Our Miniature Horse Dwarves - Nutmeg and Clove - The "Spice Kids"
As of May 14, 2007, Meg and Clove are at their new "forever home" in Colorado - please go to this link to see them on their trip to their new life with Vickie Neel.
Sad news -- January 27, 2008 --- Meggie died. May she rest in peace.
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Here are a few pictures of Meg and Clove taken 2/3/07 by Bill Chapman (WWMinis)
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This page features our miniature horse dwarves, Nutmeg and Clove. We purchased both of these dwarves as pets - they are NOT breeding stock. We do not own their parents. The purpose of this page is for public education - to show what a correct, normal, miniature horse should NOT look like. We love our dwarves very much - but wish for their sakes that the dwarf gene was not in the miniature horse gene pool.
This is our dwarf Miniature mare Nutmeg (aka Meggie) who was born in May 1999.
Meggie is a weanling in this picture taken in September 1999
This picture shows Meggie as an almost adult (late 2yo) - in her winter woolies December 2001 - she kinda looks like a miniature buffalo!
This is a picture of Meggie as a yearling (May 2000) in her summer coat We took her to a horse show because there would be no one home to take care of her. She posed for her picture like a beauty queen.
Meggie has many dwarf related conformation faults - to mention a few: She has a monkey jaw (her lower jaw extends beyond her upper jaw) and her teeth are tumbled all over each other (has had to have significant dental work including tooth extraction). Her legs are too short for her body.
She has a very short neck and a head that is overlarge for her body. She has a pot belly - not because she is overweight (because she is not in any of the above photographs) but rather because her insides are too large for her outsides.
Meggie has severe angular limb deformities in her front and hind legs. She has contracted tendons in the rear. Her front legs required surgery when she was only a few weeks old -- because they were growing faster on the insides of the legs than the outsides of the legs and they were starting to look like "J".
Because of Meggie's leg deformities, as a suckling and weanling she had to endure frequent trips (every 2 weeks) to a special farrier - who made equilox supports for her front feet/legs. She now is trimmed every 4-6 weeks but still gets the equilox on her left front hoof.
Here are some closeup pictures of all 4 of her legs:
Just the front legs see the equilox on the inside edge of the left front? She was just seen by the farrier and that was a new set of equilox.
Her back legs:
This is our Miniature Horse Dwarf gelding, Clove
Clove was born in May 2000. We purchased Clove and his mother at a miniature horse auction. We thought Clove MIGHT be a dwarf but he had a normal bite and seemed like it was possible that he was not a dwarf. He did have some issues with his hind feet (and had we known about Magic Shoes then, they probably could have been corrected. We later sold his mother as a pet and have lost track of her.
Here are some pictures of Clove:
Clove in the spring of 2003 - he is 3 years old here and is a bit overweight but not as fat as he looks - remember his insides are larger than they should be for his size.
Here is Clove with his mother right after we bought them at the Sale - if he turned out to be a dwarf he would be a companion for Meggie who was already 1 year old at this time.
We were boarding our horses at this time - and this is Clove with a Rocky Mountain mare who had fallen in love with him over the fence. No, he did not go out with her more than this one time - he did even try to nurse on her - he was just weaned - but he could not reach her udder and beside she did not have milk anyway
Here is a closeup of Clove's head - here you can see that his lower jaw extends beyond his upper jaw - this is called a Monkey Jaw or Under Bite - Other than this, his teeth are quite normal (unlike Meggie).
Clove's Hind legs are where he has the deformities - and had we known about Magic Shoes when we first bought him, we could have fixed those feet. Originally the left hind was "normal" - and the right one was too weak sideways in the fetlock.
Clove's conformation Flaws are similar to Meggie's. He has a head too large for his body, a very short neck, pot belly and ridge back (not as severe a ridge back as Meggie however) - collapsed hind hooves and legs too short for his body. His internal organs are too large for his body so he has that pot belly. And in these photos he is about 20 pounds (just guessing here) overweight. He has slimmed down some in recent months and we are trying to keep him at this current weight.
Clove and Meggie have no problems running and playing. Clove does better on soft ground than on rocks or hard ground. They cannot be turned out with the other minis because the other ones will pick on them and beat them up. We found that out the hard way.
If you have any questions about Dwarves - feel free to email us at foxhollerfarm05@aol.com or check out the references listed in the column to the right on this screen.