Laminitis, and the grass that causes it
Laminitis is rarely just a spring grass problem — it is usually metabolic. The signs, why the stance matters, and what to do in the first hour.
Horses
54 photos across 5 breeds
🐴 Horses are the largest animal most people will ever be responsible for, and the only one on this site that generally lives somewhere other than your home. That single fact — livery, grazing, transport, a farrier, a vet who travels — shapes the commitment more than breed or discipline does.
Breed matters for aptitude and temperament: a quarter horse for speed over short distances, an Anglo-Arabian for galloping, a cob for steadiness, a warmblood for jumping or dressage. But soundness, schooling and temperament in the individual animal matter far more than the label.
🕕 The commitment people underestimate is not the money, it is the twice a day. Something has to happen at both ends of every day — feeding, checking, mucking out, rugs on and rugs off, water that is not frozen — in the dark, in the rain, on Christmas morning and while you have flu. Either you do it, or you pay a yard to do it and lose the choice of when. This is why almost everyone sensible loans or shares a horse before buying one.
🌱 Grass is a feed, not scenery, and misunderstanding that is behind a great deal of equine illness. A hardy native or a draft type will get fat on grazing that would barely keep an Arabian going, and fat is the direct route to laminitis — so the good doers need their grazing restricted rather than supplemented. Spring grass is the dangerous kind.
🧲 Two more things worth knowing before looking at adverts. Horses are herd animals and genuinely deteriorate kept alone, so companionship is a requirement rather than a preference. And the feet need attention every four to eight weeks for life whether the horse is shod or barefoot, whether it is working or retired, and nothing about that schedule is flexible.
Any breedAkhal-Teke (3)American paint horse (3)American quarter horse (3)American saddlebred (3)Andalusian (3)Appaloosa (3)Arabian (3)Bashkir curly (3)Belgian draft (3)Black forest horse (3)Brumby (3)Camargue (3)+9 more — use the search
Horses, newest first
Brumby
Storm walks the ridge at last light where everyone can see him, which is entirely the point.
FrostyOtter · 6 days ago
Camargue
Blanca runs the shallows at full tilt and comes back completely white with salt.
FrostyOtter · 6 days ago
Bashkir curly
Bramble grows that coat every winter and is unbearably smug about it by January.
FrostyOtter · 6 days ago
Before you get a horse
- The purchase price is the smallest number involved. Livery, feed, farrier every six weeks, dentist, vaccinations, worming and insurance run continuously, and a serious veterinary event can cost more than the horse.
- Horses are herd animals and deteriorate kept alone. Companionship is a welfare requirement, not a preference.
- Feet need attention every four to eight weeks for life, shod or not. Nothing about that schedule is flexible.
- Colic and laminitis are the two emergencies to recognise early, and both are strongly linked to diet and to sudden changes in it.
- Most horses live twenty-five to thirty years — the heavy draft breeds rather less — and many outlive their usefulness for the job they were bought for. Plan for the retirement as well as the riding.
- Have a vetting done, and have it done by a vet who is not the seller's. It is the cheapest money in the whole transaction, and the things it finds are the things that make a horse unrideable rather than merely imperfect.
- The hardy natives and cobs are not the easy option they look. A good doer gets fat on grass that would barely keep an Arabian going, and fat is the direct route to laminitis — so those breeds need grazing restricted and weight watched, which is more management than feeding, not less.
- Loan or share before you buy. It costs a fraction, it is reversible, and it teaches you in six months what no amount of reading will: whether you actually want to be at a yard twice a day in February.
- Teeth need rasping by a qualified dentist or vet every six to twelve months. A horse that drops half-chewed balls of hay, loses condition or resists the bit is very often telling you about its mouth.
General guidance, not veterinary advice. Anything about a specific animal is a question for a vet who has seen it.
Horse breeds worth knowing about
A place to start rather than the whole list. Every name is a page.
- American quarter horse
The most numerous breed in the world, named for the quarter-mile it outruns anything over. Calm, versatile and strongly built, with a well-known set of testable muscle and skin genetic conditions.
- Arabian
Among the oldest recognisable breeds, and the stamina animal — endurance racing is effectively theirs. Small by modern sport-horse standards, long-lived, and intelligent enough to need a thinking rider.
- Andalusian
The Iberian baroque horse: compact, powerful, famously trainable and the classical dressage type. Generally sensible temperament with a great deal of presence.
- Appaloosa
Spotted, and the spots come with genetics worth knowing: the leopard complex gene is linked to night blindness and to recurrent uveitis, which is the commonest cause of blindness in the breed.
- Belgian draft
One of the heaviest horses there is, and a reminder that draft breeds live shorter lives than lighter ones — eighteen to twenty-five years. Enormous feed bills and feathered legs that need watching for mud fever.
- American paint horse
A stock horse registered on both bloodline and coat pattern, so it is a breed rather than merely a colour. Shares the quarter horse's temperament and its testable genetic conditions.
Guides for horses
The subjects that come up on breed page after breed page, written out properly.
The health tests to ask a breeder for
A carrier of a recessive disease looks healthy. Which tests exist for dogs, cats and horses, how to read the results, and the answers that should worry you.
How to photograph your pet
Light, height, focus and patience — what separates a good pet photo from a blurred one, and how to handle black cats, white dogs and animals that never sit still.
Coats, and what each type actually needs
Single, double, wire, curly and hairless coats need completely different things. Why you never shave a double coat, and why a mat has to be cut out.
What the extra weight actually costs
Around half of dogs and cats are overweight, and lean-fed dogs live nearly two years longer. How to body-condition score, and how to feed for it.
Gene pools, popular sires and closed studbooks
A great many of the breed profiles here mention a narrow gene pool. What that actually means, why one stallion can reshape a breed, and what to ask a breeder.
All 21 horse breeds with photos
Every breed somebody has posted, A to Z.