Gentle giants

LITCHFIELD — Jim Vannurden needs only to walk into his pen of Shire horses and call their names for each of them to come and huddle within inches of him.

Vannurden has always loved horses, and after working in Saudi Arabia and taking a trip to England, he brought home not one but two Shire horses and has continued to raise them since.

“All of the horses are offspring of the original two,” Vannurden said. “We never bought a female; we’ve bought stallions to get outside bloodlines, but all of the mares we have are descendants of those first two.”

Currently, Vannurden and his wife, Barb, own 10 Shires as breeding stock to increase interest and awareness of the breed. There are seven mares, one gelding and two stallions that reside at Vannurden’s farm near Litchfield. Vannurden has 17 paddocks that he uses to rotationally graze the horses, 10 beefalo and two mules.

At its peak, the Vannurden farm had 32 Shires, but now that the couple is looking to slow down, they have gradually sold off their horses to buyers from around the world.

“We used to ride and show years ago, but now, our main purpose is breeding stock,” Vannurden said. “Now, it’s almost exclusively women (buyers), and it’s all for riding.”

In the summer, the Shires and beefalo are fed strictly a grass diet, and the Sires get grain twice a day. In the winter, the horses are fed high-quality grass hay and grain twice a day. The beefalo are strictly grassfed. In 2005, Vannurden and Barb planted 70,000 trees to create an oak savanna.

“The whole farm, we’ve got it all in wooded pasture (for the animals to graze),” Vannurden said. “With their large size, they need lots of space.”

The Shire breed originated in England; they are known as a draft horse breed and for their calm demeanor, despite their size. The dominant color of Shires in England is bay — a reddish-brown or black that varies in darkness, accompanied by solid black points and feathered legs. Feather is what the hair on a Shire’s legs is called, and bay Shires can either have black or white feathers. The most common color in the U.S. is black with white feathers. Shires can be bay, gray, black or brown, with roan — a coat with white hairs evenly dispersed throughout a solid color — coloring being more desirable in mares than stallions. A horse with a dark color base coat and roan coloring can often result in a bluish cast, resulting in a coloring known as blue roan.

Vannurden grew up in Litchfield but spent much of his time at the farms of his aunts and uncles. His career led him abroad in the 1980s. While on holiday in England in 1984, Vannurden and Barb would go to Shire horse shows and visit Shire breeders. With the help of a Shire importer, Arin Waring, from Blackfoot, Idaho, he purchased a filly in Wales and one in England, then shipped them to Litchfield.

“They flew into New York on a Boeing 747, then were trucked to Litchfield,” Vannurden said. “I just always knew I wanted a farm, and I knew I wanted horses. At that time, I only knew of two other Shire breeders in the United States. I connected with one of them to help me bring my Shires home.”

According to Vannurden, Shires reached their peak in the U.S. in the early 1900s, when there were hundreds of thousands in North America. By 1960, there were only around 50 farms with Shires left as modernization caused the demand for draft horses to plummet.

Waring worked hard to save the breed and began importing stallions to diversify his gene pool. In 1984, when Vannurden brought in his two fillies, they were number 243 and 244 on the American Shire Horse Association registry. Today, there are more than 2,000 Shires in North America, this time for showing and recreation.

“People who grew up using draft horses were now retiring and had money to buy things; quite often (they would buy) things that reminded them of their youth,” Vannurden said. “They started buying draft horses, and that brought the draft horse industry back to life.”

Vannurden shares a close bond with every horse.

“They’re all my kids,” Vannurden said. “One mare, Lillian, won’t let me leave the barn without giving her a head hug.”

During foal season, Vannurden sets up a camera in the barn to keep a close eye on the mares so that he can be in the barn when each foal is born.

“I usually sleep with the foals the first three nights,” Vannurden said. “I sleep on the couch with the video feed, waking up every 20 minutes to check on them, and even then, I missed all four (births) last year.”

Each foal is about 150-175 pounds when it is born, and males grow to be around 2,400 pounds while females get to be 2,000 pounds. As adults, they stand 17-19 hands (each hand equals 4 inches) tall.

These gentle giants will always be special to Vannurden. Even though his herd is small, he plans to continue raising this unique breed.

“It’s their personality,” Vannurden said. “They’ve been known for 150 years for their personality; I absolutely love the Shire.”