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Nutrition is a big passion of mine and I am always wanted to learn more on how I can do better for my horses. A big takeaway i learned from teh episode was just how much nutrition can impact your horses heath and how it can help or worsen certain medical problems. Many people when they have a health issue with there horse need to take a big look into what they are acually feeding and WHY they are feeding that. One thing I agree with in the podcast is increasing grain and concentrate increases colic risk. I think feeding horses high amounts of concentrated proccessed feed is first of all unnessasasrty and a risk to their health. They are meant to graze throughout the day have have forage in there stomach at all times not large amounts of grain that they can not process well. Though grain can be very helpfull for some horses. Most horses are just fine without grain and concentrates, they need long stem forage and vitamins and minerals. One question I still have is what type of long stem forage is best for horses? I understand that horses should have long stem forage should be avaliable at all times but I still dont fully understand the different types of grass hay and legumes and why we feed what type of hay, This podcast relates to my horses burrent feeding program as I take careful consideration of what Luna eats. currently she is on 24/7 pasture, 1 flake of alfalfa hay and grass hay when needed, a balancer and alfalfa pellets, and salt/electrolytes. I feel Lunas feeding program follows what they were talking about in the podcast as she does not eat overlly processed grains and she is getting all her vitamins and minerals, and she grazes all day. Moving forward I would like to focus more on hay quality, thankfully we have a good hay suppler but I have not taken into consideration testing the hay or looking at nurtient analasys.

Luna March

Unbeetable balancer- $50

Alfalfa pellets-$22

Fly spray- $23

Hay (split with other horses)- $200

Farrier- $35

Total- $330

Video Link: https://youtu.be/ewyWYWKaDLs?si=exjUbaTFqwbSVCBL

This month has been a very busy time with show season in full swing, IEA, and getting my 3 year old show ready and all the things in between I will say it has been hard this month to put in the work with Luna. Through all the busyness me and Luna have been working hard on our liberty work. This month Luna gained a new horsey friend and I think she acually rather go back to her quiet life with the donkeys lol. This month Luna has really tuned in during our liberty. I noticed this month she has much more energy during our sessions and we can trot and move out for longer periods of time. I even can have her do some lope strides around me though we are still building up stamina for that. She has become just a breath of fresh air to work with after working with the baby horses as she is so eager to please and makes training so fun. She is getting much better at side passing and I am working on keeping her from stepping forward. Our spanish walk is improving a ton and we are finaly starting to include some forward movement! One thing I thought was really cool this month is she acually let me sit on her! though she is not under saddle I just wanted to see what would happen and turns out she trust me enough to at least sit up there and pet on her! but any forward movement is an absolute no from her. I can have her circle around me at a standstill, I can have her move out and also come in at my shoulder and circle. She is getting more smooth in her changes in direction and I dont have to be so obvious in my cues. I also introduced her to a bean bag this month and she was scared of it at first but we were able to back up pretty close to it and get one leg to touch it which I call a win for one session. We finaly got a key to a local arena so I can start taking her to a areana and working on my pattern. One thing I am struggling with is keeping her out of my space during liberty, she can get pushy at times so we have to have a good balance of positive rienforcment and respecting me and my space. Something I dont even think about anymore with her and that has inproved so much since we got her is walking through gaits! She used to rush through them and was pretty dangerous and now I can have her walk through at liberty without even thinking. We also have gotten just more confident around each other, I am not so weary about her hind end anymore and she is doing so well for the farrier and for bathing. I have a good idea of what I want to do for the show off and I need to start getting all my props and ideas put together. Next month we plan to take her through more obsticals and hoppfully pony her along on a trail ride.