is a bit difficult to answer. I don't feed chaff in terms of that chopped straw stuff mixed with molasses that people feel they ought to add to feedstuffs regardless, but I do sometimes feed Alfa A as a food in its own right.

Bits - I like to understand how they work before I form an opinion on them.

Backing - personally I wouldn't back before three but don't have too much of a problem with them being backed a little younger AS LONG it is just very light backing and no proper work.

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

[ QUOTE ]
I do not own a HW rug and never will. Even when clipped a decent MW with a fleece underneath will suffice.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well wouldn't a MW rug with a fleece underneath be the same as a Heavy Weight rug ?