Reading Time: 3 minutes The grazing muzzle is a simple, effective, and sensible tool caretakers can use to manage the grass intake of their horses. The grazing muzzle is a basket-like contraption — a piece of headgear a horse wears with the intention of slowing down and reducing grass intake on pasture. The horse wearing the muzzle can breathe […] Read more
Management strategies for using grazing muzzles
Horse Health: Grass consumption can be reduced by 30 to 80 per cent depending on the horse or pony wearing one
Preventing or repairing ‘proud flesh’ on horse wounds
Horse Health: Proper management from the onset is important in avoiding its appearance, especially on lower limbs
Reading Time: 3 minutes Nature has a way of healing wounds in horses and for the most part, has a remarkable inherent ability to return the skin to its original state. However, horses, more so than any other species, tend to be particularly prone to a troublesome complication of wound healing referred to as ‘proud flesh.’ Whenever it appears, […] Read more
Injuries to coronary band need extra TLC
Horse Health: Coronary band injuries commonly occur when trailering horses
Reading Time: 3 minutes Through their lifetime horses can accumulate a number of injuries — cuts, scrapes, scratches and bruises. Most locations on the horse’s body are fairly forgiving of such injuries, however there are a few sites on the body where added vigilance is necessary to ensure a favourable outcome. An injury to an eye or a joint […] Read more
Lice and ticks and horses
Horse Health: Horses that have stressed immune systems are more vulnerable
Reading Time: 3 minutes Lice and ticks are unwelcome guests on horses and donkeys, taking up residence in the warmth of their thick winter coats with peak infestations occurring during the late winter and early spring. Horses infested with lice are intensely itchy, and often the first sign of trouble is a tattered hair coat — or perhaps extra […] Read more
Winter is the ideal season for healthy weight loss in horses
Horse Health: Hay nets are a good way to prevent horses from overfeeding during the colder months
Reading Time: 3 minutes Is your horse carrying too much weight? The answer to this question is an important order of business, and best asked at the beginning of the winter season. If the answer to this question is yes then the winter season is the ideal time to implement intervention. Weight loss is far easier in the colder […] Read more
New study says this job doesn’t need doing
Horse Health: Routine sheath cleaning is unnecessary for most male horses
Reading Time: 3 minutes Sheath-cleaning enthusiasts present a sensible argument for addressing the hygiene of their male horse. Yet a new study presented in Denmark has shown routine/regular cleaning of a horse’s sheath to not only be unnecessary, but disruptive to the healthy populations of “friendly” micrograms that call this location “home.” The sheath surrounding the penis, also called […] Read more
Demystifying equine lameness
Horse Health: Overtraining young horses can set the stage for lameness issues later in life
Reading Time: 3 minutes Lameness has become somewhat of a catch-all term for a broad spectrum of abnormalities in a horse’s movement caused by pain or reduced motion. Though often thought of as a problem of the feet or legs, the roots of many lamenesses are now being discovered to originate elsewhere. These discoveries are important since horse owners […] Read more
Understanding and controlling the risk of swamp fever
Horses that test positive must be euthanized or quarantined for life
Reading Time: 4 minutes The recent increase in confirmed cases of equine infectious anemia (EIA), also known as swamp fever, in Alberta is a reminder to horse owners that this disease maintains a constant presence in equine populations. Often evidence for infection is noted only after routine surveillance testing for EIA. EIA is a blood-borne and potentially fatal viral […] Read more
Aging horses by their teeth
Horse Health: A method of determining the age of horses by the wear on their teeth has been widely accepted for 130 years
Reading Time: 3 minutes In 1885, Sydney Galvayne published a book in Glasgow outlining a system which claimed to accurately age horses by identifying distinct features of wear on the teeth. Galvayne’s treatise became widely accepted and uncontested amongst horsemen for over a century. The Galvayne name even became memorialized when a distinct groove which travels down the side […] Read more
Bringing the advantages of hydrotherapy to your horse
Horse Health: A soothing and therapeutic relief when dealing with wounds or injuries
Reading Time: 3 minutes One of the most valuable allies in the “doctor’s” kit of every horseman ought to be water — simple, soothing, inexpensive, and most often readily available. The application of water, a.k.a. hydrotherapy, to encourage healing brings plenty of advantages in many equine injuries. In spite of the many advancements in veterinary medicine, hydrotherapy remains a […] Read more