Community

Fly Predator customer Kathleen Feeney's owner of Little Things Ranch recently relocated from their stable in Long Island, New York to Rivers Edge Farm in Hollis Center, Maine.

While on Long Island Kathleen and her therapy miniature horses visited Hospice patients, nursing homes, hospitals, daycare centers, and individuals at home. Little Things Ranch is open to anyone who would like to visit them and enjoy the horses.

Angel

Angel is a sweet and sassy 29 inch black and white miniature Pinto. Angel’s curiosity and calm engaging nature makes her ideal for equine assisted activities. Angel brought great pleasure to many of the 180 children at Hospice Camp Good Grief located on eastern Long Island.

Precious

Precious is the tiniest of Little Things Ranch team standing 28 inches and is also a black and white pinto.

Both Angel and Precious are registered with PetPartners.org

Dezi

Dezi is our big girl at 32” and is our home body staying on the ranch. Once and awhile Desi will take visitors for a drive in her cart. 

At Spalding we are grateful to have several therapy programs across the nation as Fly Predators customers. We love all that they do!

Thank goodness winter is ALMOST over! As the days grow longer our horses are going to start shedding. Here's my four favorite best practices to help shed your horse of his or her wintery thick coat!

1. Start leaving the barn lights on and extra couple hours after dark. The cold isn't the only thing that brings on the fluff, it's the shorter days and lack of daylight that does it as well SO leave the lights a few hours after sunset is a simple trick. No electricity in your stable? My neighbor didn't have electricity their first year in their stable so they hung up Christmas lights instead. It was a pretty white glow and seemed to function as well as my method.
2. As soon as it's warm enough, give them a good bath. Make sure to rinse the shampoo & conditioner well because of all that extra hair. 
3. Let the rubber curry mitt be a BFF! I've had the same rubber curry mitt since I was 10 years old and it works as well today as day one! They range from $5-10 and worth every penny. I prefer this over a metal curry comb as, with the mitt, you get to feel across your horses body plus you can flip the mitt to the other side and other hand + they are way safer to rub up and down your horses legs! Also your new shedding BFF will be the Strip Hair at 

   https://striphair.com as it's one of the best ways to strip all over body hair AND it's recommended by the legendary Pat Parelli!

4. Ask your vet or equine nutritionist before making any changes in their diet. There's lots of coat conditioning supplements out there and some are great. I topped my horses AM/PM grain with several different types of oils over the years including; vegetable oil, sunflower oil, and BioStar's Empower.

PS - Make sure you are ready for Spring and fly season by re-ordering your Fly Predators and add on to that your order of Bye Bye Insects as well as Bye Bye Odor so you too are Ready? Set? Go! for the impending 2020 fly season!

I heard you ring, come in my friend!
I was watching TV news,
The price of gold, the rioting,
and politicians' views. 

There's been another murder,
a plane crash, an earthquake, too.
Come in and watch this rocket launch,
It's been long since I've seen you. 

Sit down old friend. I'm glad you're here.
I've long wanted to say
That you have a fault, a problem with
Animals that neigh. 

You're always occupied at home,
Messin' 'round the pen.
There's more to life, you know old friend,
Than horses and horsemen. 

You're backward lookin', slow to change.
It explains, to say the least,
Your attachment to this expensive
and quite archaic beast 

You're always broke, you spend your dough
On fence and stall and gate.
Get with it, pal, and realize
It’s nineteen eighty eight.

Why can’t you accept reality?
The equine's day is done,
Okay, except for racing
To provide a little fun. 

You're cleaning pens and mending stuff
While others golf and sail.
You're always nursing injuries
You've suffered on the trail. 

Your conservatism seems stubborn to
Us folks who look ahead
To century twenty one, a time
Of technology, it’s said. 

You love things old, and history
And tack made just by hand.
Pictures decorate your home
Of horses famed and grand. 

Nostalgic and romantic scenes
Appeal to your imagination.
The smell of horse and barn and tack
Preferred to urbanization. 

We're in the age of computers, sir;
Horses have no place.
Though I admit they were useful
and helped the human race. 

Born a hundred years too late,
You're obsolete, of course.
Hey! Never mind that rocket launch
Let’s go out and see my horse.

Fred Stone, the world’s foremost painter of horses, has been a client, neighbor and friend for half a century.

Fred’s paintings, mostly, but not exclusively, are of Thoroughbred racehorses. Living in a modest rural home as long as I have known him, he paints in a tiny studio, producing works of art treasured by horse lovers everywhere. His art even decorates large structures at racetracks here and abroad.

What I find most impressive about his work is how he captures the precise personality of the horses. I can look at the expression in the head and the eye of the subject, as I can on a living horse, and see in the painting the exact mood and attitude of the horse.

And, amazingly, he does this in watercolor!

Fred graced our practice with some of his treasured prints, and we also have several in our home.

Fred’s book, Reflections On A Golden Age, subtitled The Racing Art of Fred Stone (Equinart, Inc. 2010) is a coffee table masterpiece, filled with the author’s great artwork plus text by him and guest writers.

Horse lovers, and especially those who treasure horse art will adore this book.