Some horses present special challenges in feeding, especially if they won’t eat enough to maintain proper body weight. Sometimes a lactating broodmare, a horse in hard training or steady work, or a horse recovering from illness or injury
Fall deworming is important; winter is usually when internal parasites do the most damage and rob the horse of vital nutrients.
Even if you have a farrier do your shoeing you should still learn how to pull a shoe properly. There are situations where you should not wait for a farrier.
Domestication has created problems for the horse, including stomach ulcers.
A cryptorchid, also called a ridgling, is a male horse in which one or both testicles do not descend into the scrotum. In the developing fetus, the testicles are formed within the abdomen. As the fetus nears term, the inguinal rings and inguinal
There are many reasons a horse might stumble. Work with your veterinarian and farrier to determine the cause, since the onset of stumbling might indicate a shoeing/trimming problem, or could be a warning of serious health problems.
Horses often get banged and bruised by running into things, being kicked by another horse, falling down when running and bucking, etc. It’s not unusual to suddenly discover your horse has a large, soft lump on some part of his body. The most common areas are the hindquarters, chest, or along the ribs. The skin might not be damaged, but the injured tissues underneath can bleed or ooze serum,
Spaying a mare (ovariectomy) means removing her ovaries so she no longer comes into heat and has a more mellow attitude, like a gelding. An ovariectomy can be done standing (under sedation and local anesthesia) through a flank approach or a vaginal approach.
An infrequent complication associated with the old method of spaying (using a very old surgical instrument, a chain escraseur) is
Keeping equids in a “backyard horse” situation, subdivision, or small acreage presents a different set of challenges than keeping horses on a large farm or ranch. In urban/suburban settings, some of the important considerations include zoning, building codes (if you plan to have a barn, run-in shed, indoor arena, etc.), space for exercise, waste management, fencing, and neighbors. Security an
If we have any doubt about a horse with lesions that look like HERDA (also called HC), we can test to see if that animal does have this disease. Usually it’s easy to diagnose, once you’ve seen a few.
HBOT is one of the most powerful tools available as an adjunctive form of therapy, and in some cases it works well as the primary therapy in horses, says Casner. Colic and laminitis are the number one and two killers, respectively, of horses, and oxygen therapy (in conjunction with other therapies) can be very useful in treating both.
Antioxidants (which include vitamins E, C, and A, selenium, glutathione, lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10, and isoflavins) act to stabilize free radicals and halt oxidative damage. Here’s a look at how they function.
“Our hypotheses were that horses with suspensory ligament desmitis, treated with bone marrow components from their own body, would hopefully return to soundness more rapidly than horses with conventional treatments, and have a lower rate of recurrence, which is a common problem in suspensory desmitis cases,” says Herthel.
In today’s world, there are many types of insurance that can protect us and our horses in the event of the ravages of disease, the pocket-emptying crisis of colic, and the finality of catastrophic injury and euthanasia. Equine insurance today ranges from major medical to mortality to loss of use to fertility. An owner often opts to purchase insurance so the decision of whether the horse lives
When feeding horses at pasture or in large paddocks, it can often be a challenge to make sure each horse gets his share of the feed, while reducing waste and feed contamination. Management is the key to successfully feeding horses in a group setting, minimizing social stress and nutritional problems.
Whether you have a large barn or a small one, an inexpensive pre-fab building or an elaborate construction, you can equip it to make it more “user-friendly” for you and your horses. At the very least, your barn should provide safe shelter during inclement weather. At best, it can be a showplace designed for human convenience as well as horse health.
When building a new barn or fixing up
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