March 2026

March is a transition month up here. We go through several rounds of melting and getting more snow, which can make for very muddy conditions. Things are pretty brown when the snow melts, but the horses enjoy the option of foraging for dried grass to supplement the hay bales. Most of the horses are still pretty fuzzy, but some are starting to shed out. It is fun when we walk out in the barn lots or the pastures and someone has been rolling to get extra hair off. It is particularly easy to see when a white horse has been rolling on the ground. We do help our most prolific shedders by brushing them.

Sapphie is sporting some very fashionable footwear right now. She got a couple of infections in her feet so now she wears boots to keep her feet clean. Infections like the ones she got are common as feet are growing out after an episode of laminitis. Keeping them dry in the boots is important and we are trying several different products to help with that. Her feet are doing very well with it.

This is a very shaggy Dusty enjoying the grass under the melted snow. It is just like hay that hasn’t been baled up. The horses like to forage the first time the snow melts. Dusty has had a good winter, as you can see by how round she is!

Sapphie in her new boots! She has two pairs, so she gets a dry pair put on every day. They are protecting her feet from getting infected as they recover from her trouble last summer. She can walk, trot, buck, and run in them. They are reflective so her feet are visible even at night.

Here comes Sapphie, in her boots, leading Dusty and Mr. B back to the barn for lunch.

Sapphie is such a smart girl! She is coming over to have her boots changed after eating her lunch. She stops because her back foot was itchy and she needed to scratch it with her teeth. She knows the routine for changing her boots and is very cooperative about it.

Here is Sapphie with her clean boots just put on today (March 20). Right now the barn lots are muddy so her boots need to be rinsed off each day so she can have clean ones to put on after lunch.

This is the result of brushing Dillon for the first time since he started shedding.

This shows how different the winter horse hair is. It is much less sleek than their summer coats. It does a good job helping them to stay warm.