After a year of misdiagnosis and misdirection, I advocated for my miniature horse, Maggie, and finally received a proper exam complete with blood work and x-rays. Maggie had suffered a few laminitis episodes, most likely from breaking through the fence and gorging on green pasture grass. As an insulin-resistant horse (so many are but are undiagnosed) she can never have grass pasture. Her diet must also be carefully monitored and we are working with a barefoot farrier to correct her hoof angles. Although she appears lame in the video please know she has improved so much.

A random Facebook post led me to the book Paddock Paradise by Jaime Jackson. That led me to read dozens of blog posts, listen to every podcast episode I could find, and join the handful of Horse Track groups I could find online. Although the concept is a decade old the implementation in the horse world seems to be slow.

Jaime Jackson studied wild horses in the US for four years and learned their patterns. He has taken this information and distilled it into a system that we can mimic on our own properties (and boarding stables) to encourage the natural movement and lifestyle of wild horses.

As Maggie recovers and we head into spring I was at a loss as to what to do with her living situation. We naturally have a nice large pasture that takes up half our property. It seemed a shame to leave it empty while sequestering Maggie to live in a boring paddock. Then came the book and everything changed. I immediately started drawing different types of Paddock Paradise layouts until I came up with one we could start with (for affordability and size so we might manage any grass on the track).

I originally filmed this to post on Instagram so please excuse the vertical layout. But I think this idea is so smart and wanted to share it with a larger audience. In all reality, our two rescue donkeys shouldn't be on green pasture either and the last thing we want is to create metabolic issues in them. Honestly, I'm convinced pretty much every horse, donkey, and mule would do much better on a track system as opposed to green pastures, dry lot paddocks, and stall confinement.

Maggie is already benefitting from increased movement and better interaction with her herd mates. She needs to lose a few pounds and the track is encouraging her to walk so much more than before.

Please follow along as I'll be posting changes to the track as well as changes in the equines as they start to use their track more and more (once winter is truly behind us).

Notes:

*Right now my narrow corridors are 8-10 feet wide. The minimum recommended is as wide as your biggest horse is from nose to tail.

*I used step-in posts and 1.5" wide electric tape because it was relatively inexpensive and could be put up quickly. It also allowed me to make significant changes when I realized the original layout wasn't going to work. We may expand this track or make other changes in the future but once we know it works all around then we may look into putting up a no-climb wire fence with t-posts or wooden posts.

*We do have a fence charger.

*Electric tape breaks fairly easily making it a somewhat safer option that we are comfortable with...especially since Maggie only weighs 200 pounds (okay, 230 pounds but we're working on it). She needs to be able to break loose from the tape should she get tangled in it somehow.