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Proper Nutrition and Detox-ing

Several years ago, I took on a horse as a companion for one my horses. This older gelding was all white -- even though he's a registered Appaloosa. Not one spot of color anywhere on him. He'd been shown his entire life, both English and Western -- and had taught many young people how to ride. When I got him, he had feet that had been shaped and drawn forward -- elongated with his shoes because he had foundered several times and had confirmed coffin bone rotation. He had very slow hoof growth, had problems keeping weight on, and needed a good home to retire in. He was 27 years old and had Cushings.

The first thing we did was to change his nutrition. The second was to remove his shoes. And the third was to eliminate vaccines and chemical wormers.

By changing his nutrition and beginning to detox him, we started something that we had no idea would develop.

Initially the removal of his shoes slowed Brassee down quite a bit, as he had thin soles and was sore. But by making gradual changes to his feet through our farrier, and feeding him some quality nutritional supplements along with great hay. he made a huge change. In fact, the change over the next two years was so great that Brassee now stands barefoot in his gravel paddock and can walk down the gravel road without being sore. And his hooves are perfectly shaped! The only thing slowing him up from trying to go on an endurance ride, is that he is 30 years old now and sometimes his joints feel the stress of his years of showing -- and living. But he thinks he can still do it. Recently he participated in a bareback riding clinic, teaching a new rider how to develop an independent seat.

The nutrition improvements caused even more physical changes -- changes that we had no idea would come about. We use a program involving free choice minerals. Free choice means that the horses get to eat as much of the minerals that we put out as they need. They are never without them. Now naturally we have some specific supplements that we use, and you can find out more about them on the web-site in the nutrition section. But by offering free choice minerals and salt and good quality organic feeds, Brassee did something that no one ever thought he would do. After two years of proper nutrition and allowing his body to naturally detoxify itself and get healthy, Brassee began to get some spots in his coat. In all of his years of showing, no one had ever seen Brassee with a single spot of color on him. Yet he began to get small spots of color in both black and brown around his neck and shoulders. More importantly in the right light, and especially if he was wet from a bath, it looked like he was forming a blanket of color on his rump.

We also worked with him this past summer to remove accumulated heavy metals from his system. And he blossomed even more! Imagine all of the mercury that was in his system after all of those years of vaccinations.

At first I joked that Sandy was seeing things. She would call me when I was traveling and give me updates on Brassee's condition, since he lives at her farm. But before long, I couldn't deny the results when I saw them for myself. That past summer, the blanket started to show through more fully, and what we thought would be just a little color on his rump actually turned out to be a brighter white patch. In fact what we are seeing is that his body seems to be getting more roan colored, and his white blanket is getting brighter. The texture of his coat is even improving. It appears that he has had color hiding in there all along and all that was needed was for his body to detox a little bit and get a sufficient amount of the nutrients that he needed for it to come out. We can't wait until spring of 2007 when he sheds out to see how much brighter and more colorful he's going to be this year!

If you want to know more about the basic program and products we used with Brassee, go to http://www.horsethink.com/Dynamitehorse.htm and see the description of products there. The products listed are just the basic program we use to get a horse started on a detox and effective nutrition program. We have lots of products that are not listed. An additional link will be created later to showcase some of the rest of the products that we have available to us.