Small horse, efficient engine
Do not let the size fool you: an Icelandic is a full horse in a compact frame, strong enough to carry adults over serious distances and thrifty enough to stay round on forage that looks like a snack. Iceland bred them that way — hard winters, sparse grazing, and no second chances. On modern pasture that thrift turns risky, because excess weight and laminitis are the breed's standing enemies. A feeding and farrier log gives you measured control of both the input and the feet that carry it. That is a great deal of management to hold in your head, which is the argument for writing it down.
The feeding column: guarding against plenty
Record turnout hours and grass quality as carefully as bucket feeds; with this breed, the field is usually the problem, not the bucket. Note hay weights, any muzzle or strip-grazing days, and a monthly weigh-tape reading with a condition score, since an Icelandic in a full winter coat conceals condition beautifully. Pair work with feed — a horse trekking or training regularly spends what a paddock companion stores. If the crest starts to harden or he lands foot-sore after a sunny week on new grass, the log shows you the week it began, and a horse showing heat in the feet or reluctance to move needs your vet the same day.
The farrier column: feet that shape the tölt
The tölt — that smooth, four-beat running walk — lives and dies by hoof balance and the timing of breakover, so the farrier column doubles as a gait diary. Record trim dates, any change in shoe type or weight, and how the tölt felt on the first rides afterward: freer, heavier in front, losing rhythm on corners. Shoeing choices for gaited horses are individual, and your notes are the only way to separate a farrier change that genuinely helped from one that merely coincided with a good week. Over time, those entries become a specification your farrier can work to.
The log on the road
Icelandics are travellers: trekking holidays, gaited shows and training clinics all mean new ground, new forage and farriers who have never seen your horse. A written history of what he eats, how his feet are kept and what his gait needs lets a stand-in farrier or a host yard replicate his routine instead of improvising one. It also protects the return home, because you can see exactly what changed while you were away if he comes back heavier, lighter or moving differently.
Skin and season notes worth adding
Horses raised in Iceland meet biting midges for the first time after export, and some develop an itchy allergic skin reaction to them in the summer months. If yours is an imported horse, a few seasonal lines in the log — when the itching starts, where he rubs, what management helped — turn an annual misery into a planned routine of rugs, shelter timing and stable hours by day. Keeping all of it in KinsLe's Pet Passport holds the whole file together in one packet, so the skin history, the shoeing recipe and the weight trend are in the same place when you need them.