Najka

Story

Najka is our third horse. After Lucinka and the pony we took in from our neighbour, we wanted another draught mare for breeding. We found her online, went to see her, liked her — and agreed to take her. It was winter, the beginning of 2020, and we were still inexperienced then.

While we were looking her over, two things were said that meant nothing to us at the time. First — that the seller had kept her with the cattle. Second — when we asked why she had shoes on her front feet: apparently she hauled hay for the hunters and it was so that she would not slip.

When we brought her home, we went to take the shoes off straight away. She would not be doing enough work here to need them. And that is when the first problem appeared. Under the shoes, both front hooves were cracked — roughly halfway along the bars and outwards towards the wall, on the left and on the right. The cracks had already grown together; once we knew what to look for, we could see them on the wall as well.

We had seen that once before. We had been with a friend at his horse's shoeing, and it was said there that the horse had been overfed on lucerne silage and it had torn his front hooves apart. Najka had exactly the same thing.

And that was when it all fell into place. At least that is how it added up for us: she was with the cattle, there was silage there, she overate, she foundered and it tore her hooves. Hence the shoes. We cannot prove it and we have never tried to — it is our own conclusion, put together afterwards from what we saw on her feet.

While she was being loaded, someone said it would be a shame for her to go for meat. That was when it dawned on us where she had been heading if nobody had bought her.

So we rescued Najka. And at the time we did not even know it.

Today she is part of the herd and the mother of Orík and Pačo. After all these years her hooves are sound — the cracks grew out long ago.

How Najka is doing

Photo gallery — Najka

Photos of Najka — added as we go.