Is your horse Grass Affected?

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Some people don't even realise their horses are Grass Affected until it is too late and either they have a nasty accident or the horse becomes unrideable due to Head-Flicking or Laminitis.

The thing is that in most cases the symptoms occur long before the horses get to this stage - we are helping you to recognise the first signs and how to correct the horses diet immediately you notice any changes in the horse.
In the mean time, visit our extremely informative website, which is being constantly updated with the latest research. We too continue on this journey of learning.

Despite their owners spending vast amounts of money on professional advice, thousands and thousands of horses and ponies all over the planet succumb to a wide array of serious health and behaviour problems every year.

Thousands are put down, turned out, sold for the wrong reasons, don’t reach their full performance potential or are retired far too early.

Thousands become metabolic, get laminitis, are diagnosed with ‘sacroiliac’ problems, become head-flickers/shakers, get mysterious bouts of colic, allergies and skin conditions or mud-fever, buck or spook people off, are forever needing therapies and treatments for ‘muscle-soreness’ or have endless trouble with saddle-fitting.

Ever more horses become over-reactive and therefore dangerous. The combination of an over-reactive horse with a person who does not ‘read’ these signs is a recipe for a serious accident.

The emotional toll on their owners is significant. If your horse isn’t right it ruins your whole day. The economic toll can strain relationships because the non-horsey half doesn’t understand.
Desperate owners spend significant amounts of money on every treatment known to mankind. They spend it on everything except the ‘one thing’ that will make the most difference: their grass and its proper management.

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If you have a horse who is doing well on CalmHealthyHorses Products we'd like to hear from you
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Contact Us

As we are becoming increasingly inundated with requests for help please first fill out the ‘Health Check List’ – read the ‘Current Diet Review’ and also ‘When Not To Ride…’

If you still feel you need extra advice, to save going back and forth, please include the following information in your email or message:

snail-mail us
Box 685
Rangiora
North Canterbury

Physical Address
76 Eyredale Rd
RD6
Rangiora 7476
North Canterbury
New Zealand

phone
03 312 5567
fax
03 312 5568

email
info@calmhealthyhorses.com

Links

• The Zephyr Files An hilarious blog about the life of Lord LubbaDuck (Zephyr) If you love horses, great horse photography and a giggle, visit The Zephyr Files.

About Us

We specialise in 'Grass Affected' Horses.

That means we know this syndrome inside out, in fact it was Jenny who first recognised and coined the phrase 'Grass Affected' over ten years ago.
So how did this come about?
For fifteen years, Jenny was a Horsemanship instructor teaching all over NZ.
In those days many people arrived at lessons with all manner of problem horses.
She often had many students return again and again and the same problems kept rearing their head, despite the fact that they seemed to have been sorted in the lesson.
Problems such as running off, being extra spooky, head-shy, aggressive, girthy, tight behind so unable to canter properly - swapping leads, 'bunny-hopping' with the back legs together. These are but a few examples from a very long list.
It became clear that it was nothing that the students themselves were doing wrong, and many of the students had also spent big money on excellent professional help encompassing every treatment known to mankind but still without satisfactory outcomes.

Jenny started to notice her own horses would have problems when they grazed certain types of grass. At first, she thought it was a purely mycotoxin problem but realised after a few more light bulb moments that there were other more important aspects of the pasture grass causing these issues besides toxins.
She took on some 'seriously affected' horses and deliberately did nothing else but change their diet. Within a month or six weeks they would be completely back to normal without having done any 'work' on them whatsoever.

It was then she started to do serious study on the physiology of not only the horse but of the plants they were consuming. She conducted multiple forage tests and compared this to what horses in the wild or on very rough grazing on big country farms (who show none of these symptoms) would eat and discovered some major discrepancies.

The penny was beginning to drop.

1. Horses in the wild eat serious roughage from a large variety of UNFERTILISED grasses, herbs and shrubs - compared to many of our horses who are confined behind fences and forced to eat rye and clover or short green fertilised grass.
2. The plants the horses eat in the wild often have deep tap roots which bring up many of the minerals required for the horse to be healthy - these plants are absent from the domestic horses pasture.
Of course everyone knew their horses tended to become extra 'hot' in spring and often in autumn (with laminitis and head flicking also more common in these seasons too)

But all year round 'Grass Affected' horses are very common. More so these days compared to 20-30 years ago. Real-estate is much more expensive now and many people keep their horses on small blocks and think that a paddock of grass is all they need. But as most of you are learning: not all grass is equal.

DISCLAIMER

*The information and material on the Calm Healthy Horses website is of a general educational nature only. 
It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice as it is not necessarily complete, up to date or applicable to you personally. 
Jenny Paterson, B.Sc Calm Healthy Horses Ltd, Vicky Hansen Calm Healthy Horses Australia and Sue Dawson Calm Healthy Horses UK do not accept liability for any injury, loss, damage or expenses incurred by use of any of the CalmHealthyHorses Product range or from reliance on any information either given verbally or derived from this website.

Calm Healthy Horses Ltd is 100% NZ Owned.