Meet the ‘Horse Barber’ creating spectacular equine designs

CNN — By combining her two passions, Melody Hames produces some of the most unexpected and spectacular designs in the equine world.

Dubbed the “Horse Barber,” the design graduate has set up her own business clipping creative artwork into the hair of horses.

“They’ve all got a unique meaning,” Hames told CNN Sport. “I’ve always been into art and design anyway so I love to do it.”

To read more on this story, click here: Meet the ‘Horse Barber’ creating spectacular equine designs

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Amazing Foal Born With A Patch By His Mane That Looks Like Another Horse

A rare foal was born three years ago which made an internet hit and we thought to bring it back again to appreciate God’s creation. It was like love at first sight for all horse lovers as this beautiful foal had a unique work of art on its back. It looks like an optical illusion but this chestnut foal was born with his own perfect white shadow. The unique marking is the profile of another horse which runs up his left shoulder and neck. It then merges seamlessly from white to black into his mane.The pattern is such a work of art that the foal's owners have called him Da Vinci, or Vinny for short. He was born at the start of May at Fyling Hall riding school at Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire. Wendy Bulmer, who runs the riding school, said: 'I bought his mother at a sale and didn't know she was in foal [pregnant] so that was a bit of a surprise. He's even got a little white heart shape on his bottom as well.' 

 To read more on this story, click here: Amazing Foal Born With A Patch By His Mane That Looks Like Another Horse 

 tags Foal, Chestnut Foal, Da Vinci, Horse, Pony, Pet, Pet Adoption, Fyling Hall riding school,

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Mother Horse Delivers a Miracle, Defining All the Odds: She Gives Birth to Twin Foals

A heartwarming example of how Mother Nature can produce wonders happened in May.

Emma, a mother horse delivered a miracle, defining all the odds. Her owner got a pleasant surprise when Emma laid down to deliver her foal. According to the UC Davis Center for Equine Health, “a number of factors can affect a mare’s ability to conceive, maintain a healthy pregnancy and produce a healthy foal, including proper nutrition, preventive medicine, a routine program of parasite control and exercise.”

According to the Center for Equine Health, although it is common for a high number of twin embryos to abort spontaneously within the first six weeks of pregnancy, approximately 80 percent of twin conceptions that are present after 40 days of pregnancy are aborted by the eighth month of pregnancy.

Horses usually give birth to one horse per conception.

It is not uncommon for them to conceive twins, but it is definitely extremely rare for both embryos to survive. What usually happens in this situation is that one of the two embryos takes over the other one during some point of the pregnancy, leading to the second embryo dying early. In other cases, the veterinarian will have to perform an abortion to remove the second foal in order for one of them to grow normally and healthy. According to the Center for Equine Health, late abortions can lead to significant complications, such as infection, trauma, reduced fertility during the next breeding, illness, and inflammation of the laminae.

Veterinary surgeon Nicolas Jarvis, who works at a UK horse sanctuary, said:

“Although mares quite often conceive twins, it is rare that both embryos survive. If you have two foals, they are vying for space and the chances of them coming out alive and well are slim.”

This basically means that usually, the foals fight inside the womb for the growing space, and one usually wins the fight.

To put things more into perspective, the survival rate of twin horses is a very low 10,000 to 1.

For humans, the percentage of live twin births per year is approximately 27 percent. This means that there are approximately 1 billion twins on this planet. It seems to be a lot, but considering that there are approximately 7.4 billion people in total, the number remains pretty low. Twins, in general, are an uncommon phenomenon. For horses, this number is even lower than for humans. Having foals that are twins is, therefore, an extremely rare occurrence, a wonder of nature as one can call it.

So, when Emma gave birth to twins, and both of them survived, both vets and the internet became amazed. It is the first set of documented twin foals since 2009, the last ones being Colby and Leo, a set of twin foals born in the UK. It had been almost 10 years since Mother Nature produced such a miracle.


The twin foals are called Grace and Will, and they are in very good health.

Even better, they are both expected to live happy and long lives, making them miracles of nature. According to the Center of Equine Health, when two live foals are delivered, there is a very high risk of foaling problems for the mother, as well as a high chance at a loss of life for both foals during their first two weeks of life. The owner of Emma was (and is still) stunned by the event and didn’t even know that Emma was carrying twins this entire time.

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Warm Springs Ranch: Join Us in Celebrating the Debut of Mac, the Newest Budweiser Clydesdale

Boonville, Mo. - Budweiser welcomed a new foal to the Clydesdale family on Tuesday.

The new foal was named Mac, in honor of the Budweiser Clydesdales being the most macro of all icons. The name also serves as a nod to the company's tagline "proudly a macro beer."

Mac was the first foal born in 2016 at the Warm Springs Ranch in Boonville, Mo. The foal joins the group of more than 160 Clydesdales at the ranch.

Warm Springs Ranch: Join us in celebrating the debut of Mac, the newest Budweiser Clydesdale. He was born at 1:20 a.m. on Tuesday, January 26. Mom and baby are both happy and healthy!

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Horse Health

Spring might be the best time of the year, but if we have horses that are prone to developing grass founder, this season may be the beginning of serious problems for some of our horses. Horses that are over the age of 10, easy keepers, overweight or cresty-necked seem especially vulnerable to grass founder and should be the focus of founder prevention.

To read more on this story, click here: Horse Health

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