August Sanctuary Update: Straight Legs, Healthy Smiles & Preparing for Winter

It has been another busy month here at Houghton Healing & Therapy, with some exciting milestones, important routine care, and one very urgent need as we begin looking ahead to winter.

🐴 Baby Horse Is Finally Enjoying Pasture Life!

One of the biggest moments this month was watching our baby horse take another huge step forward in his journey. He underwent his second surgery to remove the hardware from his legs, and we are so happy to say he is doing wonderfully!

After everything this little guy has been through, he is finally able to enjoy simply being a horse—running, growing, and spending time out on pasture with straight legs. Seeing him out there enjoying life makes every appointment, surgery, long drive, and stressful moment worth it.

🦷 Dental Day for Our Newest Intakes

Our equine dentist also came out this month to work on all of our newest intakes. Several of them had some pretty severe dental issues that desperately needed to be addressed.

Dental care is so important, especially for our older and underweight horses. Painful or unhealthy teeth can make it incredibly difficult for a horse to properly chew and utilize their feed.

Now that their teeth have been taken care of, these horses should be more comfortable, able to eat more easily, and hopefully continue gaining the weight they need.

🐎 Welcoming Our New Farrier

We also had a big change in our regular care team. Our previous farrier moved to Tennessee, which meant we had to begin the search for someone new to care for a herd with a wide variety of needs.

We are very thankful to have found Lane Larson, who has already shown himself to be incredibly talented and patient with our horses.

Our new farrier rate is $90 per horse, so unfortunately this change also means another increase in our regular sanctuary expenses. With so many horses needing trims on a consistent schedule, even a relatively small increase per horse adds up very quickly.

🌾 URGENT: We Need Winter Hay

Our biggest concern right now is HAY.

We are currently down to just 3 bales, and winter is quickly approaching in Colorado.

Providing a dependable winter hay supply for our sanctuary horses is one of our largest and most important expenses of the year. Many of the horses here are seniors or have medical conditions that make proper nutrition especially important, and we never want to be in a position where we are worrying about where their next hay will come from.

We are URGENTLY fundraising to begin securing our winter hay supply.

Whether you can sponsor part of a bale, a full bale, or simply give $5, it all adds up. If donating isn't possible right now, sharing our fundraiser and telling others about our sanctuary can make an incredible difference too.

Every donation helps us continue providing these horses with the lifelong safety, medical care, nutrition, and love they deserve.

As always, thank you for continuing to stand behind our sanctuary and the horses who call it home. We truly could not continue doing this without our supporters. ❤️🐴