Horse Talk

[res]

Well, my sister won and it looks like we will be getting a horse. I am in love with the Morgan horse and want to know the pros and cons of them.

Well... You are in Alaska. So unless you want to add a $2500 shipping charge to the purchase price, you are going to be limited to what is available in Alaska. I moved back down to the "Lower 48" in 2010, and I doubt much has changed as far as supply and demand up there. I wouldn't necessarily concentrate on one breed, I would take a wider look at what is available and pick the best from that, even if it is a grade horse.

You probably already know, but you REALLY need to look into the costs of keeping a horse in Alaska. Hay is astronomically expensive if you can find it locally. If it is a bad year locally for hay, you will have to freight it up, which doubles the price. Feed and bedding have to be shipped in, also. Veterinary care is SUPER limited and SUPER expensive. I worked for the only equine surgical veterinary hospital in Alaska, and after managing/working at clinics in Kansas and Oklahoma, I was FLOORED at the price mark-ups and service fees.

 

[PeepersMama]

The majority of the pictures show dark hooves/dark legs. It is only the most recent photos on the website that show what appear to be white hooves and white "markings" on the legs - markings that would show as pink skin under the hair, not black skin. If Peepers sees the horse in person, and it has black hooves, then all should be fine, just an optical illusion in the photos. But it does make me wonder....

She has black skin.And she's got her winter coat right now, so I assume she'll get darker this summer.

Her hooves look slightly lighter now than they did at birth, but they pretty much look the same color in all the pictures. Not white. They're dark. And the white on her legs isn't markings, it's just from the grey. Correct?

Yup! If you look at her baby pics, the only white marking she has is a little star on her forehead.

 

[tastyacres]

​Well... You are in Alaska. So unless you want to add a $2500 shipping charge to the purchase price, you are going to be limited to what is available in Alaska. I moved back down to the "Lower 48" in 2010, and I doubt much has changed as far as supply and demand up there. I wouldn't necessarily concentrate on one breed, I would take a wider look at what is available and pick the best from that, even if it is a grade horse.

You probably already know, but you REALLY need to look into the costs of keeping a horse in Alaska. Hay is astronomically expensive if  you can find it locally. If it is a bad year locally for hay, you will have to freight it up, which doubles the price. Feed and bedding have to be shipped in, also. Veterinary care is SUPER limited and SUPER expensive. I worked for the only equine surgical veterinary hospital in Alaska, and after managing/working at clinics in Kansas and Oklahoma, I was FLOORED at the price mark-ups and service fees.

I have done my research and the Morgan is the most common. I am well aware of prices and I will not need to have things shipped, I live where I can get hay from Anchorage, Wasilla, Palmer, etc so if one area has a bad hay year than I can go to a other burro. My parents know of a very good vet in town that is trust worthy! I am looking for pros and cons on the Morgan horse. My whole family likes the Morgan horse and there are lots available so I think I am fine.

 

[res]

Don't go into it lightly... If you are planning to have 14 goats, a milk cow AND a horse on ONE ACRE, you are going to go thru literal TONS of hay. TONS and TONS. $$$$$ You need to factor delivery costs, too, or your fuel/time to go get it. https://anchorage.craigslist.org/search/gra?query=hay

Does the vet in town treat horses? Livestock? When I was there, the only equine/livestock vets were in Homer, Chugiak and Fairbanks.

You can get hay from the Valley when they have a good year. And even then, it isn't the best hay. LOTS of dessicant useage to dry it down, and some horses are sensitive to dessicants and can't eat the hay. It's a long drive to pick it up, a crappy drive in the summer (tourists and salmon runs) and in the winter, it is not uncommon to have the ONLY road to get there closed due to avalanches. You will need to stock pile your entire winter supply before October, and have enough to last until May.

If the Morgan "breeders" are the same as when I was in Alaska, you will be better off looking at other breeds. Just because it is a Morgan, even a registered Morgan, DOES NOT mean it is the best horse you can get for the $. I seriously would keep an open mind when horse shopping up there.

There are LOTS of horses in Alaska, but keeping livestock up there is a completely different world than anywhere in the lower 48 due to the isolation and distance to supplies.

 

[Bunnylady]

Quote: Considering how light Armira's mane is now, compared to how gray it was when that video was taken, I'm thinking she may be even lighter come summer. Both of her parents are genetic grays, and for a horse to be graying out as fast as she is, it is quite possible that she got two copies of the graying gene. At the rate she's going, she'll probably be white or a fleabitten gray by the time she's 7 or 8.

 

[PeepersMama]

Considering how light Armira's mane is now, compared to how gray it was when that video was taken, I'm thinking she may be even lighter come summer. Both of her parents are genetic grays, and for a horse to be graying out as fast as she is, it is quite possible that she got two copies of the graying gene. At the rate she's going, she'll probably be white or a fleabitten gray by the time she's 7 or 8.

Hmmm, let me check her pedigree....

Yep. Sure enough. Her dam was/is a flea bitten, but I'm not sure about her sire....

oh my gosh he's stunning. Wild and crazy, but stunning.

 

[Kusanar]

Quote: Considering how light Armira's mane is now, compared to how gray it was when that video was taken, I'm thinking she may be even lighter come summer. Both of her parents are genetic grays, and for a horse to be graying out as fast as she is, it is quite possible that she got two copies of the graying gene. At the rate she's going, she'll probably be white or a fleabitten gray by the time she's 7 or 8.

Wings (one of my Arabians) is pure white now (grey, but doesn't look it) and he was already solid white when I got him at 10 years old. He was bey as a baby, his old owners sent me a baby pic from when he was 1 or 2. Interestingly, if he gets kicked or something and it scars, it grows back bey for a year or 2 then turns white again...

 

[Bunnylady]

Wings (one of my Arabians) is pure white now (grey, but doesn't look it) and he was already solid white when I got him at 10 years old. He was bey as a baby, his old owners sent me a baby pic from when he was 1 or 2. Interestingly, if he gets kicked or something and it scars, it grows back bey for a year or 2 then turns white again...

The gene for gray is dominant, which means that if a horse inherits it, that horse will go gray. The gray gene basically causes the cells that put pigment in the hairs to go into overdrive. A "normal" black foal, for example, is born a sort of iron-gray color, and turns black when it molts out its baby coat. A black foal with the gray gene is born coal black. The color producing cells begin burning themselves out very early; you might see the white (colorless) hairs appearing around the eyes while the horse is still a foal. The effect of the gray gene seems to be cumulative; a horse with two copies often grays out faster than a horse with only one. A horse that is homozygous for gray (has two copies of the gene) may be completely white by the time it is 4 or 5.

Sometimes, when a normal colored horse gets an injury to its skin, the pigment producing cells don't get replaced, and the hair grows back white (that's how freeze branding works). But that's not always the case; horses get dinged up all the time, some of 'em would look like jigsaw puzzles if every mark grew in white. Pigment cells can grow back, and with a gray horse, it's like a reset - color getting produced where it burned out years ago. I once knew a fleabitten gray horse named Obie that had apparently been black before he went white. Much of his history was unknown to us, but apparently, parts of it hadn't been too pleasant; he had a bunch of scars that looked like broad black lines on him.

One thing that anyone with a gray horse should be aware of is that gray horses have a much greater chance of developing melanoma (a type of skin cancer) than normally pigmented horses - something in the neighborhood of 80% of the grays that are 15 years old or older have one or more tumors, usually somewhere on the face or in the area under and near the tail. These lesions may just be maintenance issues, or they may be life threatening, but like most health matters, dealing with them when they are small is easiest and best.

 

[PeepersMama]

The gene for gray is dominant, which means that if a horse inherits it, that horse will go gray. The gray gene basically causes the cells that put pigment in the hairs to go into overdrive. A "normal" black foal, for example, is born a sort of iron-gray color, and turns black when it molts out its baby coat. A black foal with the gray gene is born coal black. The color producing cells begin burning themselves out very early; you might see the white (colorless) hairs appearing around the eyes while the horse is still a foal. The effect of the gray gene seems to be cumulative; a horse with two copies often grays out faster than a horse with only one. A horse that is homozygous for gray (has two copies of the gene) may be completely white by the time it is 4 or 5.

Sometimes, when a normal colored horse gets an injury to its skin, the pigment producing cells don't get replaced, and the hair grows back white (that's how freeze branding works). But that's not always the case; horses get dinged up all the time, some of 'em would look like jigsaw puzzles if every mark grew in white. Pigment cells can grow back, and with a gray horse, it's like a reset - color getting produced where it burned out years ago. I once knew a fleabitten gray horse named Obie that had apparently been black before he went white. Much of his history was unknown to us, but apparently, parts of it hadn't been too pleasant; he had a bunch of scars that looked like broad black lines on him.

One thing that anyone with a gray horse should be aware of is that gray horses have a much greater chance of developing melanoma (a type of skin cancer) than normally pigmented horses - something in the neighborhood of 80% of the grays that are 15 years old or older have one or more tumors, usually somewhere on the face or in the area under and near the tail. These lesions may just be maintenance issues, or they may be life threatening, but like most health matters, dealing with them when they are small is easiest and best.

Hmm, that's cool. I've never heard of stuff happening like that with scars.

One the almost yearlings they had when I went out there last summer looked like a roan. She was born colored like Armira, but now she's growing in all those white hairs. I can't wait to see what she turns out like.

I will keep an eye on her. One of my neighbors has a grey gelding with melanoma on his muzzle.

 

[PeepersMama]

Oh yeah, and just so you all know, we aren't actually getting her until April. We were already planning on driving back down to AZ for my aunt's 50th b-day, so it worked out almost perfectly. And there is still a SMALL chance that he will sell her before then, but she's been for sale for awhile now, and we are the only ones who have gone out to see her, sooooo.... yeah.