Heather Smith Thomas

Heather Smith Thomas ranches with her husband near Salmon, Idaho, raising cattle and a few horses. She has a B.A. in English and history from University of Puget Sound (1966). She has raised and trained horses for 50 years, and has been writing freelance articles and books nearly that long, publishing 20 books and more than 9,000 articles for horse and livestock publications. Some of her books include Understanding Equine Hoof Care, The Horse Conformation Handbook, Care and Management of Horses, Storey's Guide to Raising Horses and Storey's Guide to Training Horses. Besides having her own blog, www.heathersmiththomas.blogspot.com, she writes a biweekly blog at https://insidestorey.blogspot.com that comes out on Tuesdays.

Articles by: Heather Smith Thomas

Equipping the Barn

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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New Treatment for Endotoxemia

Michelle Henry Barton, DVM, PhD, of the University of Georgia, recently completed a project on treating endotoxemia with polymyxin B (PMB), an alternative to endotoxin antibody products. The drug PMB kills many Gram-negative bacteria and also binds endotoxin, preventing interaction of endotoxin with white blood cells (WBC) as do endotoxin antibody products–thus heading off the damaging

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Marbles Keep Mares Out of Heat

Mares in performance careers are sometimes a frustration to their trainers and riders because during estrus, they can have difficulty concentrating on their work or have “behavioral problems.” Many horse owners resort to hormone therapy to keep mares from coming into heat while training or showing. The most commonly used drug is a synthetic progestin (altrenogest, marketed as Regumate) given

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Tis the Season for Giving

There are many charitable organizations and foundations that help horses or are involved in horse-related programs. These range from rescue groups (relocating neglected or abused animals or saving them from slaughter) to foundations that fund

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New Surgical Treatment for Suspensory Injury

Suspensory injuries are common in athletic horses. The suspensory ligament extends down the back of the lower leg from the knee or the hock and lies between the flexor tendons and the cannon bone. There are a number of treatments for injured

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The Body’s Building Blocks

Like a structure made of tinker toys, protein is composed of smaller pieces–the amino acids. These can be rearranged to form the different types of protein-based tissues in the body. Protein is one of the basic nutrient elements of the equine

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IV Complications

Any horse with an indwelling IV catheter should be monitored closely for the swelling and/or thick, rope-like consistency of a vein with thrombosis or thrombophlebitis. Catching any vein problem early and treating it minimizes the risk of serious pro

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Mysterious Eye Inflammation Traced to Plant Burrs

Fall and winter sometimes bring unexplained eye problems in horses and cattle, with irritation and inflammation, or corneal ulcers. Some of the horses examined at these college clinics over the past several years had microscopic barbed slivers”all and

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