I love you, but we need to spend more time apart!
Apr 28 2010
Ever feel that way about your vet?  
While I love my vet – she is awesome! – I try to do my best to ensure I don’t have to see her too often. Let’s talk today about ways that you can ensure your vet visits are for maintenance reasons and not emergency ones. Here is my basic list of how to keep the vet at someone else’s barn:
1. Daily turnout. Horses were meant to move around after eating, not stand in a stall. Daily turnout prevents colic as well as preventing stiffness and soreness. The kindest thing you can do for your horse after a hard workout is turn him out! As inviting as that fluffily-bedded stall may look, even a half hour of turnout first is a much better choice. Turnout increases circulation and decreases stress levels (unless they’re being beaten up by the pasture bully, or panicking because you turned them out alone while everybody else was inside, so avoid those situations). If you cannot turn your horse out after a stressful day, for example at a show, try 20 minutes of hand-walking before you put him up for the night.
2. Fresh, clean water – all the time. I’ve heard more nonsense from horse owners and barn owners in recent years about how it’s fine to turn a horse out for an hour or two with no water, or “horses only need to drink when they eat,” or that the horses like the water better with algae in it. Blah, blah, blah. No, sorry, horses drink the most when they have fresh, clean, temperate water available. They don’t drink as much if it’s too cold and they don’t drink as much if it’s not clean. Buy a tank heater for winter instead of breaking the ice. Tank heaters are cheap and they increase the amount your horse will drink. Got automatic waterers that the horse has to push his nose into to get water? Replace them with tubs or pails – horses just DON’T drink as much with them. (The kind that is a container that automatically refills and stays full with no action on the horse’s part is fine). Drinking as much as possible keeps all systems in working order and exponentially decreases the odds of colic. Water, water, water. When you go to an event like team sorting or penning, water them at the trailer. Water them frequently on trail rides. Water every few hours on long trailer rides, if you can’t hang buckets in the trailer. I often hang a half-bucket as long as the horse isn’t so spooky that a splash is going to freak them out. Water, water, water. You can’t offer it too often.
3. Warm up and cool down! I see people take horses out and go right to trotting and it makes me craaaazy. A ten to fifteen minute walk at the start and end of any work session will do wonders for keeping your horse sound. You would not get out of bed and go right to jogging without some walking and stretching, so don’t ask it of your horse. Warm up and cool down walking doesn’t just prevent leg issues, it prevents back issues. Take the time. If you’re bored, use an ipod – that’s what I do.
4. Pay attention to footing. Don’t ride your horse in deep arenas – you’re just asking for a bowed tendon. If you get to a show and the footing sucks, try to figure the ring out and see if there are better areas you can travel in. For example, sometimes the corners are a wreck but slightly off the rail is fine. It’s usually pretty easy after a while to figure out which local shows/arenas are good about maintaining the footing, dragging multiple times throughout the day, etc. Patronize those shows! For trail rides where you do not know what you will encounter, seriously consider using a protective boot like the Sports Medicine Boots or at least having them with you to put on if you encounter deep sand or mud that you will have to travel through. A little support can go a long way.
5. I’ve blogged about conditioning before. Keeping your horse fit is the #1 thing you can do to avoid seeing the vet more than you need to.
6. New skills require new muscles so don’t over-school til those muscles have had a chance to develop. I guarantee you that throwing thirty practice slide stops at your horse the first day WILL result in a sore horse. Same thing goes with jumping thirty jumps the first time you ever jump the horse.  Or expecting a green horse to hold a frame for more than a few minutes at first. Do whatever you’re doing a half dozen times and quit on a good note. Then you work up from there. Patience! It won’t kill you and it’s a lot cheaper than being impatient!
7. Every single day, spend 5 or 10 minutes with every single horse on the property. Quickly brush, go over the horse with your hands, pick the feet. This simple process will save you so much money it’s not even funny. You’ll catch small injuries buried in winter hair before they become big, gnarly infected injuries. You’ll find that stone in the frog, or the smell of thrush developing. You will notice the runny eye because of a scratched cornea before you have an infection and possible vision loss. If you cannot spend this small amount of time with every horse on the property, you have too many horses.
8. Watch your horses eat for a few minutes every day. Throw the hay out, and then hang out if you have multiple horses at pasture. This will help you pick up quickly on a horse that is losing his appetite or a horse that is having trouble chewing, before you have a colic or your senior horse starts dropping weight like crazy or whatever.
9. Spend time every weekend or on your day off walking your property and looking for hazards. Check your fence, check your stalls. Bored horses are great at playing with things and creating sharp edges, which they then create injuries needing stitches on! This is especially true if you have a cribber – boy can they create a hazard out of a perfectly safe property! – or young horses that are just notorious for trashing the place.
10. Before you mount, check your tack carefully. Walk around the horse and look to ensure all the straps are lying flat. I’ve seen terrible galls from pieces of tack that were twisted or not lying flat and I’ve seen beginners screw everything up from having the curb chain IN the horse’s mouth to having the cheek piece in the horse’s eye on the off side because the browband wasn’t straight. I still like to take my horse’s front legs and pull them out in front after tightening the cinch to ensure that the skin is lying flat underneath it. It takes less than a minute to do this last minute check before mounting, and it is a great way to avoid injuries to the horse and to yourself.
And of course – related to our last topic – quality shoeing or trimming will go far toward keeping your horse 100%. Every 8 weeks really is a necessity, not a suggestion. Long toes will trash those tendons SO fast and you’ll be rehabbing forever and lose your whole summer of riding.
What can you add to this? What is your advice for keeping horses sound for life and not seeing the vet except for routine stuff?
210 comments to “I love you, but we need to spend more time apart!”
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My favourite on your list is warm up, cool down. This drives me nuts as well! At the barn I used to ride at there were a lot of busy moms and such who would come out at night and lunge their horses for exercise — into the arena, no walk work, straight into a trot on a 15 metre circle, me biting my tongue.
A couple of other points:
- if your horse is working hard, two days off, not one, when the horse gets lots of turnout and time to stretch. It takes two days for sore muscles to recover, not one. Ever noticed that you are more stiff two days after a hard workout than the first day? And after those two days off, you will give your horse a nice easy workout relative to what they usually do.
-keep a notebook. Record resting temp, pulse and respiration so you know the baseline for your horses. Also jot down notes after a workout or a visit — anything unusual? This will come in handy.
Amen to your amen about warm-up/cool-down! Horse walkers are great for busy people because your horse can get 15-20 minitues of walking (*without a rider* which is even better IMO) and you can busy yourself with other odds and ends in the mean time (and God knows there are plenty of those. Custom suplament mix anyone?). It cuts down on overall time at the barn for the owner and the horse usualy gets a longer warm-up cool down than he would have otherwise.
I mostly trail ride and I hand walk the horse to and from the trail head rather than ride. It takes us about 20 minutes each way and it’s the perfect warmup. I considered moving to a barn closer to the trail head but decided the temptation to do a shorter warm-up/cool-down would be too great so I stayed where I am!
Quality feed. Good hay is a must. Don’t feed crappy, moldy round bales. If you can’t afford good hay, you can’t afford the horses. I have seen over and over round bales so horrible that they are black and rotten and the poor horses have nothing else to eat. Then the owners claim the horses are skinny because they are old. Has nothing to do with the 5 year old hay they are feeding.
amen to this! it is so frustrating hay is GREEN not yellow or brown it doesnt resemble straw and should smell good and fresh
What I love to see is when you put a horse in a stall with hay and grain…and it goes for the hay first. Then you KNOW you have good hay.
And yes. SMELL it. Its easy to train yourself to recognize the smell of good hay over bad.
I have a culinary degree ao maybe I’m a stickler on presentation, but if it doesn’t look good or smell good, as in, if I wouldn’t eat it, why should they? Ive never tasted it, unless I was smooged with a mouthful, but I stand by the pleasing to the eye as well as the palette rules.
YES! Exactly! This kind of logic regarding feed, is used in my area so infrequently you’d think it was rocket science.
Good suggestions, all. I would add a regular regimen for decreasing the odds of sand colic (psyllium either weekly or seven consecutive days once a month or whatever). Feeding on the ground is better for the horse (more like “grazing”) but it also makes for the chance to ingest more sand.
Also, making certain the horse has salt available.
I’d also check fly masks for stray “threads” that can poke eyes or scratch corneas. My horse wears a fly mask in winter because the mask keeps dust and dirt out, too. I take the mask off daily and run my hands around the fuzzy parts to make sure there aren’t any stickers and I use a sponge to clean the guck from inside the mask. Guck builds up when the horse has fly repellant (Swat, e.g.).
If you blanket or sheet your horse, take the clothing off at least once a day. Horses can get rain rot without being in the rain OR being clothed in wet sheets or blankets. The daily grooming might cover that but then again, it might not.
Two thumbs up on psyllium (:) @ Fugs!). Your comments are right on target, and while this may be on the radar screen in the west and on the coasts where there literally is sandy soil, it needs to be on every owner’s radar screen. Propensity to sand colic depends largely on how you feed, and how aggressive an eater your horse is. The latter is key. Aggressive eaters will pull up dirt even while grazing and will hoover everything when eating hay. This can include any soil and stone dust used to surface sheds, stalls, etc. If you feed on a surface that is stone dusted or natural, have your horse checked for sand/particulate accumulation in feces. If there is an accumulation treat with psyllium according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. This is WAY under-diagnosed. The alternative is not pretty. It is an impaction and surgery (best case scenario).
Someone taught me once to throw a terd into a bucket of clean water overnight, run the contents of the bucket through a coffee filter the next day and see how much sand is caught in the filter. I’ve never actually done that, but if it really does work its probably a whole lot cheaper than getting the vet to analyse it.
You can actually do that with a jar of water (doesn’t have to be a bucket ;o), but my vet gets the stethoscope and puts it on the gut just in front of the stifle and sort of “rubs it up” and listen to the gut sounds. He does this a couple of times and so far, knock wood, my horse has been sand free. I live in the Mojave Desert and we have LOTS of sand ;o)
I asked the vet once which was a good way to give the psyllium. He said, “You can give it every Sunday, or give it for seven days straight once a month or whatever combination of days makes you happy. The KEY is to keep the horse from ingesting sand in the first place.” Make sure there is ALWAYS something for the horse to eat, that it is fed in a feeder on the ground. Horses that get sand in the gut are usually “lipping” through the dirt trying to find roots or something else to eat. Even though my horse is picky about the grain in the 3-way hay (he goes for the oats first and then pushes the rest around), he has “the rest” to eat if I’m late with his next meal.
I’ve fed psyllium pellets, powder, and flakes. Vet said if the problem with sand is severe, powder or flakes are better. Regardless, plenty of fresh water is also needed to make the psyllium turn to the “gel” in the gut that helps push the sand along and eventually out of the gut altogether.
I live in the Midwest and have never used psyllium. Never heard of any cases of sand colic around here, never known anyone around here to use it and never had my vet reccomend it. Is this something I should reconsider or is it just for horses that live in areas with sandy soil?
I never had the issue come up in the Midwest, either. I’m pretty sure it’s mostly a concern where you have sandy soil, such as in the Southwest and Western states.
Great advice! Thanks
My horse LOVES to drink from the hose! He usually gets more water ON him (and me) than IN him, but it’s one sure-fire way to get him to take at least a few sips.
One word… “PSYLLIUM”… regular routine psyllium supplements. Helps so much to keep a horse clean and colic free. We’ve discovered even the best hay can have a certain amount of sand and living in a desert (sandy) environment makes sand ingestion inevitable. Rubber mats under/around feeders and PSYLLIUM supplements!
This is a must in our western climates. It was a non-issue where I grew up, in the Midwest, but if you don’t do psyllium in Los Angeles, you WILL have sand colic.
We have a paddock area that is supposed to be be a dirt dry-lot, but currently there is quite a bit of spring grass poking up through the rich Illinois soil. The horses are turned out in this paddock when they are not on the pasture, and we’re limiting pasture time right now to introduce the grass gradually back into their diet. (This is our first spring having horses at home, so we’re trying to be extra careful… We’re still learning though.)
So, the horses happily graze on the sparse grass, and get dirt on their noses. Which makes me wonder if they are consuming dirt. Their poops look fine, no mud or anything in it, but I’m worried… Could they get sand colic from eating a little dirt?
Please readers out East do not ignore this (Fugs-send them to me with questions). This is a basic management issue and applies in all areas of the US (see above reply to TB Dancer).
1. Preventative worming and rotational worming at that! It’s amazing to me how many people at my barn have no idea that you have to worm horses. I was trying to educate a man about it the other day and he turned to me, completely serious and said, “Uh, I don’t think that you’re supposed to give worms to horses.” At first I thought he was being a jerk, but nope!
2. I have to second you, Fugly on using some type of support boot. I just don’t get having a $15000 horse and not routinely putting some type of support boot on them! Splint boots are cheap! You can get a pair for $15. And these days Pro Choice boots are practically nothing as well.
That is so scary that people can own horses and not know about deworming
We do light trail riding on barefoot horses, so boots aren’t really something we even think about. I would love a brief explanation of the different types of boots and when/where it is good for the horse to wear them. I’m very uneducated on this issue!
(BTW, these are NOT $15000 horses, lol! But they are priceless to me
)
What does the cost of the horse matter? They all require the same care.
Boots can protect from bumping fences, speedy cuts, etc but to my knowledge no one has ever found support boots or polo wraps to help support tendons in any way. In fact, I think they’ve only even been proven to be slightly harmful in some cases. The concept seems logical but in practice any boot that is actualy going to give support to a 1000 pound creature is going to have to be so tight it damages the tendon. I would seriously love to hear about it if I’m wrong
Personaly, I *don’t* use boots *because* I want to protect my horse’s tendons. Boots and wraps are very fashionable in certain disciplines but, oddly enough (or maybe not that oddly), not in endurance.
I used to use boots or wraps on every horse I rode. I was assured that it was the best way to protect their tendons. Later, I read a report (equus, maybe?) that said that wrapping a horse’s legs during exercise can put them at risk later when the wraps come off and they have to perform. With that in mind, I quit using wraps unless I was contesting. I find them valuable to prevent nicks and cuts from overreaching or interfering in barrel/pole horses.
Sounds like you read or heard the same thing I heard, Copenhagen?
I think there’s a balance. I don’t use boots or wraps for every ride, but instead for particularly strenuous work, learning a new skill like jumping, or when rehabbing from an injury.
Re boots thing–I would only do this if my horse really needed it in some way. If you’re actually using the boots for support, I’d seriously think about changing to a different type of use for your horse. If you’re using them for protection that is another matter. Those tendons need to be strong in and of themselves–for example, you cannot ride a dressage test with boots on your horse nor can you show a hunter with boots on. However, jumpers and event horses are put in situations where the jumping and/or footing is tricky and where the use of boots for protection is warranted. Same for polo ponies–getting whacked in the leg is a real possibility.
I don’t necessarily mind bell boots for turnout as they can be helpful for big strided horses with a tendency to grab their shoes–better the bell boot gets ripped off than the shoe.
I am a huge fan of turnout after a show, event, or schooling. Horses were not made to live in caves and do best when they can stretch, roll, graze etc. I used to have people look aghast at me when, after a horse trials, I would horse my horse off, rub some liniment on his legs, and put him back in the pasture. My horses never had filled legs and never came up lame. The turnout keeps them relaxed and happy and is good for their gut as well.
Regular deworming and routine vaccinations! Failing to deworm your horse can kill them, as can improper use of dewormers that results in worms becoming resistant to the chemicals you use.
Vaccinations are a cheap way to prevent many expensive-to-treat and potentially life-threatening diseases. If you’re going to travel with your horse, check with your vet to make sure there is not a vaccine you don’t already use that would be recommended for the area you’re going to. For example, Potomac Horse Fever, you only vaccinate for it if your horse is in an area where the disease is.
Also, keep an eye on your horse’s spring shedding- older horses in particular may start retaining wooly hair due to cushings or similar conditions, and often it’s the first sign of disease, if you notice it and act, you can prevent the founder that so often follows.
I prefer to use a weight tape to measure each of my horses at least evey few weeks, the weight tape will show you rapid weight loss/gain before it becomes visually apparent- after all, you see them every day, it is easy to miss subtle changes.
One last tip- keep a stocked equine first aid kit handy- if you have everything you need handly to treat a minor wound, you’re more likely to be able to treat an injury promptly and prevent it from turning into something worse. You will also be prepared to administer basic first aid while waiting for the vet in an emergency injury situation.
well, I guess technically I would have to add to check your feed every time you feed it…grain, hay, water, whatever you’re feeding. Look at it and smell it. Things can go bad, get moldy or become infested with all kinds of non-food things (like mice and rat feces).
I will also add that I want to see my vet daily…he’s my husband!
Very good point about feed! I see people tip it into a bin for storage that isn’t really sealed, then the tack room leaks, the feed gets wet and the next thing you know, you are feeding moldy grain.
Amen to that! I would also add that some feeds – like Equine Senior – don’t have to get “wet” to get moldy, especially if you live in a humid climate. It gets really damp here in the WNC mountains in the spring and summer and we have found condensation inside the feed storage bins. We combat this by moving the Senior feed up to the house basement in the warmer months and only bringing down a little at a time. And we check it EVERY time we feed. Senior particularly should always smell “sweet”.
“fluffily bedded stall” ? “fluffily” ? har har har
Stall feed more than twice a day to prevent ulcers. If your horse is a slow eater and doesn’t wolf the food down, then free-choice feed the hay all day. This works best with timothy or orchard hay, as they don’t like it as much as the alfalfa hay candy which they all tend to wolf down. Don’t feed bermuda hay, as its smooth fine texture has been known to form boluses that clog up the GI tract and cause impaction colic.
Avoid chiropractors.
Don’t feed electrolytes every day for no good reason (getting the horse to drink water is not a good reason) or you’ll irritate the stomach and cause ulcers.
When riding or doing anything else with a horse, always do whats best for the horse, not whats best for your lazy short-cutting selfish convenience.
I agree with everything you mentioned, except the chiropractor comment.
I have a horse, a 10-year-old Arab gelding who was started when he was three then put out to pasture for the majority of the time. He has a club foot (not a horrible one, mind you, but it’s there). 7-ish years of compensating later, he ended up with a head that was literally not screwed on straight, in addition to smaller problems in his back.
I rode him the day before his chiro appointment, and he physically could not collect and canter to the right at the same time. Two days after (rest and turnout on the day of and the day after), he could. There was nothing else changed; he had been off work for those two days. He still couldn’t hold it for very long since his muscles on that side were still pretty weak, but it was possible.
Chiropractors can’t fix weak muscles or defects, but if your horse is very stiff one way and very soft the other, like my boy was, consider having a chiro come out. I pay $25 dollars every month now; it was $40 for the evaluation and $25 a week for two weeks after that, simply because the horse’s muscles kept pulling his spine out of place. With his back straightened out, his muscles work correctly and he doesn’t need adjustments as often.
I am a fan of chiropractors and I know mine has helped my horses. Just my 2 cents.
I concur, I’ve had excellent results with chiropractic. I’d like to know where Chucky’s bride is coming from here.
uh, pardon me? Why are you calling me names you bloated hag?
Have you seen your profile pic? Lol. That’s where she’s coming from.
and whats wrong with my profile pic? Thats me. Thats me on a good day. She must be jealous of my good looks.
o___o *hides*
I think she might be referring to your avatar. Unless you set that in response to her comment. It looks a little, um, interesting.
All of my underaged nieces use avatar photos that disguise their looks, like hers, so she’s probably just very young. That’s what I assume anyway.
What’s wrong with chiropractors? I don’t know much about the pros and cons…
Many times a chiropractor can help to repair or improve damage to a horse’s skeletal system/back/muscles. In that case, I would recommend using one. Get a good one.
After several years watching the pleasure horse industry, I have seen the good and the bad of equine chiropractors. A good example is Ken McDavitt– I’ve seen him work with a couple of horses. Each horse was MORE relaxed at the end of the session than at the beginning. Ken gave instructions for care of the horse — exercises and ‘do’s and don’ts’. He was quiet and calm when working with each horse. He worked with the goal of completing his treatment– he didn’t play the game of needing to come back every two weeks.
A couple of bad signs are:
1. A chiropractor who is pretty sure they need to treat your horse every two or three weeks, indefinitely. Tell them to find someone else to make their mortgage/truck payment.
2. A chiropractor whose work with the horse leaves the horse less relaxed. If you end with a tense or nervous horse, chances are that horse isn’t any better off than before the visit.
3. A chiropractor whose ‘exercises’ for your horse are not safe for you to complete or whose treatment seems more like manhandling. No point in being assigned exercises that you can’t complete without a trip to the emergency room.
Hope that helps. I personally don’t think that every horse needs a chiropractor. I do know of horses who were helped BIG time by a few visits.
Me walking down aisle of stable.
Grumpy old mare pokes head out of stall, pricks ears, whickers.
Me: Who the heck are you and what did you do with Cascade?
Horse: Whicker. Pet me?
It was the first time I had EVER seen that horse happy. Wandered past the BO. ‘Oh, we had this massage therapist and chiropractor look at some of the horses.
Me: Did she do Cascade?
Her: Yeah. Poor girl had three vertebrae out.
(The previous barn owner didn’t believe in it).
That woman is still Cascade’s favorite human in the whole, wide world. I’m betting your horse will tell you if the person looking at their back is good or not…if they LIKE them, they’re probably good!
Just speaking for myself here, but there are a lot of people who call themselves “chiropractors” who “took a course and have a certificate” and are actually doing more harm than good when it comes to adjusting horses. In California, that hotbed of Nanny State-ism, the law is that someone who is NOT a veterinarian cannot perform any procedure on a horse unless a DVM is present. This would include massage therapists, electro-pulse, magnetic therapy or infra-red light types as well as chiropractors, dentists, and others. For some reason shoeing is left out of the mix.
I know of two chiropractors who are DVMs. One of them is worthless, imho. She tweaks with her fingers and doesn’t do much of anything. Ten minutes max and she’s out the gate, your check in her pocket and your horse (often) still sore or “out.” The other spends a MINIMUM of 30 minutes on a horse, even if it is NOT out of adjustment.
As for the non-DVM types, the best one was a man who adjusted people and horses, having learned from his grandfather on people and from a course he took on horses. He was WONDERFUL and my horse loved him. Another is a people chiro but he has no clue about horse anatomy and feels that because horses are so massive, he has to STRIKE them with his fist in order to adjust their backs.
WRONG. As the DVM I use for my horse has said, “He’s just asking for arthritic changes to occur because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” I’ve seen her work on horses he has “made worse” and they not only improve, they LIKE the treatment.
There are people who won’t see a human chiropractor, either. I guess it’s just “different strokes for different folks,” but my horse’s slight roach back has responded to both chiropractic and acupuncture treatments (both done by veterinarians) and I’m going to be taking him to a massage therapist who is NOT a vet but who will suggest saddle fitting issues may be causing this problem or perhaps that the horse needs to see a vet for sore hocks or limb issues.
We have used chiropractors for our horses for years, starting with Sharon Willoughby. I have seen/used some good ones and then I have seen some pretty poor ones. I am currently lucky enough to have a sister in law who is a DVM and also an animal chiropractor. She adjusts both my horses and my dogs. My old horse was 35 and sound when she had to be put down for other health reasons….she had adjustments regularly from the time I got her at 17, I have no doubt they helped keep her sound.
If you are looking for a good chiro I would suggest starting here : http://www.avcadoctors.com/
There is a listing of animal chiropractors for every state, which also tells whether or not they will work on horses or small animals, and whether or not they are DVMs.
While I am always happier with grass hay, alfalfa actually may be preferable in horses with active GI ulceration as it has a higher buffering capacity than grass hay. Depending on how stemmy it is it can also be less irritating to the mucosa. I recommend using alfalfa with omperazole with active ulcers, and transitioning to grass when the ulcer problem is controlled.
For horses that wolf down their hay, there are various “slow feeders” available that make the horse work for their hay a bit more. Maresy’s on stall rest and tends to be a “wolfer”, and her Nibble Net has been a g-dsend. It takes her much longer to eat her hay, so she has something to *do*. No, it’s not a cheap product, but it’s very well made.
“Don’t feed bermuda hay, as its smooth fine texture has been known to form boluses that clog up the GI tract and cause impaction colic.”
Good luck wiht that one, Bermuda hay is about the only hay you can get here in central GA!! Anything else has to be trucked in at high expense.
I’d have to see a published study demonstrating that the fine texture of bermuda hay is responsible for colic to believe that. I’d be far more inclined to believe that impaction colic and boluses would be from either dental problems interfering with proper chewing, or from a horse that bolts its food and doesn’t chew properly. Add a third to that- dehydration.
I have to agree with this….show me a proven scientific study and I’ll consider changing from Bermuda Hay. I’ve fed it for 18 years and have had exact 2 cases of colic. Neither one of them were related to the type of hay I was feeding. Since it is the most plentiful type of hay available around here it is what most people I know feed. Nobody I know who feeds it have excessive numbers of colic cases. Those that I know of that have had colic cases can be readily explained by other holes in their management program.
I agree with most but not the chiropractor – to be true you need to find a good one but ours has got my tb sound twice now when he was very lame due to back problems. (Both times were just after we got him, first when we bought and then when he came back from a bad loan home) Without chiropractic he would have been left in lots of pain and lame constantly, it took lots of time and work by our chiro but he was 100% sound by the time the chiro was finished.
Aaaaaaackkkkkkk (Bill the cat sound)! I hate chiros, think they do more harm than good, and the thing they’re really good at is adjusting your wallet.
Am not impressed, never was, never will be. Saw several atrocities such as chiro sticking gold tipped needles in a poor suffering straight pasterned navicular QH. The chiro beamed with pride at all the needles he’d managed to put in that small an area. Horse was just as lame after (obviously, navicular, duh) as he was before the treatment.
Saw another “practitioner” whack the hell out a horse’s withers with a board claiming that’s what had to be done in order to “adjust” the horse and make him right. I thought at the time, “Adjust this” (rude gesture) what an ffin quack.
liz
Check your medical supplies regularly for expirations and throw out the expired stuff. Good grief. I thought this was common sense, until I started cleaning out my instructor’s barn for her. She wouldn’t let me throw out expired bute because “it lasts forever.” And she wouldn’t let me throw out a few other other expired medicines whose names I forget because “they were expensive.” They were. Now, they’re at best ineffective and at worst BAD.
I have to admit I had a chuckle at the “I’ve seen beginners screw everything up” – a sweet girl at the place I first learned to ride once put on the halter very tidily, bless her heart, and completely wrong. The strap that connects the noseband and throatlatch was running neatly down the middle of the poor confused horse’s face, and she had led with the leadrope attached to one of the side rings. I very quietly fixed it while she was in the tack room…
mmm, sorry, disagreement. Sell by dates are normally and rightly ignored by most smart people. Silver, are you a pharmaceutical salesperson or something?
Most items, including food for people, are good well beyond the sell by date. I don’t have the info at my fingertips but if you press I will come up with it. Manufacturers make allowances for people not providing the best possible care for their products and they base the sell by date on the worst possible scenario.
Hey Barnkitty, I do work for an animal health/pharm company and I need to let you know that the date you see on medications like Bute and even more so for vaccinations are not “sell by” dates, but actual “expiration” dates. We are required by law to determine the stability and shelf life of these products at the recommended storage conditions before they are licensed and sold. While there is, per FDA guidelines, some margin of error on these dates they are there for the safety of you and your animals. Many drugs change over time, and honestly the tack trunk is probably not ideal storage conditions unless it is in a temperature controlled room (controlled room temp is typically the recommendation) – they can in fact become harmful, and at best ineffective. I don’t mind using some products that are just past expiration, but there is no way I would give my horse banamine 1 year out of date and expired vaccines would be just as effective if you squirted them on the floor. If it were something like milk where you KNOW when it is bad, then sure, but most of these drugs – there is just no way to tell if they have begun to destablize by looking/smelling.
My personal lesson on expired meds.
I used a tube of wormer on a suckling/weanling filly. Since she was small, I used the same tube twice on her. Evidently it didn’t work, because she proceeded, the next time I wormed her, to have severe colic due to wormload. The new wormer was effective, the old one hadn’t been. I was lucky she didn’t die, and I was also mortified– I considered myself to be a careful and caring owner. I should NEVER have used the same tube twice, and I certainly should have stored my wormer better, or somehow made sure it was working.
Heh. Tack trunk? I’m not sure my instructor owned one. Try “in the barn, in the heat, maybe sometimes out of the sunlight, all year round.”
That’s fine if you want to chance expirations – I don’t care to – and I do understand that sell-by dates are pretty much just for freshness… but when your medication has been expired for ten years, it’s BAD. Throw it out. I don’t care how expensive it was.
And to answer your question – no, I am not a pharmaceutical salesperson. I simply believe that the expiration dates are on medicine for a reason other than to bilk people out of their money. I treat the medicines for myself, my family, and my animals the same way: if it is expired, no matter how much it cost me or how much it will cost me to replace it, it gets thrown out, period. There is no point in causing problems for myself by assuming that something that I cannot adequately tell has gone off is still good.
I know you are both right. The problem I have is that some meds are totally useful well past their expiration dates, and others can degenerate and become useless, inert or even dangerous. I don’t know which are which, so I usually just toss everything. It would be nice to have a list… but I’m too lazy to research it.
“Expired” medications (for humans at least) are often used by missionaries in third world countries. They are still effective for quite some time after the sell by date as long as they are stored properly.
I actually consulted a doctor about this when I was really short cash. I’m not just pulling this out of nowhere.
That’s fine if you want to chance expirations – I don’t care to – but when your medication has been expired for ten years, it’s BAD. Throw it out. I don’t care how expensive it was.
Great topic Fugs.
I will just add that when I showed I would take my horse for walks when I had a lot of time between classes and I would usually find a spot with some grass to let her graze a bit. Its great to get some circulation going (for both of us), prevented her from standing in a cramped stall for hours and getting stiff or getting bored and possibly injuring herself on something (I have seen some really funky “show stalls”) and it helped her to relax
(especially because she was turned out during the day)
(also a great time to visualize your ride)
Some people may find it boring, but I enjoy the walks, seeing the show grounds, getting both of us used to the show atmosphere and I would often grab a brush and brush her while she eats some nummy grass
Also when the horse gets out of the trailer…don’t just chuck the horse in the stall…I would immediately offer water and then take her for a walk to stretch her legs from standing in a trailer for hours
I also want to add…if your horse is stalled, check the stall everyday to make sure that there is nothing your ponykins can hurt him/herself on and if there is fix it yesterday already
And when travelling to a show and putting your horse into an unfamiliar stall ALWAYS make sure the stall is safe, no pokey dangerous things, and I will also move the bedding around with my foot and check if there is anything buried underneath that could possibly hurt your horse…and then fix/remove it before your horse goes inside…if you can’t, then request another stall from show officials
Deworm your horse appropriate to your climate and your horsekeeping situation.
And have an appropriate vaccination protocol that you use. It completely disgusts me when a hores comes in for tetanus! My God..the vaccine is like $2. And the fact that horses carry the toxin in their manure just begs for a tiny laceration to turn into a death sentence.
Those are what I would add to your list. It’s amazing to me how many people don’t use a little common sense.
Okay – this may seem obvious, but I’ve seen a lot of people that don’t do it.
Pick your horses feet out when you take them out of their stall/pasture/paddock AND before you put them back in.
Even if you’ve just led them around, ridden in the “perfect” arena or taken them in/out of the grooming stall. Make it the first thing you do and and last thing you do every time and you’re less likely to forget it when you become distracted by other things.
Yes, and one of the main reasons for that is to check for nails, screws, and rocks. I’ve found all three stuck in my horses feet.
Make a bank account just for horse expenses, so should a big vet bill come, you have ready money avaiable.
Fugs, this post deserves a big gold star.
So many times, calling a vet is torture for some people, because they know it is going to play havoc with their budget. They love their horses, but OMG, how are they going to pay the mortgage this month?!
A few odd dollars a month can help take the stress out of those emergency calls.
Right on Ponykins! My horses have their own savings account and god forbid that get depleted they have their own credit card too. (Never had to use it, knock on wood). I always make sure I have enough between the two to covery a major illness or emergency surgery should it ever be neccessary.
I know an Olympic level eventer who once said: “Whatever Brad needs, Brad gets.”
Whether this is a veterinary visit, a certain supplement, a tack change, a change in conditioning…..I think it’s a great rule to live by.
Don’t let your horses get fat (I’m guilty of this one–my Morab mare is a bit tubby right now. She get NO grain.). You should be able to easily feel their ribs (not SEE them, though!. Feed as little grain as is needed to keep weight on. Many horses don’t even need grain at all if they’re not working hard or are easy keepers. It’s better to feed more hay than adding grain, if at all possible. Hay is much healthier for their digestive system.
YES! I should have thought of that!
If you wouldn’t let your horse be 50 pounds underweight don’t let him be 50 pounds over! Most vets and nutritionists will tell you that it is actualy more damaging and dangerous for a horse to be overweight than under. It’s much easier to put weight back on an underfed (as opposed to a horse who lost weight due to other medical issues) horse than it is to take weight off an overfed one. Google body condition score and do it! Weight tape regularly. Especially in winter when you’re not riding and are tempted to blame the extra pounds on hair than weight gain.
People go on and on about how much stress it puts on domestic horses to have a rider on their backs–stress to their back, stress to their joints, stress to their hooves, etc but a lot of overweight horses and ponies are effectivly going around 24/7 with a the equivalent of a big fat guy “riding” them. And sometimes I feel like the only one who has the sense to care!
You took the comment out of my fingers. Weight, weight, weight.
Air ferns may require special care. And if you have a European bred pony…any of them…or a badlands/mountain bred Mustang and live in somewhere with lovely green lush fields? RESTRICT GRAZING. In some cases, you may have to cut out grass altogether and feed only hay…but don’t cut out the turnout. Make a dry lot or turn them out in the outdoor…or even the indoor…when its not in use. Many true ponies (as opposed to Arabians bred down to 13.2 or stocky little QHs) are highly prone to insulin resistance and restricting grazing (grass has a surprising amount of sucrose in it) can delay them developing this condition. Dry lotting a horse may seem cruel, but its cruel to be kind.
Nah man, youve got it all wrong. An obese horse IS a happy horse! Their sides, butts, necks, hell, even their eyelids should be like memory foam! Ya know, when you press on it with a flat hand and theres an impression that slowly rises? And its okay if theyre feet dont touch each other when theyre laying on their sides (due to their monthly colics- handy for setting your calenders!), its probably better on their backs that way! And the sweat that developes simply when theyre standing? That helps them keep cool. Also, a thick and cresty neck makes the horse look majestic! By the way, did you know founder is easily relieved with wooden shoes? Dont need to change their diet at all! You really ought to rethink all of what you know about horses, Im tellin’ ya..
I’ve left two boarding facilities because they refused to let us cut off the water supply to the the nose-activated automatic waterers (cough – LAEC, cough cough – FRC) and hang/maintain buckets in the stalls. Don’t these Einsteins know that 1. These waterers were designed for COWS, and 2. How are you supposed to monitor HOW MUCH THEY ARE DRINKING? (one of the first signs that your horse may be off in some way) Also, buckets can be cleaned everyday – those waterers can never be cleaned properly. Lastly, horses need to drink gallons of water per day, which is hard to do when these waterers only hold a cup at a time, and the water pressure needs to be set low so they don’t get splashed in the face. (discouraging them from drinking even more!)
Gah, I know, I am always trying to scrub out those nasty waterers in some way that actually WORKS and doesn’t leave some sort of nasty residue in them. I just want to remove them and tip them over, but you can’t!
Also, with automatic waterers some horses (like mine) refuse to drink from them (stupid OTTB). Thankfully my nice trainer put him in a stall with one of those bucket automatic waterers, the ones that fill up after the horse drinks. Also, aren’t the nose push waterers cleaner? There’s not much water left in the bowl, so less substrate for nasty things to grow.
I like automatic waters, just not the nose activated kind. The bowl kind are the best as you can lift the flap and clean them thoroughly. No you can’t monitor how much they are drinking, but there are other signs when something is wrong and they always have water.
It is very easy to tell when a horse is dehydrated, so as long as you check them for dehydration by simply grabbing a fold of the neck, the actual number isn’t as big of a deal. The important thing is that they are not dehydrated.
and also, at most home and garden-type supply stores or hardware stores, there is a hose attachment that tells you how many gallons of water has gone through the hose. designed for sprinkers, PERFECT for monitoring your horses’ water intake with auto-waterers….
unless each auto waterer is checked 2x/day how do you know if they aren’t working??
Also, similar cleanliness issue with built in feeders instead of grain buckets- hard to keep clean. We got moved to a stall that had a ‘repaired’ feeder with a wood bottom & before he even went in there I pulled the bottom out & found nasty ass moldy grain. I almost died. This was a horse I leased so I had no choice as to where he was boarded, but you can believe I told the barn owner a few things that day.
Same barn owner has FUEL tanks (barrels, essentially) right up against the back of the barn. The thing that killed me is I saw them right away b/c I walked around when I got there to check out the scene. Boarders who had been there for years had -no- idea they were back there.
This is part of why I sobbed for a month when I had to leave that horse -I still worry about him every day.
I agree with alot of this. I had to share my experience from a large public stable in SoCal, (not LAEC,) which also relied mainly on those kinds of waterers.
First of all, one of the most valuable lessons I have learned is that dehydration is a common cause of colic that many people ignore. If you have noticed that some horses colic with a change in the weather. It could be because it is too cold so they drink less, or too warm and they don’t drink enough! So it is vital to know how much they had, not to let them get too cold or hot, and to be sure they always have plenty of fluid in their system.
I agree that you should have a backup bucket system at such places. Buckets have to be cleaned, but so do stalls and you never know! In my experiences, the watering system at a certain ancient boarding facility would fail about once a month, and stalls would be flooded and/or horses in that row would go without water. Since this was a “full service” facility, most of the trusting owners weren’t around to find out about it, and never heard about it. The facility made it seem like colic was a routine issue for owners. It sure happened a lot! (I’m not even going to get into the feeding issues…)
The worst part was, an informed boarder did the sand test ON THE TAP WATER coming out from this place, and got a sock full of sand!
Thankfully, I didn’t have to stay there long.
Psyllium is good maintenance to prevent sand stones but will not clear them if they exist, (an ultrasound will show if your horse has stones)
(The only horse I’ve seen that needed water restriction came from a ranch where there were “issues”, so for awhile he would “bolt” the water from the bucket just like a starved horse bolts its food. After awhile of being restricted to an auto waterer, he learned to moderate his intake, and could handle a bucket like the others.)
I know of three mares, all came from the same stable, who sipped water out of boredom. Their stalls would literally be saturated with urine every day– put in 6 loads of shavings one day, take out 8 loads of urine soaked shavings the next. It was horrible. In that case, I would think limiting water intake is healthier for them.
I have never heard of a horse drinking out of boredom. If they were drinking that much, it had to be in response to something else…especially since it was all mares from the same place!
I’d be doing some blood work and trying to figure that one out. That sounds to me like kidney damage that might be from toxic weeds?
It was my first thought too– What’s wrong with these mares?!
However, I watched, I worked with them, and I’m absolutely certain. Two of the mares were stalled side by side, with their waterers in connecting corners. Both mares drank copious amounts. Both were stalled for all but about 20 minutes a day. They would stand in the corner, and sip. When we took them to a top show, I finally convinced the mares to stop hogging water by only giving them about two inches at a time in their bucket. Mind you, I didn’t with hold water. They evidently figured if they only had a little left, they shouldn’t waste it? However it worked, it was a short lived blessing. They went home, and lapsed back into drinking (and peeing) tons of water.
The third mare I bought about a year later from the same barn, where she had been in training. The barn owners where I was keeping her were very worried, but the same method of making her think she only had a ‘little’ water seemed to solve her problem in about a month.
I haven’t seen anything like that before or since. It was hands down the weirdest habit I’ve ever witnessed. It beats the filly who ran her tongue up and down the wire stall divider repeatedly, and the mare who ritually loaded her grain feeder with manure every morning before chores.
Now that I think about it, all those horses were Appaloosas……
My horses are in a large pasture with several auto waterers. I always keep a large tub of fresh water available as a backup because 1) the horses can drink deeply with their heads down, 2) I can monitor their water intake, 3) the tub is a backup system in case the auto system shuts off or malfunctions. 4) Lately, a raven keeps washing dead animal parts, bones and other gross meats in the auto waterer. Yuck! Nothing like finding part of a hairy rabbit spine in your horses waterer!
An old gelding at my barn was getting really thin. He was fed, teeth floated, always well fed, but the owner wasn’t trying to fix the problem (the same old, “he’s really old.”) I asked the BO if I could contribute senior feed to help him and when I went in to his paddock, I discovered his auto waterer had a leather-like layer of slimy algae almost filling the receptacle. I cleaned it, put a big water tub in his paddock and supplemented him with senior feed for a few months and he gained so much weight that a passerby stopped and said, “where’s the skinny horse that used to be here? ” She didn’t believe it was the same horse. I thought the problem was his teeth (he had congenitally bad teeth, a bad bite and chewed sideways) but on reflection, I think it was all dehydration, because after I stopped supplementing him he kept his weight on. There’s no way he could have been getting enough water for who knows how long. On top of that, the refill rate was really slow.
Note: a good way to clean the waterer is with a handful of sandy dirt and rocks. Scour it like steel wool and scrub with the rocks, rinse really well, and it will be spotless.
Another good reason for a water tub: my mare loves to play in it.
A neighbor who can see my horses from her house told me that she thought there was a break in the water main because the water was shooting up in the air so high. She went out to investigate and saw Countess splashing and making the water shoot up in the air. She also likes to put both front feet in (like my golden retriever puppy used to) and stomp the water and make it splash big time. So I have to clean it daily. I quickly discovered that cheap tubs are not a bargain.
I would love to have a wading pool big enough for my horses to lie down in.
You might appreciate this video of my friend’s two Fox Trotter mares playing in their own personal ‘mudhole’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvvaR0O7g4E&feature=channel
They love it when it rains, because this spot stays wet for several days afterward.
Of course, my friend, who has to clean the horses, has some reservations about their fun!
The pens at my lesson barn, all outside, have the paddle-activated waterers, and my instructor told me another problem they create is that in the summertime the waterers (and the water) which are exposed to sun all day become extremely hot to the touch. All summer the horses there also have 1-2 water buckets hanging in the shaded areas of the pens in addition to the auto waterers, courtesy of the working students who fill and then hand carry them to the pens. Looks like an excellent cardio workout, too!
Not only do you want to buy quality hay and feed for your horse but TACK! Can you imagine having to do a work out routine in a belt the chaffed or pants that didnt breath and made you sweat foam in. Junk tack is just that, save up a few more weeks and buy the nicer stuff it will last and fit better. When Gear breaks have it fixed proffesionally or replace it. Dont tie a knot in your bridle, dont use hay twine to hold your girth on or instead of a flash noseband (Ive seen it folks, many times!), And please dont use a lead ropes for reins….the snaps are too big and will leave a giant goose egg on your horses face if they shake their head.
has anyone mentioned web tack yet? Never, ever turn your horse out in a web halter.
I am not a big fan of web bridles and harnesses, either, unless they have some safety breakaway.
I am finding I have too much to say on this thread….
I did a whole blog on that! You are right, never, never, NEVER!
Of course mishaps with nylon/web halters usually do not require the vet. They usually require the renderer.
I don’t like to see horses turned out in halters at all. Unless they’re hard to catch, why borrow trouble? (Sometimes, I know, you just have to).
Me too. If you have to, get the breakaways with the cheap leather crownpiece.
Particular pet peeve…drag ropes. OMG how I hate drag ropes. Just confine the damn animal until you teach it to come for treats, how tough is it? Yes, I have met off the range mustangs and guess what, most of them become treat whores pretty quickly, too. I can see a breakaway halter on them but drag ropes on foals or mustangs look like a fast path to a broken neck or leg to me.
FHOTD,
I recently was at Midwest Horse Fair in Madison when I found a breast collar that I fell in love with. I’ve been needing one, and nothing seemed to be what I wanted. This one was comfortable looking, well made, and seemed exactly what I wanted.
When I asked the woman who owned and made the tack whether the hardware was stainless steel, I explained that I didn’t want problems with corrosion or rust. She was bold enough to explain that her hardware was never stainless steel, but instead brass or brass with a ‘silver’ covering. She does this because she uses Biothane, and wants to be sure that her hardware will give if something goes wrong on a trail ride. I hadn’t even thought about that for a breast collar!!
I bought the tack, and I owe her a big thank you for being honest instead of catering to a potential client. We are never too old to learn!
All of those are great suggestions, but I disagree about needing 10-15 minutes of walking for warming up and cool down. That’s overkill unless your horse is really stiff.
I DO go running without much walking and warming up. Honestly it’s better to jog a little bit, then stretch out to loosen up because it’s easier to stretch warm muscles then ones that haven’t been doing anything.
So yes, walk your horse to warm up around the arena a few times and then trot and then canter and then do more complicated things, but 15 minutes of walking to warm up is not necessary, in my experience.
To clarify, my second paragraph I’m talking about MYSELF not my horse. I personally go running without much of a warmup. Wouldn’t do that to my horse.
also, I don’t think when turned out your horse thinks to himself, “wow I should probably walk around for a bit before going for a trot or run.” and obviously horse who are stalled all the time are more likely to need an extended warmup than a horse that is moving around alot because of turnout. Really, just turn your horse out, being stalled all the time causes so many problems.
If you’re grabbing your horse out of the field or large turnout then you might not need so much walking. If you’re grabbing your horse out of the box then absolutely yes you do. You might not need much of a warm up to go running yourself but you’ve been walking around the house getting your work out cloths on, and finding your running shoes, etc. You are actually warmed up quite a bit. Would you go running straight out of bed? or after sitting for a long drive in the car?
Ditto for cool-down. You need a lot more walking before you put your horse back in a box. If you’re putting him in the field/turnout then you know he’s going to have to mosy around and say “hi” to everyone, walk over to the water trough, take a roll, etc. before he actually settels down and takes a rest.
I agree – I was talking about pulling a horse out of a box stall or a pipe corral when I said that. If they have been turned out, you don’t need as much.
My best advice is FEED HAY 24/7, 365 days, even summer. Nothing keeps them happier, healthier, warmer in winter and out of trouble more. People are generally WAY too stingy with it. If there is none left each day, you aren’t feeding enough! You must feed hay to waste, just accept it.
There is no hay waste around here. My gelding eats all of his food and then cleans up any leftovers from the others from the previous feeding. Seriously, if he had hay 24 hours a day he’d weigh 2000 pounds instead of 1300. Free choice hay just isn’t going to happen.
Yeah, the VLC is the same. He would LOVE free choice and I do agree that horses are meant to nibble all day as they do in nature – but he truly would be a hippopotamus on it. He is an air fern.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of them having something to chew on as much as possible, so he gets quite a sizeable pile of local hay to keep him busy – but not free choice. He’d eat a round bale a day!
I feed free choice orchard hay all day and my horse doesn’t get fat on it. It it were alfalfa, then she’d be fat. It all depends on the individual horse. I got lucky because mine eats slow, doesn’t wolf down the orchard like she would if it were alfalfa.
Palatability (sp?) is the key with a ‘heavy’ eater. You can easily feed ANY horse free choice hay. You just may have to switch to a type of hay that isn’t quite so delicious in your horse’s eyes. Naturally, feeding moldy, dusty, or sour hay isn’t a good choice, but there are certain types of hay that simply aren’t as yummy to horses. They will eat such hay, but they don’t eat it like candy. My best success has been using a mix of a nice 60/40 legume/grass mix for something ‘tasty’ once a day, and then either a straight grass or mostly grass hay with a mix of orchard, Timothy, and if needed, something less liked.
I have to agree that the SINGLE best way that I have avoided colic is to feed free choice hay. Even my eaters ( and I have some horses that gain weight when you say ‘grain’ out loud near them) maintain a steady weight on free choice hay, as long as I keep something in front of them that they will eat, but not crave.
We often feed nice green, lovely, leafy, sweet smelling hay to our horses, not considering that part of their physiology is their need to eat low quality forage in large quantities. Low quality means low nutritional value– which means if you get the right hay, your horse may happily munch all day as desired without blimping out.
Pegasus,
This is not appropriate for all horses. Ad lib hay can be a problem for horses that are prone to metabolic syndrome (Morgans, Mustangs, Pony breeds….). Always check with your veterinarian regarding your horse’s optimum weight and try to maintain it. Be aware of weight gain and body condition score (fat deposits-cresty neck, padded shoulders and topline w/ crease). Obesity is a huge problem in horses today! If you want to cut calories feed first cutting hay. I have never advised feeding straw and have not seen veterinary information on doing so.
I’ve had horses of all ages and various breeds out together with round bales of grass hay (nothing fancy) free choice and no one gets overweight, including the Cushings horses. Yes, they will plow through the first few bales if they are not used to it, but once they realize it’s not going to disappear, they slow down. They never chew or push on fences or each other, and they look great through a cold winter without blankets or stalls. And never colic.
Of course, I deworm, feed grain in small amounts, heat their water and do teeth too.
ALL of my horses got round bales last summer (and I don’t have 2 of the same breed in my barn), and the vet told me to cut them back because they were all too fat.
And no, they didn’t slow down, either. My friend’s Morgan mare is right on the verge of developing metabolic issues, so the vet recommended that we cut back her feed- a LOT. She’s getting 10 lbs of hay a day. Which is not much. It’s about 2 flakes a day. My PONY eats more than she does, and she is losing weight SOOO slowly it’s making me insane. Would she LIKE to have 24/7 free-choice hay? Yep. It’d probably kill her, though.
You are correct-unfortunately horses are individuals (like humans) and some do not know when to stop, and some metabolically cannot tolerate free feed hay. I have had to deal with horses that have developed laminitis and rotated ON HAY and have seen the effects which are painful, and cause permanent debility. While many horses can tolerate an overabundance of hay, it is best to observe body condition closely, and to enlist the advice of a veterinarian or experienced trainer if there is any question regarding weight gain.
Agree! Have hay available the majority of the time, it keeps their digestive systems active….and I go one step further (maybe I’m babying them, don’t know), but I break up the flakes for them….some of those bales are tightly packed and them shaking their head and dragging it on the ground doesn’t seem to loosen it very much. I have yet to see a horse sprout opposable thumbs in order to do it themselves
Even though I have a reputable hay dealer I still found foreign items inside the flakes too.
Just a thought.
I once had to remove my ponies from a boarding stable because the owner refused to quit overfeeding the horses. The pasture boarded horses, which included mine, actually had enough pasture that it contributed to their diet several months of the year. I think she still fed them more prime alfalfa (what we call ‘dairy cow hay’) than they needed twice a day year around. She also fed ‘poor hay’ free choice year around. The ‘poor hay’ was a clean, good quality grass hay that probable would have been all that my ponies needed, along with a little grain. Of course, she gave them more than a little grain. The other horses ate until they were full and were only moderately fat. My ponies, of feral ancestry, ate until they were obese. There was nothing I, the vet, the farrier, or the extension equine specialist could say to make her stop.
Maybe my horses are just weirdos… I feed from free-choice round bales, and as soon as the grass gets going in the spring, they quit eating the hay. They won’t touch it all summer, I can feed flakes of really nice hay off a square bale and they will nibble at it for a bit then go back to the pasture. My round bales are usually top quality and in the winter, they eat them like candy. But they would rather eat grass in the spring/summer/fall. I really only feed hay about 4 months out of the year.
This may be because I have 3 horses and, oh, about 15 acres of well-maintained mixed grass pasture. They always have plenty of grass to eat, 24/7 turnout. They stay fat all summer with little to no additional hay or grain. I watch them closely for any signs of laminits or other potential grass issues, but my grass is largely Tifton 9 Bahia, crabgrass, and Coastal Bermuda, none of which are really bad for causing founder. I’ve done this for years with no issues.
I do have to feed my competitve trail horse a bit of grain along when she’s under a heavy workload, and I do keep hay handy for trailer rides, competitions, and camping trips. But by and large, from April-November or so, they feed themselves!
I’ve been researching slow feeders for my horses. My Arab mare is such an easy keeper she just looks at food and gains weight (just like her mom!). I have so much stress about only feeding my horses twice a day, since I work full time, and I’m always rushing home to get them dinner. I love the concept which is based on what horses are meant to do, graze 24/7. “Slow feeder designs permit horses to eat a controlled amount of feed, constantly. The hay never runs out. Mealtime anxiety disappears”. Here is the best website I have found so far: http://paddockparadise.wetpaint.com/page/slow+feeders. I received my small mesh hay nets yesterday in the mail, I am excited to get them up and see how it works.
And while you are there be sure to check out the Paddock Paradise section, another great concept!
Condition before collection. Your horse can’t collect and work until they have the muscles to do it. Asking them before they are ready will get you retroflexion and back soreness.
Great tips. I’d like to add
- offer free-choice hay. Or if you need to restrict the hay, offer free-choice straw (oatstraw is best) – it cuts down on so many health and behavioural problems.
- if the horse has been off work, build him up. You, too, can walk a wekk before doing short trot stretches. It might be boring, but it’ll keep your horse sound for longer. A couple of days off are NBD, a couple of weeks mean that he’s lost riding condition. Even if he’s pulling like a freight train.
- tip I’ve learnt from old-timers who kept horses working sound into their thirties time and again: however long a horse was lame, don’t return him to full work until that time has passed again. So if your horse was off for a couple of days and is fully sound again, let him have an easy time for another couple of days. If he was off for a couple of months, build his workload up over a couple of months.
- educate yourself how a health horse looks like, what his muscles feel like, how he moves. Accidents aside, most problems are well visible in advance _if you know what you’re looking for_ – and who better to look for it than someone who sees the horse daily? Notice every stiffness, unwillingness to bend, pick up feet, canter on a particular leg, everything. Every muscle tightness, every sign of heat. They’re not all actionable – don’t call the vet for nothing – but if you know what’s normal for your horse you know when to act when he’s not – and you’ll be able to call the chiro/etc to sort things *before* your horse damages yourself and needs lengthy rehab.
- related to that: take unsoundness seriously. Don’t try to ‘ride him out of it’ – either Dobbin is sound, then you can ride him, or Dobbin is not sound, then you need to work out what’s wrong and fix it. It’s ok to do therapeutic exercises (sometimes a horse might improve overall when ridden even though he’s somewhat uncomfortable – not ‘in pain’ – with the actual riding), but your vet/other health professionals need to be on board for that one.
- if your horse isn’t 100% sound, you ride according to the horse’s needs, not for your own fun. This means that you don’t jump, do fast work, ride out for hours or teach lessons on him. You do what the horse needs, however boring that is for you.
“A couple of days off are NBD, a couple of weeks mean that he’s lost riding condition”
Not so. Studies have shown that it takes as long as 6 weeks for a horse to start losing significant conditioning. They are not like us- a week on the couch and we can definitnely tell we’re losing shape! I will refer you to the works of Dr. Nancy Loving, DVM, an expert on the training and conditioning of endurance horses. She’s written a number of books on the subject that have tons of references to established scientific literature. There are others out there but Loving is the most widely recognized, I think.
I’ve seen this for myself- I ride 40 to 60 mile competitive trail rides, and after the last spring ride I will give my horse 6 to 8 weeks of the hottest summer months off, (July and August usually) sometimes with no work at all, just 24/7 turnout. At most an occasional easy saturday trail ride out to the river to go for a swim. (Around here it gets to 100 degrees or more with almost 100% humidity- you almost have to take the mid-summer off!) Then when I put her back to work, I monitor heartrate and respiration recovery rates to monitor fitness- after 6 weeks off, she’s lost almost no fitness (provided I don’t let her get overweight from too much food). I’m talking, she might take 3 or 4 more breaths per minute and 5 or 6 BPM heartrate, not even enough to justify easing her workload. We go right back into serious training, and after just a few rides, her numbers are right back down where they were. I have seen her go 4 weeks with no work at all and her recovered heart rate after 10 minutes of rest, is the same as it was on our last ride before her vacation. 6 weeks is usually enough to lose a tad, and at 8 weeks I can start to see a noticeable difference that might require easing back into training over a week or two.
Once a horse gets fit it’s extremely easy to keep them fit. Of course, what I think of as “fit” and what the average 1-hour-a-ride pleasure rider who keeps their horse in a stall, thinsk of as fit, are not the same thing at all… my idea of fit is a horse that can maintain a 5 to 6 mph pace on a 20 to 30 mile trail ride without being exhausted at the end!
Once you get a horse fit, you can keep them there with only 1 or 2 workouts a week. I keep my horse in shape for competitive trail with usually 1 or 2 rides a week.
#7 and #8 – ABSOLUTELY!!!
#7 – I find something on the “kids” EVERY DAY! A scuff on a heel from an over reach. A scrape on a hip from itching on the barn. A big honkin’ splinter in the neck from scratch on the railroad tie. I have to clean and doctor a minor boo-boo of some sort on someone everyday.
#8 – Even then, things can still happen while you’re away. I had a mare colic AFTER I’d left for work. She’d eaten fine that morning. By the time she was found by a neighbor, it was too late to save her and euthanasia was the kindest option.
On the footing, in winter we haul up to the cutting ranch and ride in their indoor arena, which is D E E P. All I EVER do is walk – that’s enough of a workout in itself. They have to “work” to get up out of the ground. But I’m with you, if the ground was deep and didn’t “hold”, I’d turn out. Same with slick ground…which, personally, I think is worse!
#6 – not only new skills, but old skills that haven’t been schooled for a while. My WP mare spent a few years barrel racing. When I asked for her to collect and tip her hip in, just because she “knows” how, doesn’t mean she should have to hold it. She’s just not conditioned for it.
And then there’s #11 – If your horse is fresh and has been off for a while and in heat to boot, it might be a good idea to longe BEFORE you climb on, it’ll save YOU a lot of pain in the long run!!
Lastly – DO the “Bucket Test” to check for sand!!! It takes about 20 minutes. Here’s what you do:
Get a 5 gallon bucket and fill it 1/2 full of water. Make sure the bucket is CLEAN before you start. Pick up some fresh poop that HAS NOT touched the ground. Put the poop in the bucket and using a stick, gently swirl the turds around until the fall apart. You should have “Poop Soup”. Then turn the hose on at just a trickle and put it in the bucket, overflowing the bucket and any floating poop, until the water runs clear. Any sand that was present in the poop should be in the bottom of the bucket. If you had sand in the poop, you have sand in the horse and can treat accordingly!!
A caveat about pulling the legs after putting on the saddle:
Some horses that are prone to the vago-vagal response (I think that’s how you spell it) can be even more prone to collapse after saddling if you pull the legs out. Tightening the girth on these horses can cause them to loose nerve control and almost pass out– very scary! Usually tightening, then walking, then tightening, in slow steps can prevent this from happening, but pulling the front legs forward can increase the chance of a collapse. Ask me how I know!
I guess this goes into the ‘learn your horse’s own idiosyncrasies’ category– but that can be hard to do when you ride sale horses all the time!
If you are a trail rider, ignore all the old wives tales (and some current training guru’s nonsense) about not permitting your horse to eat or drink. It helps a horse tremendously to have small bits of food continuously circulating through the gut and of course, the more water the better. The old wives tale about a hot horse not drinking is also false – if your horse will drink – let it drink!
Of course, I expect my horse to be paying attention at certain times, and stopping to a full halt and putting their head down whilst cantering to grab a juicy bit of grass is NOT acceptable. But, if you are ambling along and the horse grabs a bite, don’t yank on it. If you’re stopped for awhile, let them graze. If you’re out for more than an hour or two, give at least one specific moment for them to grab a few bites if they’re so inclined. I drop my reins and say “ok” when it’s grazing time, and my horse knows exactly what that means. He is also very adept at grabbing long grasses, branches, etc as we fly down the trail without missing a step or slowing. We’ve frequently been laughed at, as he will carry a good branch around indefinitely, chewing the leaves off bit by bit as we go. The key here is that he is still required to listen during his snack.
Of course, you need to know the bad vegetation in your area. Many horses will readily eat fallen maple leaves – a common ornamental and wild tree, and these can be very toxic, but often a rider won’t make the connection since it usually takes a day or so for symptoms to appear.
Another old wives tale I hear from time to time is to never put cold water on a hot horse. This has truth if you are in a cold climate, but on a hot southern or western day, at anything above 60 degrees, if your horse is sweaty, HOSE IT OFF when you’re done – or even if you’re taking a break and it’s a particularly hot day. The salt and grime is a perfect recipe for skin fungus, chafing, and infections in places like the “armpits” near the girth area, and between the rear legs.
The best advice I got about horse care was: keep it simple. Horses don`t need as much as the manufacturers of supplements etc. want you to believe. But the things they need and get should be top notch quality !!!
Hay quality is non-negotiable, hay is the basic food for my horses, has to be top quality. They get nearly as much as they can eat. The old pony has become a hard keeper due to some metabolism problems, the young horse get`s regular excercise, so free hay is alright for them. I`d feed less if they would put on too much weight, but luckily for them they don`t, they just hold it.
Both are turned out daily (6-12 hours, depending on the weather), in the summer they are out on pasture 24h. Keeps the young horse calm, keeps the old pony supple. Old pony wears a grazing muzzle nowadays – we learned about founder the hard way.
Both see the farrier every 6-8 weeks (depending on the growth of their hooves). Both are dewormed quarterly. Both get their teeth floated at least once a year.
The old pony doesn`t get grain anymore (she`s prone to founder, due to some faults of mine in the past). The young horse eats oats (yeah, simple pure oats) – but only a little bit at a time and only when she has work to do, no grain when she get`s time off.
Both get a basic mineral supplement.
They both get their hooves cleaned every day when I`m at the barn. I look for scratches etc. – scratches, even the tiny little ones, are cleaned immediatley and a bit of iodine cream never hurts
(but an inflammation will do)
The result ? Both are seeing the vet only two or three times a year. Horse gets her shots twice a year (mandatory for competition horses in Germany, and only vets are allowed to give shots), pony once plus the annual dentist visit.
I firmly believe that paying VERY close attention to your horse, so you can grab anything abnormal (and may it be just a teensy tiny little bit abnormal) fast, pays always off. Many big problems start as small problems – but only because someone has said “Oh, that`s almost nothing, he`ll get over it”. Learn to know your horse, learn to know what`s normal for YOUR horse. And if something is not normal and you don`t know why – call the vet.
Totally agree!
About a week and half ago, I’d noticed that one of the geldings had strayed outside of his normal grazing distance with the rest of the herd. I brought him back to the barn and he just stood there and didn’t try to bite me, which definitely set alarm bells ringing! I put him in his stall and took his temp- it ended up being a whopping 104.9 degrees!! In case it was just the heat from standing in the sun, I put him under the fan for about ten minutes and took it again, and it was still up there, around 104.5. So I called my boss out and she called the vet, who gave him a lot of fluids and took some blood samples. He started perking up, they’re still not really sure what caused his fever. Then a few days later I noticed he wasn’t just licking his salt block, but was actually biting chunks out of it! This led to lixotonin being added to his diet, we’re not sure what caused the sudden mineral deficiency, maybe just the spring grass.
Anyway, I’m just the person who mucks the stalls, feeds, and lets in, but I end up having the most contact with them most days as they’re just pasture puffs. My boss will pop in and check in on them at night, but she wouldn’t have seen the signs that I did that made me think something was wrong.
And get this- I wasn’t even supposed to work that day! Goodness knows what could have happened, I don’t think the other barn help would have noticed.
Eeek!
This is why I’m afraid to graduate. I’m training my replacement, but I’m still going to worry once I leave. We’re doing every hands-on thing we can so I can teach her exactly how each horse behaves and their quirks and how to deal with them.
-Make sure your horse is getting along with his pasture mates. Don’t just throw him out in the field with any horse. Make sure they get along first.
-If your horse takes a trip during a ride, make sure you check his legs for any heat, swelling, or favoring that same day. Don’t just assume he’s alright, make sure he’s alright. There’s nothing worse than someone who assumes the horse is fine and then hops on the next days and makes that injury and whole heck of a lot worse.
Learn how to trailer safely- that includes how to properly hitch a trailer, how to properly load and haul a horse, and how to check your trailer for any safety hazards (like rotting floorboards).
Accidents in horse trailers make me cringe- 99% of the time they are completely avoidable!!
I use slow down feeders for everyone. I have a Morgan horse vacuum cleaner and the small mesh on the bag slows her down. I also soak my hay to get the sugars out for my IR miniature, so everyone gets soaked “slowdown” bags. I find they prefer the soaked hay when given a choice. In the winter I give a handful of warm soaked cubes to make sure everyone gets enough water twice a day. When I turn them out during the day I have the slow down bags hanging from trees in their dry lot.
Do you have a link to the feeders? Sounds like a good idea!
Such a good topic and much good advice… I’m in the first year of my first horse and appreciate everyone sharing their knowledge.
I can only add for emphasis that my horse gets as much hay as he can eat until I see him again… I want to see just a little bit left when I get back to the barn. Hay (even $7.75 per bale
) is way cheaper than the vet, keeps them satisfied and out of trouble.
I use a nibblenet to minimize waste… it also has the added benefit of mimicking grazing for those of us with no pasture. This is a fantastic, well made product – my big lug of an ottb has not even begun to wear it out yet – I HIGHLY recommend it!
Love this blog – so glad I found it. I have linked to mine… hope that’s cool with you fhotd
Meant to say “mine”…
Holy crap Valentino……7.75 a bale?? WOW where do you live? I grow about 20 acres of hay, it would be a good living at that price! It actually an interesting question. I’d like to know what hay is priced in different parts of the world.
God awful on the west coast is how it’s priced.
This past year was better but summer 2008, I was paying $18 for a square bale of alfalfa, about a 100 pounder. I was ready to shoot myself, lol. Between that and $4.25 a gallon for gasoline, after feeding the horses and the car, I did not have money left for me and that was with two jobs!
I know what you mean. In 2008 on the central coast of California hay was $18+/bale for forage (100-120# bales), $21/bale alfalfa (not dairy quality) and Timothy was $29+/bale. Gas was close to $4.65/gal. Now things are a little better with alfalfa at $16.50, good forage at $14+, and the timothy is down to about $22/bale. Gas is down to $3.17 for good quality and $3.09 for ARCO/COSTCO stuff.
For chiro we use Stephanie Szabo. She is licensed for human, equine, and small animal. They use her at Twin Rivers when they have their events(CCI*/CCI**). She also takes chiro students to 3rd world countries to work on the people there. I think it might be though an oragnization like Dr.s without borders. I know she has taken classes to South America and the south Pacific. (Not an MD/DVM hereself though).
A tip that hasn’t been mentioned yet: If you can, try to isolate new animals or those that have been at out of area events for a few days. If you do go to a show don’t use the common water trough, bring your own buckets and tools.
In Alberta we’re paying about $10-$12 per square bale of timothy. I have no idea what alfalfa is at since we don’t feed it. I know Alfalfa is deeper rooted than timothy and was better able to survive last years drought, but it seems a lot of people are feeding whatever they can get their hands on this year. Luckily my boss has been buying hay off of the same guy for the last 30 some years. Big spender favorite client status is a good thing to have when hay guys have to start turning away even their regulars due to a shortage.
Its been raining for almost a week straight here now and we’re expecting a lot more, so here’s to hoping prices go back down!
I’m on the Outer Banks of North Carolina – on an island in the middle of nowhere. Horse keeping (and epsecially hay keeping) is very challenging here.
Last winter / early spring my hay man had to import from PA due to terrible weather in NC… I don’t think they got a last cutting in. I’ll probably pay $5 a bale (square orchard grass / 40 – 50 lb bales super pretty) on my next load as the spring weather has been more cooperative.
The bad part is I have to drive 3 1/2 hours to get to my hay man. There is no quality hay any closer… nothing but the best for my Val
The good thing is that when the stars align I can combine picking up hay with a weekend trip to my trainer for lessons and save some gas…
Calm, Forward, Straight
I’m another fan of the NibbleNet. My mare wolfs down her hay without it, and with it she has to take her time. She gets pissy and knocks it around a bit and it’s held up very well. She’s in her stall 23 hours/day due to an injury, and because eating keeps her busy, the N N means she spends more time eating without eating more.
http://www.smithbrothers.com/product.asp?pn=PJ-27286&sid=froogleSALE&CATALOG_CODE=SX807&EID=X3807001&zmam=1460880&zmas=2&zmac=51&zmap=PJ-27286
I close the small mesh hay bags with locking carabineers and then hang them. I never use just regular caribeeners as they can cause injury. I google small mesh feeders and find who has them on sale. The nibblenets are great but a little pricey for me right now. But I love the bags as it makes them really slow down and I have NO hay waste at all. If you google slow down feeders you will find all sorts of ideas.
Links to info on *ALL* types of slow feeders here:
http://paddockparadise.wetpaint.com/
Click on “slow feeders” in the side bar on the left.
I posted this up above somewhere, but thought I would post it again here:
Really good info on slow feeders:
http://paddockparadise.wetpaint.com/page/slow+feeders
Dover’s carries the small mesh hay nets (16.90), Miller’s Harness carries small mesh hay nets (9.95?), and http://www.horse-rider-etc.com carries small mesh hay nets – you get the pick the color (7.95). I currently own 4 that I bought from Millers and 2 from horse-rider-etc; they are all holding up great – about a year old. I love using them and love the fact that my horses have hay in front of them 24/7.
Hey firecoach: I have my horses eating out of small mesh hay bags too. It’s made a HUGE difference in the waste leftover as well as taking them a lot longer to eat the hay. FHOTD I made my bags from hockey nets, the kind that are made to take hits from rubber pucks. The holes are about 1 1/2″ . I took a large hockey net and cut it in two, then I lay the hay slices in the bag till it’s bulging and I take baling twine and “stitch” up the sides and top. It’s not the most time effective way of closing the bag, I’m still trying to figure out a better prototype! I’ve tried hanging the bags and tying them down, but what seems to work best is just leaving them on the ground and letting the horses haul them all over the paddock to get hay out. It seems to keep them very busy. Like I said it’s just a prototype so if anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them.
To support what FreedomTreeless said: ask your vet for recommendations for first aid supplies, put them in a clean, secure DRY place and know how to use what’s in there. Ask your vet if s/he would be interested in scheduling a basic equine first aid class for your barn/horse friends, etc. Compensation, of course, which will likely end up in the clinic’s Angel Fund; vets/techs love it when basic first aid has been competently rendered while they’re on their way to your place for an emergency. You can always learn something. (Don’t forget refreshments!) Have several demo horses available to act as teaching aids.
On a tongue-in-cheek ‘sad’ note: my Howrse horse is now in heaven because I fed it too much!!! I was too anxious to keep it healthy, I ‘killed’ it with kindness. Interesting site but they had ‘riding’ at several gaits as an option when my horse was only 16 months old!! boooooo. For those who don’t know, Howrse is a virtual horse website—got a job at a great equestrian center as a groom, was able to ‘board’ my horse at a good quality stable, with excellent meadows. I don’t have any live animals at this time and killed my only ‘virtual’ one. Ignorance is no excuse/reason. I suck.
On this theme, use grazing muzzles, and manage your horses weight. This is the truth-overweight in horses is as much of a hazard as underweight!
Two newbie questions:
1. Arena footing–how deep is too deep, and if you don’t have a ruler handy ;>, what signs tell you it’s too deep *before* you get to the bowed tendon?
2. What constitutes “turnout”? At one lesson barn, pens are 24X24 wire mesh, and the turnout areas are three, oh, maybe 50×50 paddocks, one sand, and two pasture. At lesson barn #2, the turnout pens are even smaller. I live in SoCal, so I know this may be about as good as it gets, but I felt sorry for the young OTTB I watched one morning trying to have a little fun in one of those 50X50 paddocks.
Hmmm, I will look at youtube when I get a chance for an example of too deep. Anytime they feel like they’re swimming or struggling, definitely too deep, but there are milder examples.
Re turnout: Look, SoCal sucks for turnout. There’s a reason I live here but my horses don’t. 50 x 50 is a round pen. It is better than standing in their normal pipe corral 24/7 but it’s not ideal. The best thing you can do with your SoCal horse to avoid problems is a lot of walking – get out there and trail ride!
I’ve wondered about “turn-out” as well.
I’m in Northern CA and the situation is not much better, because my choices seem to be pasture board with very low standards of care (barbed wire, etc.) for $100 per month OR $400 to $1,000 for a stall with an attached pen. There’s not a lot in the middle and I have looked at a LOT of boarding facilities!
I am currently boarding at a 10 acre property with around 50 horses and my horse is currently in a 150 x 25 foot dry lot pen with a shelter (the shelter is actually so nice it is really a stall-it’s matted and he could be confined if need be for lay-up). This was honestly the only place I have found that meets my requirements (some space, shade, safe fencing, decent hay, riding facilities, etc.). It sounds like a lot of horses on 10 acres, but it is set up really well. So would this be considered 24/7 turnout? He has horses on each side of him, separated by no-climb. It’s also slightly sloped for drainage (NO MUD!), so I assume the slight “hill” work is beneficial.
I do take him out every day (he is very close to my home and office) for either a walk or turnout in one of the arenas. There is also a 1/4 acre pasture that is not rented so that boarders can turn-out there.
At my previous barn, he was on 1/4 dry lot, but the owner wanted to stuff 5 horses in that space, and there were some other issues as well. So is a 150 x 25 foot pen considered out 24/7? He is a lazy sort, so that helps.
I’m also from SoCal, so I know how bad space can be.
In my opinion, a 12 x 24 standard issue “mare motel” is a stall, and does not constitute turnout. If that is all the turnout your horse gets, it will guaranteed go lame if you take it out on a trail for an hour or so, only once a week. I see this a lot…
What you need to figure out is how much time you have to turnout. If all you have is a 50 x 50 space, you’d need to turn out for over an hour or better, two every day or so, for an energetic horse, in addition to occasional lunge work. I have seen horses do well in a similar situation along with regular hand walking when it rains, and close access to trails.
A large public stable I know has two or three turnouts much bigger than 50 x 50, but you could only use them for 30 minutes at a time, as long as there wasn’t a lesson… and you had to fit it into your schedule.
Another idea is to locate a public arena in your area where you can turn out. If you are near trails, or live in a “horsey” community, there could be a large neighborhood arena within walking distance.
When I had a horse here, I used to wait til right before closing time and then turn out in the arena so that she finally had a chance to RUN! I swear, the lack of space is why everybody is always getting bucked off here. I have seriously never seen as many accidents as I have at LAEC. The horses are screaming “let me out or I’ll let MYSELF out after I buck you off and tear around the arena!”
Knowing your horse’s “normal” behavior is the best way to keep the vet away. Observation is key. Anything that varies from his “normal” is a sign that things are not right and should be paid attention to. Make sure to watch when he’s out and about, lameness is easier to spot in the field sometimes than to feel it in the ring. Make sure that he shakes after rising from a roll, great sign of colic is when they don’t shake. Manure is a great way to measure your horses “norms”. Make sure it’s a consistent color and texture for him.
Watch their mood, too.
If you have a horse that would put its own bridle on if it only had the opposable thumbs to do it with and it pins its ears when you walk up to the stall with the bridle…check it.
If your horse refuses to leave the stall after tacking up, unless its a lazy nag that does that all the time…check it.
Any time a *normally willing* horse shows a reluctance to work, check it over. It might just be in a bad mood…or it might be trying to tell you, in the best way it can, that its in pain or feels sick.
Or it might be depressed…after we lost Mouse, one horse stopped eating and another horse made it clear she did not want to work…a normally quite willing horse who utterly refused to be bridled…took two people to do it. She got over it in a few days, but she was clearly upset and wanted to be left alone to grieve. (And yes, they DO grieve. They DO understand when another horse dies. People think they don’t get it, but I’ve observed behavior in horses after the death of a long term stablemate that is not so very different from human grief reactions…loss of appetite, loss of interest in activities normally enjoyed, even looking everywhere for the other horse…horses that *don’t* react that way if a horse is simply moved out. Its quite interesting, really.
Vet check EVERYTHING before purchase!! Even if it is free!!!! I can’t stress this one enough.
We get endless calls from people who picked up a freebie or a really cheap horse only to find (always novices) that it has ringbone, or a bowed tendon, or navicular, or arthritis, or cushings, or something else that they were too green to spot or too uncertain to question and oh no NOW they have to pay out loads of $ in vet bills that they really don’t want to pay, they think its way too ‘mean’ to have it PTS and now they want to dump it on a rescue to solve their problem.
Most experienced people have the brains to get something vetted before purchase. But seriously people, save yourselves a LOT of heartache and inconvenience and VET BEFORE YOU BUY!!!
LOL…I kind of think that should be “save your local rescue a huge migraine and VET BEFORE YOU BUY!”
You’re spot-on correct, though. Happens ALL the time.
Good list. When you started the list, I was thinking, “Walk the property,” and sure enough it’s on the list! My parents are getting older and now that I’m no longer home to walk the property every day, things get out of whack, trees fall into fences, wires come down, strange dogs and coyotes leave tracks near the lake. I walk the property for them once a week but it’s really no substitute for going out and checking EVERY DAY, so I’m training the barn help what to look for and to do it after she gets done. Trail ride if it’s too big to walk, and teach your boarders and students what to look for and to report it quickly. You have no idea what disasters can be averted by keeping an eye on everything. Once we noticed our mares acting defensive, trotting around in circles, etc. and found our neighbor’s stallion in our back pasture – he got out of his own and jumped into ours! Neighbor, who is a typical backyard breeder, didn’t even know he was missing. Fortunately no one’s broodmare got covered by his fugly little stallion!
Check every inch of every fence every day!
The only thing I would add is that if you have bodies of water like our lake, you really can learn a lot by looking online at what animal tracks you have. We have bobcats, deer, and raccoons all the time and that’s okay, but one winter we temporarily had a panther and that was a little bit less okay. Just the sort of thing you might want to know if you have foals.
This goes along with daily grooming. I like to feel my horse’s legs with my bare hands before and after each ride or if I’m just grooming, feeling for anything unusual. If he is ever off, I won’t be asking myself ” Hmm, how long has he had that bump?”
It drives me nuts to see people just tack up without even brushing off the horse. I’m sure dried mud feels really comfy when under a tight girth..
I was taught to properly groom a horse. Not grooming before I ride would just feel odd, like not brushing my teeth in the morning.
Also, please pay attention when you are grooming! I saw my old trainer grooming her horse while chatting with a boarder, the poor horse got poked in the eye with the brush. Trainer never noticed…
I usually like to get out to the barn at least an hour before my lesson to get my assigned horse ready. I LOVE grooming the horses. This past semester, I was in a situation (out of my control when team lessons are) where I was scheduled a lesson half an hour after the girl I’m supposed to drive’s class ends. I really hate having to rush, and the horses don’t like it either. Yeah, you can pick their feet and brush the mud off their backs and legs, but why would you want to ride a dirty horse? I’m proud to be a horseback rider, and it’s embarrassing to be riding a horse with pee stains on its sides. And one would think that potential clients to the barn would want to see clean horses.
Haynets WILL eat your horse back.
Buy haybags!
Wow. That haynet pic is terrible! Thanks for the heads up on that one. I did have a hay net, and my pony got his foot caught in it. Thankfully he didn’t freak out, and was just standing there patiently waiting for us to set him free!
Hay nets are bad in general, but if you HAVE to use one (although I can’t think of a reason to HAVE to use one), hang it HIGH.
You bet. I have had horses catch a foot in the hay nets too. I have hay BAGS now…they have nice, safe ones!
I actually had a horse get caught in a hay bag! My incredibly nimble trail horse somehow got his foot IN the hole even though the bag was hung from a tree next to the picket line well above where he should have been able to get his front foot. Found him just standing there still trying to lip at the hay that was now out of his reach. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so dangerous. So now i know that for him I must hang the hay bag where he can’t get his foot in it and then raise it another couple feet to keep his agile self from getting hung up. Which leads me to my big #1 for keeping my horses healthy- Know them inside and out and make a mental note of everything they are capable of!
That is why I am using small mesh hay nets only. I inspect them each day to make sure there are no loose strings. The mesh is so small they can not get a hoof in them. The only place it could potentially happen is at the top where the I am hanging them. I do however worry about my miniature mule as her hoof is the only one small enought to maybe get caught but I do not lay them on the ground.
Another scourge is the trainer who used haynets to keep the stalls cleaner. This was a fairly fancy dressage barn and 4 out of the twenty stalled horses had COPD. I was the barn manager then and I wanted to ditch the nets and wet the hay down. The vet laid down the law to her, pointing out that horses are grazers who need to spend a certain amount of time eating with their heads down and that her practice was predisposing her horses to respiratory problems.
That was the same person who insisted that I put a tablespoonful of bleach in the horses water outside every week even though we dumped and scrubbed the outside water tubs 3x a week. I looked her in the eye and said that was probably excessive since horses’ systems do fine on plain old water. I’m surprised she didn’t use Perrier to fill the buckets with. Water, lots of it, and fresh is what should be given.
liz
Our paddocks are pretty safe, but even so, just TODAY we found our mare Bella with cuts all down the inside of her back legs. We had the vet out, as she was also limping on two feet. Poor girl was stiff and sore. The vet is sure she got caught on something. It looks like she straddled barbed wire. And trust me, we do NOT have barbed wire!!
What could it be? We have no clue. There is no evidence of a struggle anywhere at ALL! We walked the entire place three times, once by myself, once by himself, and once together. Still no idea.
So we’ve fenced off the one area that has the tiniest possibility of being the culprit – even though there’s absolutely no evidence of a struggle there at all.
It’s true what they say, horses are suicidal. They will find any tiny thing to kill themselves on!!
Anyway, she’s doing fine. Didn’t need stitches or anything. But there is one wound right on the coronary band and into the hoof wall. THAT’s going to be fun to deal with (growing out).
And PS: we just had the vet out, for her (Bella), to remove porcupine quills from her nose… LAST WEEK.
Aaaah, it’ll be an expensive month….
This happened to me not long ago. Come to find out our mare got out of the pasture and wandered down to the neighbor’s place where they are replacing part of the fence so there is wire and junk all over. She cut up her legs, neck, back, etc. and then came back home and let herself back into the pasture. We still aren’t sure how she got out and then back in all on her own, but we followed the hoof prints and that is what she did.
Absolutely! When I was a kid, we had a filly that the vet started calling the “Kamikaze” horse! Her worst escapade? Climbed over a 6 rail pipe fence, sumersaulted over the top and onto her back into a manure trailer. 126 stitches later…. This is the same mare that contracted tetanus – and yes, she had been vaccinated. Our vets comment? “nothing is foolproof”. My sister had let the mare out of her stall and she took about 3 steps, and I said -OMG – she has tetanus! We boarded up a stall so no light could get in, rigged a sling so she couldn’t lay down and fed her very very mushy mashes. That lasted about 3 weeks. She did indeed survive with no ill effects, but as my vet said – Only the Kamikaze horse!
Ditto on the suicidal horses. Out TWELVE DAY OLD filly found something- and we don’t know what!- and sliced the back of her haunch. Over 20 stitches inside and twelve staples on the skin later… she seems fine. Looks like FrankenHorse, but there is no swelling and the wound looks great. Our foals have been in this same paddock for five years and we’ve never had an injury!
Plus we had a yearling catch a hind leg in the stall last night on who-knows-what, and she scraped the crap outta her coronet band. Fortunately a vet was not needed on THIS one. But I’m ready to pound my head against the wall….
OUR. *headsmack* I do know how to spell, honest.
Ok, my last post–I promise.
Re the suicidal horses–I call them HLH’s–hard luck horses. These are the horses that can’t stay out of it and are constantly banged up, scraped up, stitched up, leg problems, you name it they get it. My favorite one is the TB mare owned by a local vet (good thing that was) because out of the 365 days a year, her horse was out of commission 300 days of that time. It was a running barn joke about what that horse managed to get into that day. And this was a horse who had a substantial amount of turnout time, just no common sense.
lol
liz
The comment about your mare with the mystery wounds -
This could be way off, but this was recently happening to our older, arthritic pony. We would find new woulnds on her hind legs every day – we had separated her from the others, put her in a safe place (we call it the padded stall) and watched her like a hawk. Finally, about two weeks after we noticed the first bloody scrapes, I saw her getting up from laying down. She couldn’t get her hind legs underneath her, and she was scraping herself with her own hooves. She was just scrambling and it was awful to see. We knew that she had suspensory issues in her hind legs, but we hadn’t noticed anything getting any worse. We felt terrible that it took us so long to figure it out. We let her go immediately. She had been a hoof rescue to begin with, and while her hooves straightened out beautifully, there was no going back on the over-jumped legs.
Anyway, I hope that’s not what is wrong with your horse, but if you get a chance to see her getting up, do that! Good luck, and best wishes.
Thanks Lady, I have seen her get up often (she lays down – often flat out – daily) and she seems to have no problems. After I posted a note on my Facebook, her previous owner commented as follows:
“She has always been getting into trouble since she was a yearling. She used to shove past everyone and break into the barn, then lift off the lid of the grain barrel and dig in! And she opened our lunch box on our picnic and pulled out a banana. She also got into the shed and pulled out the recycles and spread them all over the barnyard. She’s a good jumper too. One night she got spooked by something and jumped the fence, and her brother couldn’t make it over. One day a kid was eating a hotdog and she grabbed it out of his hand and spit out the meat and ate the bun.”
I think Bella has been behaving herself until now (we’ve had her only six months) to lull us into a false sense of security with her.
At least she’s smartened up our pony!
I’m sorry to hear about your horse. That’s very sad. Good for you for making the right decision for the horse. I commend, and sympathize with you. We’ve only had our three horses (two aged 7 and one aged 14) for under a year now, and I can’t imagine ever having to go through that. I’ve done it several times with dogs… and unfortunately looking “forward” to doing it again this year with my eldest dog. I guess if you love animals, and want them in your life, it’s a decision that must be made – it’s just damn hard. Sorry for your loss.
One of my pet peeves is dirty tack. In addition to making sure the tack is adjusted correctly, it should be clean and comfortable for the horse. I ride with a lot of people who have owned their horses for 4, 5, 6 years or more and never clean their tack. Their cinches are crusty and crunchy from dried on mud, sweat and hair. The saddle pads stink to high-heaven and it is a mystery as to what color they were originally. If you can’t take the time to clean it and dry it out after a ride, then please just go buy a some new tack. The rest of the boarder have to deal with the stench of your tack in the tack room everytime they come out to ride!
*Not just dirty tack but ill fitting tack irritates the heck out of me. I haven’t ridden my mare in months because I don’t have a saddle that fits her properly. The saddles I have for my gelding fit him perfectly but he is high whithered and she is wide.
*Training. My 2 yr old isnt ready for a saddle but shes halter broke, I can touch her anywhere and do anything to her and shes been lunged LIGHTLY with a syrcingle on. In a year or more she’s going to be ready for a trainer ( which won’t be me because I’m not a horse trainer).
*When grooming PLEASE brush the mud off the back of their fetlocks and from behind their ears before you tack up.
*Clean their sheath! Be nice, use warm water and rinse completely.
*I sweep my stalls every day to get the sand out so they dont eat it and they are treated to prevent sand colic regularly.
*I have ever allowed my horses to eat with a bit in their mouth after seeing a horse choke while out on a trail ride. Not a pretty sight. Plus it saves me having to pull up on their mouth every time they want a bite; They wont starve on a 3 hour trail ride.
*My 4 horse slant load trailer is used as 2 box stalls so my horses travel loose. They can turn around, eat and drink, getting to their destination happier and healthier than tied horses.
There is a local barn that has regular dressage clinics with a gal from Riverside, CA, who comes up to the High Desert to teach. One of the regular riders is a trainer and she is ALWAYS “unkempt” as are her horse and tack. She’s dirty, her boots and clothing are dirty, horse is poorly groomed, the saddle pad is dirty, the girth is dirty, etc. Not only is she asking for problems with infection or accidents (things breaking, loose ring on her snaffle sticking and pinching the horse), but she is not showing much respect for the instructor, in my opinion. I don’t mean riders have to braid the horses and wear your white breeches or anything extreme, but wearing CLEAN and tacking up with clean stuff on a groomed horse is just common sense.
One of the “big names” in dressage who recently moved to Southern California is very clear that when he gives you a private lesson or you’re riding in a clinic with him, he wants you in shirts with sleeves and collars, boots (not half chaps) and everything clean and well turned out.
Makes sense to me — the clean part — because of the safety issues involved.
Oh dear… I have a thing about tack, it has to be spotless and supple (partly because leather last sooooo long then properly cared for it seams a crime to leave it to dry and break) and ponies should be spotless and combed but me….
A very old school (fantastic) riding instructor I at the stable I worked at once said of me “I have never seen that horse (grey poo fiend) so clean and you always turn them out well but YOU, you are a grubby little urchin”
I cant help it, however hard I try to stay clean and smart I get grubby.
OT, but Oh Geez….. Let’s make more Fugly Foals for Fifty Dollars a pop:
http://fayar.craigslist.org/grd/1714860323.html
Holy cow! What is this person thinking? Would like to breed to 13 hand QH mares? It sounds from the ad like this person feels sorry for the horse not getting laid. “he is ready to do his job he is bred to do what ever with a nice mare you will get a nice colt “? Well goll-lee, he’s bred not to work cows, or to be ridden, or to do anything useful, but he knows how to have sex and will give you a nice colt so you can have your very own useless tiny ugly stud who knows how to have sex too! Well sign me up!
First know your horse and what is “normal” and also TRUST your gut. You know your horse best, if something just doesn’t seem right, take vitals and do not hesitate to call your vet. You might end up with an emergency call on your credit card but that sure beats a big vet bill with no horse. I wish people were taught to trust their instinct. It is there for a reason. How many times did you “gut” tell you one thing you didn’t listen? Learn to trust yourself.
Question about watering on long hauls. We are driving from Minneapolis area to Black Hills of SD, 700 miles, in June with our QHs to trail ride. This is the longest haul I’ve done. We take them out on trails 3-4 times per week and they are really good getting on and off the trailer. I found hay bags with many small openings (2 inch squares) so they can’t pull the hay out too fast. But am not sure how to water them. Someone mentioned a sloshing bucket while on the road might freak them out. But how would I know that it was freaking them out? My choices are 1. A small bucket in the trailer. OR 2. Stopping every ? hours to water. This is estimated to be a 10-11 hour haul. Do they need to get out and move? Am wary of off loading them at a rest stop. Someone told me I needed to give them electrolytes b4 a long haul. Yes? No? Any ideas and thoughts are welcome. Just want to get them there in good shape. Thanks.
Stopping every 2-3 hours to water should be fine. Whether or not to unload has a lot to do with (a) how quiet your horses are and (b) if there’s an appropriate place you can stop (like someone’s ranch that you know, or a “horse motel” that will let you stop). I like to unload at least once on a trip that long and walk them out or longe them a bit but if I had any doubts about the horses being quiet/controllable, or about anyone refusing to get back on the trailer, I’d leave them loaded. 20 years ago when I was doing a lot of long hauls, I used to unload at rest stops and longe and graze but I doubt you’d get away with that without a ticket today!
You might want to check if there is a Cabelas store enroute. Most of them have horse corrals behind the store in a quiet area, as well as dump stations, dog kennels and camping allowed, all for free. Just go to Cabelas web site, find the store you might be near and click on store hours and amenities. Most of them have potable water available also. The 2 stores I have been to, South Dakota and Pennsylvania, have the horse corrals in nice quiet areas with a large field next to them.
Oh MY. Please do not unload at a rest stop. I regularly haul horses very long distances : PA to Albuquerque, NM…. PA to Tulsa, OK… PA to FL… FL to Scottsdale, AZ… PA to Saskatchewan, Canada. The general rule that I follow is to lay- over every 12 to 16 hours for 12 hours rest, depending on where the the lay-over spots are around the country and to stop for a half hour rest and water break every six hours. If it is hot out, make it more like 4 hours. So far I have never had a sick horse from hauling. I do also give electrolytes and probiotics the day before hauling and while on the road. I also haul well in advance of any event to be sure that the horses have plenty of time to rest and adjust before asking for any real work from them.
If your horse is stalled and you use a hay net, HANG THEM PROPERLY! It should be hung high and should not be able to swing freely. Don’t tie it loose either or they get it down and get themselves tangled in it. Most of what I find with hay nets is legs getting caught in them which can seriously injure the horse. I did however find a horse one morning dead because it hung itself in the net. Keep them full so they are more concerned about eating than using it as a toy.
Also, don’t let idiots feed your horses even if you haven’t had a day off in 6 months and that person is your only way to get a day off. One guy that worked for us refused to feed at night because unlike the rest of us he had a life… One day we got pissed and made him feed so the rest of us could have some time off. We just had two horses gelded and since needles are a big no no at the track, we use sulfatrim pills as an antibiotic. The pills have to be given at specific times so we told him very slowly to give them 30 pills each and to dilute them in warm water to form a paste to mix into the feed. We even pre counted out the pills for him.
We arrived the next morning to find out he simply took two bottles and dumped a WHOLE bottle for each horse.we frantically called the vet and he said “are they still alive?”"yes”"well if they ate them last night there is nothing I can do now anyway, if they’re still alive and not in pain they’ll be fine”
He was fired over that, and the boss took the cost of each bottle off his last cheque.
Don’t let idiots feed your horses!
Plain old grooming is so beneficial – it is not just to keep their coats clean,& prevent tack/rub sores. If you do a good thorough all-over grooming it will alert you to cuts, sore spots, etc. Thorough means legs(all the way down), face, ears, eyes, under the tail, tailbone, udder, between the cheeks
, etc. All kinds of weird stuff can be hidden by fetlock hair, ear fluff, etc. Consider it inspection. I am not happy until I can run my hands over every spot and not feel any clumps/rough hair areas.
It also is fantastic for bonding & I think the routine before riding/training helps get them in the proper mindset. A good currying is a great massage, good for muscles & yes, it brings up the oils for a shiny happy coat. I love to see the reactions when I hit a sweet spot!
I can -not- just do a light brushing and toss on the saddle. It is almost an OCD thing with me. When I was a kid, if our horses didn’t pass inspection it was back to the barn & you miss half of your riding lesson until they were up to snuff. And believe me you were mortified! I am still pleased with myself when I finish up & I like walking into the arena looking sharp (him at least, by the time he’s clean I am filthy – my boyfriend asks me why I am always the dirtiest person in the barn, but to me that’s a compliment)
Going along with this (taking the time b.f tacking up) and the warm up/cool down, I really don’t think you can go to the barn for a ride or training session and be in a hurry.
Yes, I agree with every point you’ve made. Its great for the horse, and its great for the human soul too…the outside of a horse is great for the inside of a person…its the only thing that helps me keep my resident legion of demons and steaming hot pea-soup vomit at bay.
I could spend just as much time with my horse if I never rode, I think. I have been a thousand times happier/better since I re-entered the horse world for just the reasons you state. I bet the devil hates horses for keeping his business slow.
Why won’t my insurance company cover horse board if they will pay for antidepressants?
I want to add regular dental check-ups to the list. I’m not sure that it keeps the vet away. A horse with eating problems will not hold weight and condition. A horse with a painful mouth will not perform as well. Regular dental work will forestall the time and expense of feeding senior mash.
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned this yet (it might have gotten lost among all the other good advice) but get your horse’s teeth done at least yearly! If you keep up with it, it’s just routine and not that expensive. If they’ve been neglected for several years, it leads to all kinds of expensive problems, from weight loss to bad attitudes under saddle, to weight loss, etc.
Oops, double weight loss!
Loose salt added to feed. Makes them drink more. Salt with feed is less irritating to the stomach.
Down here in Florida, we have nothing but loose, deep, sand in our horse paddocks or other small, well-used, pens. I use psyllium, but there is a debate regarding it’s effectiveness based on a recent study down by University of Florida. The local vets now recommend 2% of a horse’s body weight in grass hay to push the sand out.
Okay. Here’s what I can think of that is not mentioned:
1. Don’t tie up, ever, anywhere, trailer, stall, ANYWHERE without a breakaway. Don’t tie by the reins. If you don’t have a breakaway halter, use a ‘poor man’s breakaway’. Make a loop out of three strands of baling twine, knot it around the tie ring, then tie to that. It will hold if a horse just pulls back, break if it panics or gets stuck.
2. Make sure that you close all gates and doors when you leave the property. Even ones you don’t think a horse can get through. I once knew an eleven hand pony that could climb OVER a standard Dutch door. Over. They had no clue how he was getting out until they caught him red-hooved doing it.
3. Safe fencing! No barbed wire. Cap posts. Straight wire or hot wire must be kept taut. Don’t use sheep mesh…horses don’t respect that stuff and its the perfect gap to trap a hoof.
4. QUARANTINE. New arrivals should NOT be turned out with the herd for at least three weeks, maybe a month. The crappy trainer I learned with never quarantined anything, including horses from livestock auctions. We had respiratory EHV every year and she just said ‘Oh, horses get colds, its normal’.
5. On a similar note. If turning a horse out with new companions, watch them for at least thirty minutes before going away…and be ready to get that horse out of there in case the normal hierarchy arguments turn into dangerous bullying. And, of course, don’t turn horses out together that don’t get on. Avoid stalling them next to each other, too…especially as a horse that can’t get at a neighbor it detests is likely to bite somebody else. Like, say, you.
6. Secure your feed room. Bins should be closed firmly both to keep rodents from getting in and some clever pony from managing to get into the feed room and eat something it shouldn’t. If you have raccoons in the area, padlock…those things can get through anything else and they WILL come into the barn…they have no fear. A friend of mine once had to evict one from her car.
7. Teach your horse that if you get off, ever, no matter what it was doing before, it is to STOP and STAND until you come back. It can be done, and then if you fall off on a trail ride, the horse won’t run back towards the barn and likely wind up on the road.
8. If you turn out at night, consider a turnout sheet with fluorescent strips on it…that way if the horse gets onto the road, drivers will have a better chance of seeing it. (In foggy areas, its a good idea to turn out grey or otherwise mostly white horses with a dark sheet on them). In a related note, padlock your pasture gate whenever there are horses out there. (Stalls should never be padlocked because of fire risk). You don’t want somebody going ‘Ooh, pretty horses’, coming into your field and…leaving the gate open. I know people that’s happened to. If your field has a pedestrian right of way through it, which is not uncommon in England, style both access points so people aren’t as tempted to try and open the gate.
9. Don’t allow anyone to feed your horse unapproved treats…if you have a barn where people come in and somebody asks, either say no, or check what they have, or give them something the horse can have. People will feed the oddest things to horses.
I THINK that is everything.
All of those are great suggestions – things that will definitely save someone a LOT of money!
Tying by the reins makes me crrrraaaaaazzzzzy when I see it.
That reminds me of an argument my mom and I have every once it awhile…
If you’re riding in a western saddle (or anything with a saddle horn) and you need to get off momentarily for whatever reason, is it bad to hook the reins over the saddle horn?
I’m talking about horses who know to stand still when the rider is on the ground, and being off only long enough to tie your shoes, open a gate, refill your water bottle, whatever. You may or may not be staying within immediate sight of the horse. For example, mom and I did this yesterday when we riding and decided to trade horses.
I think it is BAD to hook your reins because if the horse puts his head down and feels that pull on the reins, he could panic, or hurt his mouth, etc. But mom thinks it’s a good idea to keep your reins from sliding off of their neck, where they could get stepped on.
What are everyone’s thoughts on this?
I will go with Mom on this; however, obviously, not letting go of them at all is the safest.
The one time I did serious western, the guide told us to hook the reins. We were using split reins, so there really…honestly, it makes sense to me. If there’s a real problem, they’re leather, they WILL break if needed and there’s a lot less chance of an injury or damage to your tack from them being hooked than from the horse stepping on them.
I have to comment on #1 on your list… a girl braiding for us tied our mare to a stall door without using binder twine, just tying to the bars (of course, she should not have been tied at all considering her history with cross ties), and when the mare pulled back she took the stall door off its hinges and took off down the barn aisle with a door attached to her halter. Luckily she’s a tough mare!
Very dangerous-do not EVER tie a horse to a sliding stall door. I was almost killed when someone did this in a barn I was working at.
All of my horses are allowed to eat while we are trail riding. We stop periodically to let them have a few bites, and then we’re off again. I’ve never seen a horse choke as a result of eating with a bit in its mouth, but I suppose it could happen. I’m a non-bit person as it is; I ride all of our horses in a hackamore, halter, or sidepull. I do own bits and bridles, and the horses are all trained to respond to a snaffle, but I always ride without a bit. This includes the rescues, the bucker, the green ones and the OTTBs. Most of the people I ride with who use bits do it “to control the horse”, but having control over an animal that outweighs you by at least 800 pounds is all about training and respect, not mechanical gadgets.
I try to make life fun for my horses. They get to eat on rides, run, see new things…they are jealous when the other horses go out and they stay home. They also get upset when their friends go someplace in the trailer but they have to stay behind. Eating isn’t a problem as long as the horse doesn’t try to stop every 10 feet to grab some grass.
Yeah, I am a non-bit person myself when possible. If I’m just going on a trail ride, why would I put a bit in the mouth? The bit needs to be there for collected work, for the show ring – not for fun stuff on a loose rein.
If you don’t have control without a bit, you’re fooling yourself if you think you have control with it. Horses can run through anything when they want to!
I think my biggest thing would be to know your horse, know what is normal and be able to pick up any difference – a small change in behaviour can be an early warning of something like a colic, and if you think there is something wrong, at the very least phone and speak to the vet for advice. For example my cob mare regularily drinks up to 80 litres a day, because she did this when I got her she had bloods done and there’s nothing abnormal so it’s just her, but a horse who normally only drank 30-40l this would be an indication of something wrong.
Off Topic, but have you all seen this blog?
http://disturbingequines.blogspot.com
Absolutely hilarious!
Not sure if this belongs here as it’s not going to avoid a vet bill (but may avoid a larger vet bill and a lot of pain/permanent damage for your horse).
I would say ALWAYS call a vet if your horse’s eye is red, swollen or tearing, ESPECIALLY if your horse is an Appaloosa.
Many years ago when I had a horse, I boarded, and one evening I happened to be driving in the area and decided to stop by and see my horse (just want to clarify that I normally wouldn’t just drop by someone else’s property after dark, but, I knew the owner’s were going out that evening and wouldn’t be home yet). When I got there her eye was red, swollen and tearing and was obviously painful. I took her out, rinsed it well and put some antibiotic opthalmic ointment in it and she seemed a lot better (I also want to add that I had been over there earlier that same day and she was fine).
The next morning I called the owners from work and told them and asked if they had noticed how her eye was. They hadn’t noticed anything, but went out again to double check, said her eyes looked fine. I called the vet anyway and made an appointment for after work. At this point I just assumed she had gotten something in her eye (she always shoved her whole head into the hay) and just wanted to make sure she hadn’t scratched her cornea or something. The vet diagnosed Periodic Opthalmia (I guess it’s called Uveitis now). I had heard of it, but NEVER even considered that could be the problem, also didn’t know Appaloosas are predisposed to the condition (more so than other breeds).
NEVER take a chance with your horse’s eyes, and if you board make sure whoever takes care of your horse gives them the “once over” every day (take off the fly mask and check).
Off topic request for my readers who show stock breed horses
I need some recommendations for hunt bridles that:
(a) have an oversized browband to accommodate a classic QH head type and big cheekbones
(b) have reins long enough to allow a large, long necked horse to travel long and low on a loose rein
I bought a HDR horse size hunt bridle and it fits great in the cheekpieces and cavesson but I need a longer browband, his ears are getting pinched, and the reins are nowhere near long enough. I can’t seem to find individual parts of HDR bridles to buy so I may have to start from scratch with a new bridle.
Recommendations?
My horse is a darn moose. I’m sending back the mecate reins today because they’re not long enough, either…
Did you try justbridles.com? They sell bridles by the part.
Wow…looking at this list makes me really think about the stable I use to ride at and how much they did wrong!
1. Daily turnout…I don’t think those horses went out all that much, especially the lesson horses. Maybe once in a great while…
2. Fresh, clean water. Sure, if you count it from the slimy, algae-coated waterer that Fugly was talking about. I wouldn’t drink from that either. Yuck…
3. Warm-up/Cool-down. Varied. My trainer told me to walk my horse half-way around the arena, then mount, then walk around the arena twice while I demonstrated jump-position, how to hold my hands, etc. Other trainers wouldn’t even do that!
4. Footing was okay, as the indoor arena was covered in very fine dirt. I have no idea what it was, but it didn’t seem too bad…
5. I honestly don’t know what they did to keep those horses in condition (lesson-horses). They were fed at the same time as the other horses and had the same watering system as the other horses, but they always had a saddle on whenever I came in after school and it wouldn’t get taken off until the last lesson. Like I said before, I never really saw them out in the paddocks all that much, either.
6. Not anything I know about with them. xD
7. They definitely didn’t do that. The lesson horses only got a quick brush down then the saddle was put on them. Some of the other horses there were boarded, so that was up to the owners to do that, not them. I don’t remember how many horses were actually owned by the stable owner, but there were a lot of horses that just sat in their stalls (from what I saw, mind you).
8. Didn’t do that either. They’d throw the feed in the bin, then the hay in the straw and move on to the next horse. That’s a little terrifying to me. They never hung the hay up in a net (except for one mare who had a foal with her, then they put it in a one of those giant containers). I was twelve years old and knew that you shouldn’t do that. What the heck?
9. Yesh…I could name tons of issues that stable had and they usually fixed it with quick fixes. For example, the stalls had wires instead of bars for windows. One horse liked to stick his nose through the opening where they could put the feed in without opening the stall and one day there was a lot of traffic in the area (he especially liked to stick his nose out for attention when people came past) and he ended up getting the wire undone from the bottom. I came in the next day and it was still the same.
10. Another thing varying with the trainers…
11. Shoeing was something they handled. I did see a farrier come in a couple of times and he told us that my horse shouldn’t have shoes on his back hooves (and I can’t remember his reasoning for saying so).
What’s funny is the fact that this particular stable offered lessons and boarding (obviously), bred and sold horses of different breeds (one being an American Warmblood, which I’ve never heard of), offered camps, parties, etc. The owner had won a competition of some sort (apparently, last year she had 14 points in USEF dressage competition). Perhaps I am wrong in thinking that this stable is not considered quality?
I don’t think you’re wrong, LOL.
Pretty much sounds like where I learned to ride. Everything’s a learning experience – sometimes what you learn is what NOT to do!
I have a 12 year old warmblood cross and I’m very fortunate to have kept him sound so far (he’s my first horse). He’s in pasture 24/7, so he gets to walk around all day. We walk a bunch in the arena before the workout, followed by a slow stretching trot before we go on the bit to work. I judge how long to work him based on his sweat and breath, some days he gets more tired than others. One of the big things I’ve started doing is leg and carrot stretches to limber him up before and after workout. He also gets glucosamine shots every other week, and it seems to keep his joints feeling good.
I have to laugh at this one today! Our guys always have good food and clean water, they actually get city water from the house instead of well water. This spring I found them drinking out of a poopy puddle 10 feet away from the “nice fresh clean stuff’ and scrounging around in the straw near the full hay feeder…
silly horses
1. Sheathe and udder cleaning. Every three months, please. You should learn how to do it, if you can’t afford the vet to sedate and perform the service. A dirty sheathe, in particular, can cause major infections.
It’s like having sand in your underwear 24/7. It can drive any horse to near-insanity. They may rub on fences. Some horses get so blocked, they can’t urinate properly. This leads to kidney and bladder infections. I read of one case where a horse rubbed his penis to rawness & infection on a tree stump—this is not normal masturbating (yeah, if you’ve had a stallion, you know some DO). When you clean, make sure you get the “bean.” That’s the solidified urine stuck inside the penile entrance.
2. For hard keepers or horses in training: add a quarter cup of corn oil to their feed. If the cause of thinness is not worms or an illness, you’ll see added weight and a glossier coat very quickly. Works better than some of the expensive supplements. In rare cases, your horse may be allergic. You’ll see hives. In that case, cut out the corn oil.
One of my biggest pet peaves is trailering safely…..Its not a drag race! If you can go from 0-60 and make hairpin turns while pulling a horse trailer, please oh please, at least inform the folks that might be unfortunate enough to have their horses in the trailer with yours. I was the very unfortunate person to be in the vehicle with said driver. Needless to say it ruined my horse from EVER AGAIN being trailered in a 2 horse straight load trailer. Once was all it took for him to climb the walls if he was loaded in a straight load trailer. Also on that same note, if you are following somebody pulling a trailer leave enough room for sudden stops/emergency situations. I certainly dont want to go to jail for beating the living dog snot out of you for hitting my trailer with my horses in it….
You just described why a lot of horses don’t want to load…and the morons driving them will NEVER figure it out!
I heard one tragic story along that line on one forum or another. A woman was driving a horsetrailer slowly around some curves with her horse inside. A woman in a smaller car tried to pass and ended up dying the in multiple car accident she caused. One of the bystanders told the driver of the horsetrailer that the accident would not have happened if she’d driven like a ‘normal’ person. Isn’t that heartbreaking? I feel that all too often people being careful and doing what is right are blamed for stupidity.
You know what, I hope that lady and her horses were fine, and the small car driver wins the Darwin Award.
Good grief people – are you going to accept your Oscar award? NO. You do not need to pass THAT badly.
I believe you must never stop learning. I adjust my horses’ feed daily (in small amounts – duh) based on how they look that day, what they did, and what they will be doing tomorrow. As a polo groom, GET YOUR HORSE FIT! I take 3 months to get a horse fit for polo (low goal). Never have I had any type of non-impact (crash) related injury in my horses. As a farrier, GET YOUR HORSE FIT! Most lameness issues (about 85-90%) are from the knee/hock joints down. Almost all tendon issues (which is about all you have below the knee and hock) are due to fatigue. Yeah, you have the odd issues of angular limb deformity, or not having the horse trimmed – ever, or having the shoes replaced every 4 months (gee, can’t imagine she bowed her tendon. What a shocker!) Get your horse fit slowly. They will thank you and last a lot longer for it.
I grew up in polo, and it gives you an education about conditioning that you realize later most people don’t get. There’s a reason we can and do keep them sound to play an entire season!