The horse: A giant dog that you can ride on and force to pull things
Written: Jan 09 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to understand book filled with pictures on how to care for a horse.
Cons: Book covers beginning concepts and leaves out everything else.
The Bottom Line: Excellent book for the beginning horse person. Has a lot of tips and tricks that you can actually apply to any horse.
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| biscuitfarmer's Full Review: Complete Horse Care Manual |
My wife and I are pretty regular riders of horses, while she grew up with them and had the opportunity to learn to care for them, I just know how to ride them. When I say I know how to ride them, I mean I trot, I don't actually ride fast. My wife on the other hand leaves me way behind and goes off jumping things. I would much rather not have my rear hurting after a ride however, so I take the much more relaxing, calm approach to horse riding. However, in an attempt to get me to accept the idea of having a horse of our own someday, she bought me two books on horses, one of which being the Complete Horse Care Manual. She would make me take it with me every time that we'd go to our "rental" horses a few hours from our home, and she'd make me do all of the grooming, and cleaning of the hooves and things like that. However, she would make me read the book to figure out how.
Concept
The Complete Guide to Horse Care Manual, is pretty much just an overall guide that talks about general horse care from grooming, to training. As far as I know, the book is extremely useful and shows practical, easy to learn methods of horse care, that even myself can learn from.
I being a definite beginner with taking care of horses, was required to actually read the book and do the task. The book has lots of pictures and makes it really easy to be able to follow the book and do the task. I rarely had to refer to my wife for any answers as to whether or not I was doing something right. Not like she'd let me do something wrong anyway.
Chapters
Chapter 1 - Looking at the horse
This chapter talks about the many different types of horses. The different colors and markings that each type of horse has and their physical features. It also discusses different things that you can do to check their body parts to ensure that they are fully functional and healthy, during your daily checks.
Other things about this chapter, that I personally liked about it, was the section on body language. I have a fear that horses are always trying to bite me. I realize that they aren't meat eaters, however, I just feel that they want to bite me and they look at me, and I just jump back a little bit. The book sort of put some of those fears to rest by helping me understand why horses do some of the things that they do and what to look for when a horse is hungry, aggressive, or playful.
Chapter 2 - General Care
This is a great chapter, which I used to help me learn to handle a horse. I already knew generally how to get up on a horse and things like that. I didn't know however, had to lead a horse out of a gate and how to control them once I led them out.
I also used the section extensively for help when my wife would make me groom the horse. There's a lot of discussion on the different types of tools to use and how to use them. I was able to just follow the directions on the pages and I groomed a horse and cleaned it all by myself, just using the handy pictures within the book.
Other things discussed are items like loading and unloading a horse from a horse trailer, taking them to show, and using them as a work horse. The work horse section was pretty cool as it went into detail on the strains that a horse can take.
Chapter 3 - The Horse Outdoors
You would think that putting a horse outdoors, just requires a fence and grass, but I was pretty wrong about that. I didn't realize that a horse needs hay as well, because grass doesn't have all of the nutrients that they hay does, and a horse requires so much food, that eating grass, is more of a strain on the horse, with how much bending over is required than anything.
Different types of gates and styles of fence are discussed and ways to train your horses to respect the fences that they can undoubtedly leap over if they really wanted to.
Chapter 4 - The Stabled Horse
This talks about what is required to keep a horse in a stable. From the bedding that you use, to identification, and mucking out, this is a great informative chapter. It has a lot of information on cleaning out a stall and how to prepare it for a horse to rest in.
Chapter 5 - Food and water
As I am afraid that horses are always trying to bite me, I obviously am afraid to feed them. The book pretty much helped me to see how you are supposed to feed the horses, so that they feel comfortable. If the horse feels comfortable, then more than likely, you'll feel comfortable. It also talks about the nutritional needs of the horse, from their vitamins that they recommend them having, to what they need to consume on a daily basis.
Chapter 6 - Horse Problems and Foaling
This deals with the different problems that horses can have and how to diagnose and treat many of the problems. I however, just think if the horse looks like it has something wrong with it, it probably does. This is why I always keep the phone number to the local veterinarian handy, that way I can just call them for a professional opinion and treatment. That always works for me, however the book does go into some pretty good background about the different issues that horses frequently have.
Other things that I thought were pretty interesting was the section about breeding the horses or foaling. How to nurse a horse and what to do during birth and after the birth for both the new baby horse and for the mother.
Chapter 7 - Tack and Clothing
Obviously this section discusses the wide variety of ways of putting on saddle and what types of saddles exist. You get to understand how you know when a saddle and a bit is fitting the horse or when you have to try another one. Other areas discussed include the cleaning of the tacking, and the other equipment that you should have or try along with your standard horse riding equipment.
Chapter 8 - Hints and Tips
This is more or less a summary of everything else. Gives you some buying tips for your horse and ideas for caring for your horse year round, including the colder and hotter months. Pretty informative section about how to keep the horse comfortable in different environments essentially.
Overview
This is a great book that fully covers the different areas of beginner's horse care. While I still feel that there's a lot to learn for myself, the book definitely got me going in the right direction. I do have another book which is a little more advanced, that should help me grow as a horse person.
Some great things that the book does is include pictures about how to do different things from each individual step, making it much easier to understand and hopefully implement. I have been using it for most of the things that I have been learning to do. Hopefully the next time we go out to see the horses, I'll be a little more advanced than this book and I'll be able to move on to more training techniques and riding concepts, but probably not.
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Yes
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