A free horse would travel in a smallish family group 12-26 miles every day on an endless journey seeking food, water, shelter, salt, sand to roll in, and friends to frolic and play with. He spends most of his time at the walk or trot, occasionally breaking into a run down a grassy slope, toward a new friend or away from a dangerous predator. The horses take turns napping in the heat of the day, always a few trusted friends staying awake to graze and stand watch for danger. Green grass is a luxury found only in the spring time or in dangerous areas, like near the water hole shared by the local mountain lions, or close to irrigation systems maintained by humans.
A facility for a domestic horse should provide as many similar aspects as possible to create the feeling of family, security, foraging and the satisfaction of leading a full life, while allowing for the comforts, control and accessibility that we humans require. People like stables. Horses like freedom. People like clean horses and clean tack. Horses love to be dirty, and rolling in the dust is essential to their overall health and well-being. People, dogs and cats all love to sleep in a cozy bed/room/crate/cave. Horses need to feel the wind in their manes, have companions to touch and hear and feel, and to be able to see an horizon to fully relax. A facility that can truly support the healthy physical and mental development of a horse must be a compromise between what the human/control freak/predator WANTS, and what the inner wild horse spirit/quadruped/prey animal NEEDS to survive and flourish. As the dominant species on planet Earth, it is clearly our responsibility to provide for the needs of our domesticated animals. We do it for our pets.... We do it for the animals at the zoo.... We even rebuild wetlands, hang bat boxes under our eaves, dedicate thousands of acres to our wildlife, build mobile chicken tractors with modular yards to give the hens fresh foraging every day, then we proudly show off our sustainable backyard egg layers... And yet for some reason we don't apply this logic to how we keep our horses. Lets change that!
We are here to help you create a Hybrid-Stable Habitat™ - a facility specifically designed
to
encourage:
movement • frequent
feeding • healthy hooves • social
activity • play
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