The wild horse comes up a lot when you work with horses. Everyone always try to compare their horse to wild horses. People have an image that wild horses are invincible and really hardy. Wild horses can go anywhere on any terrain. Wild horses never have bad hooves. Wild horses never get diseases, worms or anything else but perfect health. I’m sorry to say this is not true.

    Wild horses go through all the problems domesticated horses do for the most part. You can rule out all problems that people directly cause. The big difference is that wild horses subjected to nature and humans aren’t right there every second so, it gives off the perception of wild horses are super horses. You never see a wild horse on TV with bad feet. Nor do you hear much about all the other problems of wild horses.

    Wild horse herds are stronger then domesticated horse. This is because of how nature works, the natural selection of things. In Nature predators go after the weak of the herd. If you have a horse that doesn’t take care of itself, the predators will have dinner. This nature selection keeps herds strong. So if people naturally took out the weak horses, domesticated horses would seem just as strong.

    Wild horses do get worms all the time, probably more than most domesticated horses. Down south out of the herd of 100+ horses only about 10 or so had worms and the rest were clean. Wild horses have the freedom of acres upon acres of land to roam to find the right herbs to kill the worms. This knowledge is pasted down generation after generation of horses just as any society lives and learns.

    I’ve seen wild horse down in the Carolinas with “elf shoe” looking feet. Now of course if there were a lot of predators around these wild horses would be dinner. There aren’t really predators for horses in the Carolinas. These feet are also bad because of the human interaction with the horse not just because the horse allowed itself to let itself go. See humans began feeding the wild horse. You don’t have to touch something to cause pain and discomfort.

    By feeding the wild horse the wild horse stopped foraging for food. This lack of foraging is what causes the hooves to grow. When the horse forages, the horse paws and wears down the horses hooves. Since the hooves are no longer worn down it grows. A horse will also hang out wear food is. In the wild the horse constantly moves searching for food. If food is being fed, the horse doesn’t have to move to find the food and will just stand there not using its legs. This lack of moving will cause hooves to grow base of the weight distribution not movement.

    The myth that wild horses are terrain hardy is not true either. People see wild horse running everywhere on TV. The truth is wild horses have paths like dear do here in the northeast. These paths or trails are well worn and have every rock kicked out of the way of the path. A wild horse is just like a domesticated horse if the wild horse hits a big sharp rock, the wild horse will be just as lame as a domesticated horse. When a predator goes after a horse they run down one of these “dear paths”. This is the truth about wild horses vs domesticated horses.

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