By Juliet M. Getty, Ph.D.
Stress = Obesity. That’s right. Stress is keeping your horse fat. And the main source of stress for most horses? Restricting forage. The very thing most people do to try to help their horse lose weight actually causes the same stress reaction that brings about body fat retention, and all its attendant problems.
I cannot emphasize this enough
Here are the physiological facts—they are indisputable: The horse is a trickle feeder. He’s a grazing animal designed to chew all day long. His chewing produces saliva, which neutralizes the acid that’s continually flowing in his stomach. Your stomach produces acid only when you eat; your horse’s stomach produces acid constantly, even when the stomach is empty (you see where I am going with this—his stomach should never be empty!). He also needs forage flowing through his digestive tract to exercise those muscles; otherwise the muscles get flabby, which can bring on colic from a weak intestinal tract that torques and intussuscepts. Furthermore, the cecum (hindgut) contains the bacteria responsible for digesting fiber from forage. But its exit and entrance are both at the top! In order for digested material to be pushed to the top, the cecum must be full. Otherwise colic can result from material left at the bottom.
A horse that doesn’t have anything to eat will chew on whatever he can—fences, trees, even his own manure. It’s pitiful to see. Chewing on non-feedstuffs makes a horse mentally acutely uncomfortable because it goes against his instincts, but physically he is in pain and attempting to resolve it. Discomfort? Pain? Stress! And he’s stoic about it. You might look at him and say, “Well, he’s calm.” Sure, he may look that way but it’s an ingrained survival mechanism for horses that are in pain to hide it. In the wild, a horse that shows that he’s uncomfortable often gets left behind by the herd to fend for himself against predators. So anatomically and psychologically, the horse has evolved to deal with pain by simply bearing it. Even the pain of an empty stomach.
What happens when you bring this horse some hay? Against the fear of future deprivation and to relieve his stomach discomfort, he inhales it. Then he waits again for his next meal, even while the acid resumes bathing his empty stomach. And it’s not only the stomach that is affected. The acid can also damage the entire gastrointestinal tract, even making it all the way down to the hindgut. It can lead to colic and it can lead to laminitis.
I have seen hundreds of cases of horses suffering a laminitis relapse through being placed on a restrictive diet. Here’s the scenario: The horse is overweight (maybe even develops laminitis). The well-intentioned veterinarian tells the horse owner, “Put your horse in a dry lot and feed him only a little bit of hay, maybe about 1.5% of his body weight. Give several small hay meals a day, only.” And the rest of the time the horse stands there with an empty stomach. The well-intentioned veterinarian has just given the well-intentioned horse owner the worst possible advice because the stress of that leads to cortisol increase, which causes insulin to rise, and when insulin rises you have laminitis—new, recurrent or chronic. This happens over and over again; it is the unfortunate “conventional wisdom” of the horse industry.
I adamantly protest—this practice is not based on sound science.
When a horse does lose weight through severe restriction, his metabolic rate slows down so dramatically that he can’t process a larger amount of food without gaining back all the lost weight and more when he returns to eating normally. The most likely next outcome is a laminitis attack.
First, make sure what the horse is eating is low in NSC and low in calories. Once you know that it’s safe, then give your horse all he wants to eat 24/7, and never, ever let him run out—not even for 10 minutes. Very soon, your horse will eat only what he needs. Yes, at first he may overeat because he’s so excited, but once he realizes he can walk away and come back and figure out it’s no big deal—saying to himself the equivalent of “Yeah, yeah, it’s still there”—he will relax. Perceived starvation is no longer a threat and so his hormones start to calm down. His insulin level starts to drop. His body fat starts to be burned for energy rather than being held onto; his body also responds to the hormone, leptin, which tells him he is no longer hungry. He starts to lose weight, and lo and behold, he actually eats less than he did originally because when he has all that he wants, he knows how much he actually needs. Give him a chance to self regulate. A horse whose system is in healthy balance will not naturally overeat. Give him a chance to tell you what he needs.
Forget the drastically reduced diet. I have seen this horrible damaging protocol again and again. I understand—it is difficult for horse owners to accept anything else. I am not arguing against restricting calories. Of course you have to do that, but you need to do it by giving a low calorie, low sugar/starch hay.
Exercise decreases insulin resistance. It also builds or helps protect muscle mass (which is metabolically more active) and certainly it directly burns calories which helps your horse lose weight.
Here’s an analogy: If I told you that you could lose weight by eating all the chocolate cake and ice cream you wanted and lolling around in a lounge chair all day, you would say that’s impossible—even ridiculous—and you’d be right. But if I said that you could lose weight if you chose to eat a lot of low calorie food—if you ate your fill of a variety of vegetables, for example—and got a reasonable amount of exercise, you would think that made sense.
That’s what I’m telling you to do with your horse
Let him eat low calorie foods, all he wants, because that’s what he needs. Help him move around. You get the picture—I hope it makes sense now.
This article originally appeared on Getty Equine Nutrition and is published here with permission.
Find more informative articles in our section on Health & Education.
by Nikki Alvin-Smith for Horizon Structures
Brutally cold or extremely hot temperatures and inclement weather conditions can inflict great suffering on horses that are left to their own devices in an open pasture.
Brutally cold or extremely hot temperatures and inclement weather conditions can inflict great suffering on horses that are left to their own devices in an open pasture. However well hayed-up and warm watered the equine is kept in tempestuous winter storms and however hydrated and shaded a horse is managed in burning heatwaves, their well-being is dependent on more than these precautions to keep them in good health.
Horse caregivers are often quick to defend their horse care practices where a lack of understanding and education persist as to the actuality of how horses manage in the wild or how they suffer as a result of their inability to choose their own environment.
Consider the ever-present conflicts and conversations about whether a horse should be blanketed and if so at what temperature or humidity level, or the advertisements touting what shampoos can assuage discoloration of a pristine black equine coat or product can protect a gray horse from melanoma as good examples of issues related to horse care in certain types of weather.
There are many good reasons not to brave the weather when it comes to horse care, and these are just a few.
If you’ve ever lived in Wyoming or Montana and other regions where arctic air breezes in each year with the subtlety of the interest a mare in season shows in a stallion, then you’ve seen the results of frostbite on the stubby eared equines that showcase their exposure to Mother Nature’s wrath.
For those of us with experience in the world of horse breeding we know just how fast a foal or weanling can become dehydrated or chilled despite their otherwise apparent good health due to extremes of temperature and exposure to sun and rain. Elderly equine statesmen are similar to the youngstock in that their temperature regulation is not in full operation working to ideal capacity so also similarly to their junior counterparts they are at risk for health issues caused by severe weather (be it hot or cold).
A horse that is not in good health will also be more susceptible to disease and illness when subjected to extreme weather. Huge variances in the weather can also induce existing health problems to escalate or begin a cycle of harm to a horse that makes it at higher risk for similar health issues to occur in the future.
Horses that ‘go to the doctor’ aren’t given a written warning the way a human receives information, that the doxycycline they’ve been prescribed to treat Anaplasmosis or Lyme disease can cause them eye damage if they don’t protect their eyes from the glare of the blinding sun that reflects off snow or water. The Equus is painfully unaware (or will be) that liver damage may result from too much exposure to the sun’s rays when taking certain drugs. Indeed often, the horse caregivers themselves are blind to the side effects of medicines prescribed or over the counter remedies that can be purchased for treatment of equine maladies.
The provision of a permanent form of shelter (not seasonal hedgerows or tree canopies) is always a good start to providing protection from the elements for horses at pasture.
While the horses have the opportunity to choose between being under cover of its roof or standing in the pasture the reality is the equine resident does not always make the smart decision. Like naughty children they sometimes do the complete opposite of what we expect them to do. Instead of seeking shade from the midday sun, they will stand next to the cooling effect of the water trough with their heads hanging low over the water surface catching sunburn on their white or pink noses. In the blasts of a Nor’easter they will stubbornly stand by the gate knee deep in mud rather than huddle up in the back of the run-in shed.
A run-in shed can provide a good temporary solution to providing some kind of shelter from the weather for horses that may be recently moved to a property without a barn or some form of enclosure suitable for their occupation.
But sadly, no, sometimes the run-in shed is not enough to provide the shelter needed in extreme weather conditions. Its 3-sided protection cannot abate whipping winds that bring wind chills to minus double digits of -30 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. While the horse’s long neck will help protect its lungs from the damage of the bitter cold air, the extremities of the horse are exposed and subject to frostbite.
Horses do not innately know that the sun’s rays are bad for them when they are taking certain medications or have a genetic make-up that makes them prone to health problems. A gray horse or an equine genetically at high risk for skin cancers will not know it needs to stay out of the sun to minimize its likelihood of developing the disease.
Ironically a gray horse has a more reflective coat to protect it from heat than a black horse, and a darker colored horse suffers more from flies and other insect attraction than a gray horse. Color of the coat, weight, condition, and breed of the horse, all affect the individual horse’s ability to weather the weather. Horses often simply don’t have the choice to make the right decision for their individual needs, even if they innately figure out the best solution to a problem they are experiencing such overheating or they are wet and cold.
There is an audible sigh of relief heard from most horse caregivers when their herd is safely shepherded into the warmth of well-bedded stalls during horrid weather or rescued from the incessant activities of biting flies and ensconced in cool, shady stables.
A barn offers the horse a respite from extremes of weather, but it also serves a valuable purpose as a hospital bed or an examination room.
The horse barn offers a retreat for the Equus suffering from too much herd interaction and can mitigate its ability to overindulge on sugary short green pastures of Fall and the rich spiking grass of Spring. In times of extreme human behavior, such as neighbors setting off celebratory fireworks, the barn can also become a much-appreciated refuge and safe harbor for the noise sensitive equine.
The benefits of being able to shelter from adverse weather in the barn is also important for the human contingent on the farm.
Styles and designs of barns come in all shapes and sizes. The array of options comes with a variety of price points, and the availability of modern-day modular barns makes the ownership of a horse barn something that can be undertaken in an almost ‘instant’ way.
The most inexpensive barn designs that can offer confinement of a horse is a shedrow design. The addition of an overhang can help protect the interior from driving winds and rain over Dutch doors, and shedrow designs are easy to add to if extra stalls are needed down the road. The more expensive high profile center aisle barn design is at the top of the price range with high end timber frame models being the crème de crème when it comes to horse barn style.
There are many options in-between these designs that offer pros and cons of each and where the property is sited, and its climate and environment should factor into the decision.
For example, a shedrow design may be perfectly suited to a temperate environment such as the mid-Atlantic seaboard, but its limitations will be felt if placed in the snowy regions of Maine or Montana where persistent plowing out to access each stall space during blizzard conditions will be needed and the lack of protection from bitter winter winds will be evident.
For large herds of horses, it is commonplace to provide a big indoor structure such as a cowshed or machine shed where the horses can be gathered together in during poor weather. Wherever animals gather together their bodies will produce a good source of heat, and livestock sheds and buildings can provide a reasonable solution as a safe harbor for a horse herd during severe weather.
Consider the interior of the building and its substructure when housing horses in large metal buildings, and also its passive or mechanical ventilation. Horses are not cows and are much more likely to roll next to a tin wall or kick out at a compatriot equine and errant hoof placement through a metal siding is a recipe for disaster.
In terms of fresh air, a horse’s respiratory system will benefit from good ventilation wherever it lives. Shutting out the wrath of winter may be necessary for short periods but overall a horse will do better health wise with access to plenty of fresh air and light.
An enclosed barn stall is an open plan dining/living room and bathroom for the horse, and yes, as such it does require more horsey housework. It also requires a capital investment. Nonetheless, owning one is a capital idea. You’ll never regret it. And don’t forget, what’s good for the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a human.
This article originally appeared on Horizon Structures and is published here with permission.
You can find more informative articles in our section on Tack & Farm.
Dr. Janet Beeler-Marfisi
There’s nothing like hearing a horse cough to set people scurrying around the barn to identify the culprit. After all, that cough could mean choke, or a respiratory virus has found its way into the barn. It could also indicate equine asthma. Yes, even those “everyday coughs” that we sometimes dismiss as “summer cough” or “hay cough” are a wake-up call to the potential for severe equine asthma.
Formerly known as heaves, broken wind, emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or recurrent airway obstruction (RAO), this respiratory condition is now called severe equine asthma (sEA). These names reflect how our scientific and medical understanding of this debilitating disease has changed over the years. We now consider heaves to be most comparable to severe asthma in people.
But what if your horse only coughs during or after exercise? This type of cough can mean that they have upper airway irritation (think throat and windpipe) or lower airway inflammation (think lungs) meaning inflammatory airway disease (IAD) – which is now known as mild-to-moderate equine asthma (mEA). This airway disease is similar to childhood asthma, including that it can go away on its own. However, it is still very important to call your veterinarian out to diagnose mEA. This disease causes reduced athletic performance and there are different subtypes of mEA that benefit from specific medical therapies. In some cases, mEA progresses to sEA.
A lot, it turns out. Poor air quality, or air pollution, includes the barn dusts – the allergens and molds in hay and the ground up bacteria in manure – as well as arena dusts and ammonia from urine. Also, very importantly for both people and horses, air pollution can be from gas and diesel-powered equipment. This includes equipment being driven through the barn, the truck left idling by a stall window, or the smog from even a small city that drifts nearly invisibly over the surrounding farmland. Recently, forest-fire smoke is another serious contributor to air pollution.
Smog causes the lung inflammation associated with mEA. Therefore, it is also likely that air pollution from engines and from forest fires will also trigger asthma attacks in horses with sEA. Smog and smoke contain many harmful particulates and gasses, but very importantly they also contain fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5. The 2.5 refers to the diameter of the particle being 2.5 microns. That’s roughly 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Because it is so small, this fine particulate is inhaled deeply into the lungs where it crosses over into the blood stream. So, not only does PM2.5 cause lung disease, but it also causes inflammation elsewhere in the body including the heart. Worldwide, even short-term exposure is associated with an increased risk of premature death from heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. This PM2.5 stuff is not trivial!
In horses, we know that PM2.5 causes mEA, so it’s logical that smog and forest-fire smoke exposure should cause exacerbation of asthma in horses, but we don’t know about heart disease or risk of premature death.
Equine asthma manifests with a spectrum of symptoms that vary in severity and degree of debilitation they cause. Just like in people with asthma, the airways of horses with mEA and sEA are “hyperreactive”. This means that the asthmatic horse’s airways are extra sensitive to barn dusts that another horse’s lungs would just “ignore”. The asthmatic horse’s airways constrict, or become narrower, in response to these dusts. This narrowing means it’s harder to get air in and out of the lungs. Think about drinking through a straw. You can drink faster with a wider straw than a skinnier one. It’s the same with air and the airways. In horses with mEA the narrowing is mild. In horses with sEA the constriction is extreme and is the reason why they develop the “heaves line” – they have to use their abdominal muscles to help squeeze their lungs to force the air back out of their narrow airways. They also develop flaring of their nostrils at rest to make their upper airway wider to get more air in. Horses with mEA do not develop a heaves line, but the airway narrowing and inflammation do cause reduced athletic ability.
The major signs of mEA are coughing during or just after exercise that has been going on for at least a month, and decreased athletic performance. In some cases, there may also be white or watery nasal discharge particularly after exercise. Often, the signs of mEA are subtle and require a very astute owner, trainer, groom, or rider to recognize them.
Another very obvious feature of horses with sEA is their persistent hacking cough, which worsens in dusty conditions. Hello dusty hay, arena, and track! The cough develops because of airway hyper-reactivity and because of inflammation and excess mucus in the airways. Mucus is the normal response of the lung to the presence of inhaled tiny particles or other irritants. Mucus traps these noxious substances so they can be coughed out, which protects the lung. But if an asthma-prone horse is constantly exposed to a dusty environment it leads to chronic inflammation and mucus accumulation, and the development or worsening of asthma – along with that characteristic cough.
Dr Janet Beeler-Marfisi listening to a horse's lungs assisted by a "rebreathing" bag Veterinarians use a combination of the information you tell them, their observation of the horse and the barn, and a careful physical and respiratory examination that often involves “rebreathing”. This is a technique where a bag is briefly placed over the horse’s nose causing them to breathe more frequently and more deeply to make their lung sounds louder. This helps your veterinarian hear subtle changes in air movement through the lungs and amplifies the wheezes and crackles that characterize a horse experiencing a severe asthma attack. Wheezes indicate air “whistling” through constricted airways, and crackles mean airway fluid buildup. The fluid accumulation is caused by airway inflammation and contributes to the challenge of getting air into the lung.
Other tests your veterinarian might use are endoscopy, bronchoalveolar lavage, and in the specialist setting, pulmonary function testing. They will also perform a complete blood count and biochemical profile assay to help rule out the presence of an infectious disease.
Endoscopy allows your veterinarian to see the mucus in the trachea and large airways of the lung. It also lets them see whether there are physical changes to the shape of the airways, which can be seen in horses with sEA.
Bronchoalveolar lavage, or “lung wash” is how your veterinarian assesses whether there is an accumulation of mucus and inflammatory cells in the smallest airways that are too deep in the lung to be seen using the endoscope. Examining lung wash fluid is a very important way to differentiate between the different types of mEA, between sEA in remission and an active asthma attack, and conditions like pneumonia or a viral lung infection.
Finally, if your veterinarian is from a specialty practice or a veterinary teaching hospital, they might also perform pulmonary function testing. This allows your veterinarian to determine if your horse’s lungs have hyper-reactive airways (the hallmark of asthma), lung stiffening, and a reduced ability to breathe properly.
Results from these tests are crucial to understanding the severity and prognosis of the condition. As noted earlier, mEA can go away on its own but medical intervention may speed healing and return to athletic performance. With sEA, remission from an asthmatic flare is the best we can achieve. As the disease gets worse over time, eventually the affected horse may need to be euthanized.
Successful treatment of mEA and sEA flares, as well as long-term management, requires a multi-pronged approach and strict adherence to your veterinarian’s recommendations.
Rest is important because forcing your horse to exercise when they are in an asthma attack further damages the lung and impedes healing. To help avoid lung damage when smog or forest-fire smoke is high, a very useful tool is your local, online, air quality index (just search on the name of your closest city or town and “AQI”). In Canada click here. There is also a visual map of conditions across North America.
Available worldwide, the AQI gives advice on how much activity is appropriate for people with lung and heart conditions, which are easily applied to your horse. For example, if your horse has sEA and if the AQI guidelines say that asthmatic people should limit their activity, then do the same for your horse. If the AQI says that the air quality is bad enough that even healthy people should avoid physical activity, then do the same for you AND your horse. During times of poor air quality (Image 2), it is recommended to monitor the AQI forecast and plan to bring horses into the barn when the AQI is high and to turn them out once the AQI has improved.
Prevent dusty air. Think of running your finger along your tack box – whatever comes away on your finger is what your horse is breathing in. Reducing dust is critical to preventing the development of mEA and sEA, and for managing the horse in an asthmatic flare. Logical daily practices to help reduce dust exposure include:
Other critical factors include ensuring that the temperature, humidity and ventilation of your barn are seasonally optimized. Horses prefer a temperature between 10-24 ºC (50-75 ºF), ideal barn humidity is between 60-70%. Optimal air exchange in summer is 142 L/s (300 cubic feet/minute). For those regions that experience winter, air exchange of 12-19 L/s (25-40 cubic feet/minute) is ideal. In winter, needing to strip down to a single layer to do chores implies that your barn is not adequately ventilated for your horse’s optimal health. Comfortable for people is often too hot and too musty for your horse!
Medical interventions for controlling asthma are numerous. If your veterinarian chooses to perform a lung wash, they will tailor the drug therapy of your asthmatic horse to the results of the wash fluid examination. Most veterinarians will prescribe bronchodilators to alleviate airway constriction. They will also recommend aerosolized, nebulized, or systemic drugs (usually a corticosteroid, an immunomodulatory drug like interferon-α, or a mast cell stabilizer like cromolyn sodium) to manage the underlying inflammation. They may also suggest nebulizing with sterile saline to help loosen airway mucus and may suggest feed additives like omega 3 fatty acids, which may have beneficial effects on airway inflammation.
Ongoing research is paramount to expanding our knowledge of what causes equine asthma and exploring innovative medical solutions. Scientists are actively investigating the effects of smog and barn dusts on the lungs of horses. They are also working to identify new targeted therapies, immunotherapies, and other treatment modalities to improve outcomes for affected horses.
Read more: Air Quality and Air Pollution’s Impact on Your Horse’s Lungs
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