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Welcome
to
Kitcat
Canadians​
Hello current and future Canadian Horse Enthusiasts!
Here are s​ome fun facts about Canadian Horses:
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Canadian horses originated from horses sent to Canada by ship in 1665 by King Louis XIV . The original shipment of horses consisted of draft horse breeds including Belgian, Percheron, Breton and Dales. These horses mixed to become what became its own distinct breed - the Canadian Horse.
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Canadian Horses grow long, thick coats in winter so they don't need blankets - they can live outdoors with minimal shelter year-round. They also have extremely hard hooves which allow them to travel over rough terrain without needing shoes.
- Canadian horses are a heritage breed with an excellent immune system. They are generally very healthy and are not prone to many common ailments seen in other breeds. Canadian horses have naturally strong bones, teeth, and hooves.
- Canadian horses live a very long time and can generally be used for riding or driving well into their late 20's. When properly cared for, many Canadian horses have a healthy life span of 25 to 30+ years. Its not uncommon for Canadian mares to be able to continue to produce foals past the age 25, and stallions to sire foals well into their late 20's.
- Canadian horses are very easy keepers and require much less feed than other horses to stay at a healthy body weight. Canadian horses benefit from having a restricted diet, especially in the spring and summer months. Canadian horses thrive on winter pasture where they have to dig for their food.
- Canadian horses are extremely intelligent and versatile. They can be trained to do pretty much anything! They love to spend time with their human companions and enjoy learning new skills and going on adventures.
- Canadian horses are known for being very level headed and are commonly described as "Bomb Proof". This is why they are often chosen for mounted police units.
- Canadian horses have almost gone extinct a few times and are currently listed as an endangered species. Its estimated that there were only about 400 Canadian Horses recorded the 1970's. Through education, promotion, hard work, and preservation those numbers have been slowly rising.
- As of 2020, it is believed that there were only approximately 6000 Registered Canadian Horses in the world. Only a very small number of foals are produced each year. Numbers indicate that there were only about 160 Canadian Foals born and registered in 2020.
- The Canadian Horse was named the official National Horse of Canada in April of 2002.
- The Canadian Horse Breeders Association (CHBA) uses a specific naming system for all registered Canadian Horses which must include three key elements. The first element is the Breeders herd name (in our case Kitcat), the second element is the given name of the foals sire, (all of our home grown foals are all named Kitcat Kyng _________ or Kitcat Wyoming __________), and the third element is the foals given name. Using this system, its easy to see that all Canadian horses with Kyng listed before their given name would have been sired by Prairie Creek Fonzorelli Kyng and all Canadian horses with Wyoming listed before their given name would have been sired by Storybook Kurt Wyoming.
- With the CHBA naming system, all Canadian horse foals born in the same calendar year must use the same first letter in their given name. In 2021 all foals had to have "I" names, so we chose Island-Breeze, Ivy, and Ivan. All foals born in 2022 had to have "J" names so we chose J-Roc, Jersey, Jett, and Journey. Our 2023 foals had to have "K" names so we chose Krash and Klutch. In 2024 the L foals we produced were named "Lazlo", and "Lyrik".
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