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
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
What to expect when your horse is expecting
Horse Health: The majority of mares foals between dusk and dawn
Foaling is a remarkable process that few owners witness. They usually arrive to discover a healthy foal having already nursed and easily following alongside its dam. An uneventful foaling and a vigorous newborn foal are the natural outcome of a healthy mare with an excellent nutritional program and opportunity for plenty of movement. The duration
Preventing or repairing ‘proud flesh’ on horses
Horse Health: Proper management from the outset is important in avoiding its appearance, especially on lower limbs
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,
Injuries to coronary band need extra TLC
Horse Health: Coronary band injuries commonly occur when trailering horses
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
Lice and ticks and horses
Horse Health: Horses that have stressed immune systems are more vulnerable
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
Biosecurity practices for horses
Horse Health: Infectious organisms are effective 'hitchhikers' so avoid sharing water buckets and equipment at shows
Biosecurity measures do not need to be complicated or expensive undertakings to be effective. In fact the simplest of practices can make the most difference. Infectious and contagious diseases are not random events, rather the disease requires a chain of events to manifest — like the perfect storm. The viral, bacterial, parasitic or fungal pathogens
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
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
A dirty job on horses that doesn’t need doing
Horse Health: Routine sheath cleaning is unnecessary for most male horses
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
Demystifying equine lameness
Horse Health: Overtraining young horses can set the stage for lameness issues later in life
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
Understanding and controlling the risk of EIA
Horse Health: Horses that test positive must be euthanized or quarantined for life
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
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