I remember that, when I was just a really young kid, even before I rode a horse for the first time, I liked big dogs and wanted one. But, I was told by my Dad that a really big dog needed lots of room to run, to stay really fit and healthy, and that our small back yard in a semi-suburban section of the City of Philadelphia, just wasn't large enough ... for the sake of the dog.

I also remember making the argument that some of the other kids at school, who lived in apartments, with no back yards at all, were allowed to have big dogs. And my Dad told me not to repeat what he was about to say to my friends, so as to avoid any bad feelings or arguments, and then advised me that he considered such living conditions to be unkind, if not even somewhat cruel, to those dogs.  My personal disappointment in those early days, mainly resulted in my early desire to live in the country some day.  And I was, and still am, convinced that my Dad was right about the dog.

Now, my problem in trying to apply that philosophy about dogs to horses, is that domesticated dogs and horses have far more basic differences, to my observation, than they have similarities. And, I don't believe you can determine such things as the required amount of exercise or space needed for a horse, simply by taking whatever seems to work for a dog and multiplying it by ten, or twenty, or whatever figure equates to their sizes.

So, I have joined the ranks of those who make comparisons between how domesticated horses and wild horses appear to live. In so doing, I have been influenced by the fact that some professional horse breeders reportedly, from time to time, engage in the practice of acquiring some wild horses to breed into their lines, hoping to improve the overall health and stamina characteristics of the resulting offspring.  But, in the circles of various breed organizations, there are restrictions against this.  And, moverall observation is that virtually all of the most popular breeds of domesticated horses appear to have grown progressively weaker and less healthy, as a result of basically uninterrupted human captivity and mankind's misdirected intrusion into the breeding selection of these animals.  There are several, interrelated reasons for this, several of which relate directly to further restricting horses from large enough living areas. 

The following statement deals with a subjective evaluation of each individual's conscience and is, therefore, subject to very subjective evaluation.  It does, however, represent a standard that I try to apply to myself and the horses for which I take any kind of responsibility. And, from the very simple standpoint of applying basic considerations of love and kindness toward horses, it seems to me that the following premise simply makes good, moral and common sense: ALL OF US WHO KEEP HORSES IN CAPTIVITY ARE PARTIES TO DEPRIVING THEM, IN VARYING DEGREES, OF CONDITIONS NEEDED FOR THEIR BASIC WELL BEING AND HAPPINESS.  WE, THEREFORE, HAVE A MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO TRY TO IDENTIFY THESE NEEDS AND, ACCORDINGLY, PROVIDE THE VERY BEST ALTERNATIVE ACCOMODATIONS FOR THEM THAT ARE POSSIBLE UNDER OUR VARIOUS INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES AND LIMITATIONS.  TO HAVE HORSES OF OUR OWN, AND NOT EVEN BE CONCERNED ABOUT DOING ALL WE CAN TO SATISFY THEIR NATURALLY INSTINCTIVE AND PHYSICAL NEEDS, CAN ONLY BE CONSIDERED, TO AT LEAST SOME DEGREE, AS NEGLECT AND CRUELTY.

WILD HORSE COMPARISONS

My first and main consideration for keeping horses, at Rancho Ontelaunee, has been to try to replicate, as closely as is practicable, the basic behavior characteristics required by the living conditions of wild horses, despite the extreme differences that result from having no more than five acres of open space for them, our being able to support little more than just two horses and our two llamas (due to certain other physical limitations) and our having to keep them most often fenced into an area of less than three acres.  It seems obvious that for most of us, who don't happen to own tens of thousands of acres of natural space, that there always will be severe limitations on how far we can go along the lines of trying to recreate a natural, wild horse type of environment.  Also, since there is such variety in the great differences in the residential conditions of various horseowners, in addition to property size (i.e.: climate, terrain, available finances, etc.), it seems obvious that few set rules can be applied. Rather, there needs to be individual customizing, involving a lot of trial and error and, probably, a certain amount of plain guesswork, but ALWAYS with the intention of trying to better understand the nature of the wild horse environment as it effects, in a positive and natural way, the health and fitness of the horse. And, then, with our best possible understanding of these elements, we can at least try to introduce some of them into our own equine living accomodations.

The purpose of our featured "map tour", below, is not to single out Rancho Ontelaunee as any kind of general role model for universal structuring of natural horse turnout.  Rather, it is intended to as a somewhat graphic potrayal of just one, isolated example of how various attempts have been made to convert certain widely held thoughts and concepts about wild horses into actual lifestye enhancements for our own horses (as well as our two llamas).  And, it logically begins with considerations of the following basic concepts and their mutually supportive interrelationships. 

In this regard, the thought pattern, as with so many other areas of ecology and the natural world (including elements of natural horse care and handling), may be represented by a CIRCLE (or a kind of wheel with spokes), with one point leading to and dependent upon the next, which further leads to and depends upon the next, etc., in a repeating and never ending cycle.  A study of such a wheel may be started at any point.  And, in our particular case, our interest began with questions about wild horses going barefooted without appearing to have the kinds of soreness and lameness conditions that so many horse owners so often encounter in their own, domesticated horses.  The following, very cursory description of our layman's type of common sense based exploratory "trip" around the wild horse wheel, then, will begin with a wild horse's unshod hoof.

The tough and healthy condition of the hooves of the few remaining wild horses that still are able to live in natural wilderness areas bear testimony to an old horsemen's adage that "a horse has five hearts, one in his chest and one in each hoof.  When the weight of a horse hits the ground on a given foot, the natural, anatomical design and structure of the hoof, including the actual hoof wall (if not restricted by a nailed on metal shoe) expands and contracts in such a manner as to act as an actual pump, to maintain a good flow of fresh blood supply through the hoof and against the force of gravity on the trip back up one of the long legs of the horse.  If there is comparatively little or no movement, which is the case whenever a horse is confined to a stall, four of the horse's five "hearts" are pretty much on idle.  In the case of truly wild horses, who are estimated often to travel 20 miles or more a day, this not a consideration.  And, a wild horse's hoof health and toughness also may further be enhanced by such activities as fleeing from natural predators, such as wolves and mountain lions.  But, even when they are not being chased, truly wild horses are continually on the move, in search of food and water, since no one is throwing them a pile of hay each day, which pretty much sits in one place (often in the corner of a stall), or refilling a bucket of water which very often is hanging from a wall, right next to the pile of hay and a feed bin filled with commercially manufactured products that horses basically were not designed to ingest, in the first place.

Wild horses' healthy feet and resulting improved blood circulation, which enable longer periods of sometimes fast movement, all work together and generally result in an improved condition of overall cardiovascular and respiratory health.  This overall improvment, in turn, feeds back to enable still more and quicker movement, and other physical and mental health enhancements, such as a higher degree of alertness, quicker reflexes and improved natural healing ability.  And, as we move further and further along, around this wheel, it becomes more and more apparent that these natural elements, as well as many others (such as not continuously having to breathe the kind of fouled air that's inside of most horse stalls) all interact and cycle around each other, always mutully supportive.  Conversely, probably none of these elements can work as well, without the others.  And, for example, it seems apparent that barefoot hoof maintenance of domesticated horses works best and with fewest problem incidents, with horses who live in 24/7 turnout, just as 24/7 turnout appears to work best and with fewest problems for horses that are barefooted.  The question, regarding horses that are not accustomed to either of these conditions, as to which should come first, the continuous turnout or the going barefooted, is one of those "the chicken or the egg" puzzles, which is why a period of adjustment needs to be planned for many horses who have worn shoes and lived mainly in stalls, sometimes wearing blankets and having body clips, for most of their lives.

To try to "cut to the chase" of all this, it has seemed apparent that key considerations about what to do with the physical character of the limited living space we can provide for our horses, should be focused largely on how to keep the horses MOVING as much as possible, at changing levels of physical exertion.  Here at Rancho Onelaunee, no really serious thought has been given to any possible importation of wolves, mountain lions and/or bears onto the property, from which the horses most likely would not be able to escape, given that their turnout area is fenced and often restricted to less than three acres, depending on varying circumstances.  One such variance is the amount and condition of whatever may be growing in the pastures and whether "too much of a good thing" may be an open invitation to colic or grass founder for our horses who, after all, still have more opportunities than actually wild horses to just be lazy, stay pretty much in just one place and overeat.  This point will be discussed in more detail, in the pasture sections of our Map-Drawing and Photos "Tour" (directly below), which is intended to be nothing more than a single, case in point example of how thinking of ways that certain aspects of wild horse lifestyles might at least partially be applied to domesticated horses, even in a restrictively small turnout area, eventually resulted in an effectively different living environment that hopefully is more beneficial for the horses.

The captions that accompany the photos on this "Tour" hopefully will give a clear and easy to understand series of very specific explanations of the kinds of considerations that were, and continue to be used in our personal experiments, as they pertain to each of the identified key points on the map-drawing below.