Equine Husbandry at Narnia Stables

Harmony between a private training stable operation and a natural living environment for horses has been achieved at Narnia Stables, owned and operated by Meg Brauch. For horse owners and trainers seeking to break free from traditional husbandry practices, Narnia Stables is a model for how to provide the services of a training facility while meeting the horse’s basic needs. Access to free choice, nutritious hay, a grain-free diet, herd interaction and freedom in large turnout spaces create a tranquil, relaxing environment for horses to express their natural behaviors and reach optimal physical health.

Traditional care for the training horse is based on outdated practices detrimental to the horse’s mental and physical health. Some of these management practices include long periods of stabling in a box stall, limited access to solitary turn-out, inadequate portions of hay, processed commercial grains high in starch and sugar, and an overall controlled and confined environment. While these practices are often implemented in an effort to minimize injury and save resources, horses kept in these conditions suffer lifelong damage that often goes unrecognized or misdiagnosed. While addressing a symptom of an issue with medicine or a prescription, steps to address what caused the problem to develop in the first place are often overlooked – is the horse stressed in or out of training? Are multiple symptoms evident of a systemic issue? What is the horse’s diet and management style? Questions that provoke further investigation into the lifestyle of the horse and what could potentially be causing a physical issue, tend to expose faults in the provided husbandry practices. With science-based management practices such as those implemented at Narnia Stables, mental and physical health issues can be avoided at their foundation.

Horses in nature are grazing, herd animals with prey instincts. As hindgut fermenters, horses are built to consume and digest fiber constantly. Microorganisms in the large intestine and cecum break down forages for their structural carbohydrates that can then be utilized for energy, protein, vitamins and minerals. Starch, a non-structural carbohydrate and the basis for many commercial feeds, is broken down by amylase in the small intestine of horses. Since horses are hindgut – or large intestine and cecum – fermenters, the majority of the digestive process takes place in this comparatively large section of the gastrointestinal tract. The small intestine is smaller than the hindgut because horses are built consume at least 2-2.5% of their body weight (BW) in forage per  day, while starches should be consumed only at a maximum of 0.5-0.6% BW per day. The horse can only digest a limited amount of starch as an energy source, so feeding more grain and less hay in an effort to save money does not meet their nutrition requirements. A lack of 24/7 access to forage in order to meet this requirement causes digestive problems in horses. Without adequate forage in the diet, the large intestine and cecum become acidic and the levels of healthy and pathogenic bacteria are disrupted. When horses are fed more than 0.6% BW of starch, the undigested excess is dumped into the large intestine. Bacteria in the hindgut now start to ferment starch instead of fiber and produce lactic acid as a result. The buildup of lactic acid decreases the pH of the hindgut, killing fiber-fermenting bacteria and increasing starch-fermenting bacteria populations. Feeding over 0.5% BW of non-structural carbohydrates or less than 1.5% BW of fiber can cause damage to the gastrointestinal tract of horses. The quality of forage is also important when considering its nutritional value. Moldy or dusty hay which can contain toxins that, when ingested by the horse, potentially cause respiratory disease.

At Narnia Stables, all forage is grown on the 70+ acres of hay fields maintained and serviced by the farm owners. Any moldy or dusty hay is steamed in a hay steamer for 1 hour to a temperature of 180-220°F. Horses have 24/7 access to hay, with slow feeder nets and ground hay provided in every stall, hay fed at turnout, lunch and night check. Between nine 850-1250lb horses, this equates to about 10-11 bales of hay fed per day. The horses always have hay left over in the mornings. No commercial starch-based grain is fed. Non-GMO, organic timothy pellets, alfalfa pellets, rice bran and a coconut-based feed are provided in individualized portions fed twice a day. A vitamin and mineral blend and a liquid Vit. E supplement is provided to every horse. Within four months transitioning from a more traditional diet to the diet provided at Narnia Stables, my horse noticeably gained weight despite his “grain” portion being decreased by about 50%. He developed dapples on his coat and his mane, tail and hooves are noticeably stronger and healthier. Providing horses with the forage-based diet their bodies were designed to consume and supplementing minimum amounts of fat, protein, vitamins and minerals is the most natural way to ensure optimal health for a domestic horse in training.

Domestic horses also need the dynamic of a herd to develop their behavior and learn social skills in order to interact and respond to their environment in a safe and healthy way. When horses are deprived of completely free social interaction with other horses, they lose the ability to behave in a way that aligns with their neurological structure. In a herd, horses protect each other and work together to survive, defend each other from predators, grow and reproduce. When horses are kept in solitary confinement in closed-off stalls and individual turnouts, they lose the security of a herd dynamic, the ability to learn communication skills, and experiences to build self-expression and awareness. These losses manifest in behavioral “problems” that are often labeled as misbehavior and treated as something the horse has done wrong. Behaviors such as spookiness, attachment to other horses, and a general lack of self-awareness around horses and people can stem from inadequate socialization. Some people consider over the fence contact sufficient. The reality is that horses communicate through body language and movement, and any kind of separation between two horses limits their ability to communicate freely, and thus their social development is stunted.

While the permanent residents of Narnia Stables have lived with many other horses for most of their lives, it is common for new training horses coming from traditional stable management practices to not have had the opportunity to interact freely with other horses. For this reason, a completely open herd of nine horses poses more issues than benefits due to the variation in social exposure between Narnia residents and new horses. In the current turnout set up at Narnia, there is one group of three geldings, a group of three mares and one gelding, and a mare gelding pair. After providing the horses with the chance to have a full herd, it was clear some of the newer geldings were unable to safely interact with the mares and exhibited stallion-like behavior. By separating the herd, but still ensuring the horses have at least one companion, Narnia Stables provides the opportunity for free socialization while safely respecting the difference in social development between all the different horses who come to the farm. Not only do horses at Narnia have social interaction, but they have enough space to gallop, play and have maximized time outside. During the winter season, mid-October through early May, the horses are outside for about 10 hours from 6:30-4:30, depending on the time of sunset. In the summer season, the horses go out from 2pm-7am and get around 17 hours outside, as well as a break from the heat and site predators during the afternoon. This setup optimizes the stabling environment to meet the horse’s needs for freedom of movement and socialization, while maintaining risk adversity by recognizing each horse’s social skills and personality in order to group them in a safe way.