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
Horses and pets not forgotten in Fort McMurray rescue effort
There was an overwhelming effort to rescue and care for horses and pets in the wake of the devastating fire
Reading Time: 4 minutes The outpouring of support for people displaced by the Fort McMurray wildfire was overwhelming — and so was the effort to rescue and care for horses from the area. Krista Critch was one of many volunteers who dropped everything to help save horses and pets at the height of the crisis. She had driven up […] Read more
Mane Event riding high as it celebrates 10th anniversary
The country’s largest horse expo features a host of equine experts, a chance to win a blue roan filly, and an expanded Trainer’s Challenge
Reading Time: 4 minutes For those who work with horses, learning is indeed a lifelong journey. Ten years ago, Gail and Ron Barker made education the cornerstone of a program they brought to Red Deer. The Mane Event, which takes place April 21-24 at Westerner Park, will mark the anniversary by getting even bigger. “For our 10th year, we […] 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
4-H forum for equine project leaders
Equine Leaders’ Forum will be held in Westerose on Feb. 5-7
Reading Time: < 1 minute The Equine Leaders’ Forum will be held at the Alberta 4-H Centre and Lakedell Arena in Westerose on Feb. 5-7. The forum features sessions and speakers to assist equine project leaders working with 4-H project members. This year’s schedule will include an equine project roundtable discussion, where you’ll meet new counterparts and swap ideas. Sessions […] Read more
More and more people falling for the gentle giants
Reading Time: 3 minutes They’re the heavyweights of horses, but their beauty and their brawn has kept them relevant in the ever-changing world around them. Draft horses, whose value was recognized by even Julius Caesar, continue to turn heads and generate business opportunities in the 21st century. A young central Alberta couple is among those farmers who see a […] Read more
Bright future ahead for equine icons
Reading Time: 1 minute They’ve got a rich past, but draft horses also have a bright future. And that was plain to see at the recent World Clydesdale Show, said Bruce Roy. “It blew me out of the water,” said the Cremona horseman. “It was the greatest livestock show I’ve ever been to. Spectators had to be turned away […] 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
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
Horses can have allergic reactions, know the symptoms
Horse Health: There are multiple triggers that can cause either skin or respiratory reaction
Reading Time: 3 minutes Horses, just like humans, can and do get allergies. Although allergies in horses are not fully understood, we do know that the root cause lies in the immune system. The body becomes hypersensitive and appears to “overreact” to seemingly innocuous substances called allergens. Histamine, a naturally occurring hormone in the body, reaches overly high levels, […] Read more
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