HEALTH & EDUCATION

Health & Education

We all want the best care possible for our horses. The Heath & Education section covers both Learning Institutions, Organizations as well as many sources for equine assistance including Veterinarians and Farriers.

For those who want a to formally study horses, the Education section includes College Riding, Equine Studies, and Veterinary Schools. Learn about the wide variety of horses in the Horse Breeds section. Supplements and Treatments Therapy are also included in the section.

Everyone can learn from Fine Art and there are some specialty Museums that might surprise you.

Horses as a therapy partner enrich the lives of the disabled. These facilities are listed in our Therapeutic Riding section. To help children and young adults build confidence and grow emotionally, please see the resources available on the Youth Outreach page.

Looking for a place to keep your horse? You can find it in the Horse Boarding section. Traveling? Find a Shipping company or Horse Sitting service if your horse is staying home!

Want to stay up to date with the latest training clinics or professional conferences? Take a look at our Calendar of Events for Health & Education for the dates and locations of upcoming events.

Do we need to add more? Please use the useful feedback link and let us know!

Julie Goodnight will demonstrate on how to properly adjust the Rope Halter This is a educational and safety video brought to you by the Certified Horsemanship Association (CHA) at www.CHA.horse

This Certified Horsemanship Association (CHA) safety short with Master Instructor Mitzi Summers explains how to safely adjust your stirrups and girth while mounted on English tack.

Curious what the differences are between the types of Western saddles produced?

Whether you’re running barrels, chasing calves, trail riding or showing in an arena, there are different Western saddles made for your specific riding discipline. Learn what makes each type of Western saddle unique, with insights from our friends, Circle Y. Have more questions? Call or email our Valley Vet Supply saddle experts at saddles@valleyvet.com, and they are more than glad to help!

Trail saddles- Specifically designed for comfort and security, these saddles often have a padded, deeper seat and are lighter weight. These saddles will often have many saddle strings hanging off as well, used to tie jackets and gear to during the trail.

Show saddles and Trainer saddles - When riding any of the all-around events, such as western pleasure or horsemanship, riders will often have a show saddle equipped with tooling in the leather, silver and bling. These saddles will have a shorter horn, a low cantle, and a fairly flat seat that often times has a balance point in the center for proper riding position.

Barrel saddles- These saddles are very lightweight. They often have a skinny, tall horn to allow for easy grip and have a deep seat to keep the rider secure at high speeds. These saddles often have rough-out seats, seat jockeys, and fenders for grip and shorter skirts to avoid interference with the horse’s hip in sharp turns.

Reining saddles - These saddles have a medium-height horn, often times have cutout skirts to allow for better leg contact, and are medium to heavy in weight. These saddles have a front cinch only and may have added silver on them for show.

Cutting saddles - These saddles have a distinctive tall, narrow horn for easy gripping with the hand, and a long, flat, smooth seat allowing no rider interference to the horse. These saddles will have both a front and rear cinch and often times, rough-out fenders for better grip.

Roping saddles - Roping saddles are a heavier, sturdier saddle with a reinforced wood tree made to withstand ranch work and roping. The horn is often thick and wrapped to help it withstand the weight of a rope on a calf. These saddles almost always have both a front and rear cinch to keep the saddle from rocking forward when a calf is roped. Roping saddles also have wider, bigger stirrups.

Shop Valley Vet Supply’s wide selection of saddles and tack available, and for more information, please contact saddles@valleyvet.com.

Photo courtesy of Kentucky Equine Research

By Kentucky Equine Research Staff

Every aspect of equestrianism features a language of its own. Coat color enthusiasts can define every shade and nuance; tack specialists can accurately describe a barrel full of bits using a specialized vocabulary. For nutrition aficionados, a robust wordlist is also in play. Just as forage is the foundation of a horse’s diet, let’s review some common forage-related terms that may be useful in everyday stallside conversation.

Before we begin, a word about “forage.” While some people stumble over this term, forage simply means the edible parts of plants, other than separated grain, that serves as feed for horses, or that can be harvested for feeding. Examples of forage include pasture, hay, haylage, hay pellets, and hay cubes.

“Forage quality” refers to characteristics that make forage valuable to horses as a source of nutrients, typically the combination of energy that determines its potential to fuel work in performance horses, growth in youngsters, and milk production in broodmares, and other essential nutrients such as protein, vitamins, and minerals.

Without further ado, do you know these common forage terms?

Cool-season grasses – grass species best adapted to growth during cool, moist periods of the year, commonly having temperature optimums of 59-77° F (15-25° C).

Fescue – a cool-season grass often used in forage stands for horses. Tall varieties are sometimes infected with a fungus, specifically the endophyte Acremonium coenophialum, that lives symbiotically with the plant. Exposure of horses to endophyte-infected tall fescue can elicit a toxic response, called fescue toxicity, which is especially problematic in pregnant mares and characterized by increased gestation length, lack of milk, placental abnormalities, and mare or foal death.

Fiber – a component of plant cell walls that provides strength and structure to the plant. As a plant matures, the fibrous component increases and lengthens to support the plant. Fiber is considered a structural carbohydrate. Horses are capable of digesting fiber due to microbial fermentation that occurs in the hindgut; because of this physiological feature, horses require fiber in their diets for optimal health.

Haylage – product resulting from ensiled forage with about 45% moisture in the absence of oxygen.

Legume – a large and agriculturally important family of flowering plants that produce seed pods; when produced and harvested under similar conditions, legume hays are generally higher in protein, energy, and certain minerals than grass hays.

Long-stemmed forage – this term speaks specifically to the physical length of the plant material or stems as it is presented to the horse. Long-stemmed forages include hay and some pasture plants. When forage is chopped or ground and formed into cubes or pellets, it is no longer considered long-stemmed forage.

Maturity – an arbitrary term to indicate the adult (or older) stages of plant development or its readiness to harvest. In general, mature forages, especially overmature plants, have less nutritional value than younger plants.

Overgrazing – grazing horses on a given area that, if continued to the end of the planned grazing period, will result in less than satisfactory performance (weight loss, etc.) or less than satisfactory pasture forage production; not to be confused with overstocking, which is horses on a given area that will result in overuse if continued to the end of the planned grazed period. Continued overstocking often leads to overgrazing.

Ration – perhaps not specifically related to forage, but a ration is the total amount of feed allotted to one animal for a 24-hour period.

Warm-season grass – grass species best adapted to growth during the warmer part of the year and usually dormant during cold weather or injured by it; commonly having temperature optimums of 80-95° F (27-35° C).

Julie Goodnight will demonstrate on how to properly and safely do the Emergency Stop. This is a educational and safety video brought to you by the Certified Horsemanship Association (CHA) For more information on the largest certifying body of riding instructors and barn managers in North America, Certified Horsemanship Association, please visit www.CHA.horse.

Andrea Boone and Larissa Strappello demonstrate a sample 15 minute first trot lesson format in a Certified Horsemanship Association (CHA) riding instructor English/ Western Certification. Visit CHA.horse to find a Certified Horsemanship Association near you.

by Preston Hickman, DVM, Wichita Equine and Sports Medicine

A horse asked to perform strenuous exercise often is pushed to the limits of his body's mechanisms to recover. In most cases, these mechanisms allow the horse to finish the exercise with no problem. Sometimes, however, the horse's ability to recover may be inadequate and will result in possible heatstroke or exhaustion. This means that more than one organ system might stop functioning properly, such as the muscles, kidneys, central nervous system, or clotting system. Without prompt intervention the horse might suffer irreversible damage.

When the sum of outside temperature plus the relative humidity is below 130 (e.g., 70 F with 50% humidity), most horses can keep their body cool. The exception will be very muscular or fat horses. When the sum temperature and humidity exceeds 150 (e.g., 85 F and 90% humidity), it is hard for any horse to keep cool. If the humidity contributes over half of the 150, it compromises the horse’s ability to sweat. When the combination of temperature and humidity exceeds 180 (e.g., 95 F and 90% humidity), the horse’s cooling system is ineffectual and very little cooling takes place even if the horse is sweating profusely. At this stage, exercise can only be maintained for a short time without the animal’s body temperature— especially in the muscles— rising to dangerous levels. When the horse’s body temperature has reached 105 F, the blood supply to the muscles will begin to shut down. After this occurs, the blood supply to the intestines and kidneys will also shut down. The blood supply to the brain and heart are spared until last, but severe and permanent damage may have already taken place.

The body maintains its normal temperature in hot weather by moving heat through the muscles and out through the skin. Blood also removes heat as it circulates through the body and releases it through lung tissue, skin and expanding blood vessels. This is why blood vessels may appear larger and more distended during hot weather. This dilatation and resulting perspiration serves to cool the skin and body as the sweat evaporates. Horses that cannot sweat will usually overheat and heatstroke very rapidly, even in cooler weather with a small amount of exercise.

The chance of overworking a horse (exhaustion) rapidly increases when any of the following conditions exist: heat and humidity, poor fitness, obesity, the presence of another disease or lameness, high altitude, rough or steep terrain, rider inexperience, or if the horse has the inability to sweat. Exhaustion is noted by fatigue and inability to cool himself alone. In contrast, heatstroke resembles a horse tying up and or in shock, but can resemble a horse with exhaustion when they collapse. An exhausted horse might be distressed and anxious. He might have a high heart and respiratory rate that does not decrease with rest and his skin might feel hot and dry. Signs of shock with heatstroke, however, include pale, dry mucous membranes, increased capillary refill time, increased jugular vein fill time, a weak, irregular pulse, and no gut sounds. Some horses become stiff and experience pain due to muscle cell damage, which can be detected by observing red or brown urine (hemoglobin and/or myoglobin uria). Horses affected this badly might go down or develop other, often life-threatening conditions such as laminitis, kidney failure, or diarrhea. A badly effected horse also might appear wobbly or demented.

All the horses in the barn get the same amount of feed every day; it makes feeding time much simpler. The warmbloods look super. Their weight is good, and their coats are gleaming. However, the one Thoroughbred in the barn who arrived a little thin six months ago has not put on any weight. In fact, he has lost body condition. He is getting grain just like the other horses, so what could be wrong? A veterinarian has thoroughly examined the horse and nothing appears to be wrong. Could it be as simple as insufficient caloric intake? What kind of changes can be made to his feeding program to encourage weight gain?

Sometimes, getting a thin horse to gain weight is simply a matter of increasing the caloric density of the diet. Other times, the diet may need to be higher in calories because of a medical, psychological or environmental problem.

What makes a horse a hard keeper?

The metabolic rate determines whether a horse is an easy or hard keeper, and the variation between horses can be extreme.

Metabolism is the speed at which the body burns fuels for energy in order to maintain normal body functions. A slow metabolism can function on little input of fuel energy. Conversely, a fast metabolism needs a higher caloric intake in order to function properly. In general, members of certain breeds have faster metabolisms and need more food to maintain body condition than members of other breeds. For example, Thoroughbreds usually eat more per pound of body weight than draft horses. There is also variety within a breed. For instance, some Thoroughbreds are easy keepers while others require intense management to maintain body weight. Temperament often goes hand in hand with metabolic rate. A nervous horse may require more calories than a calm tempered one to maintain the same body condition. A tense horse may spend more time stall walking or weaving while the calm horse conserves energy stores.

A thin horse requires energy in the diet to ensure proper functioning of body processes and to build fat stores. Energy is a general term, yet many horsemen associate the word energy with mental energy. In this article, energy refers to the potential of a feed to fuel body functions and exercise. Weight gain in the horse can be attributed to protein or fat deposition. When a horse does not have enough calories or protein in the diet, the body will break down its own muscle tissue and deplete much of the adipose tissue or fat.

This results in emaciation with poor muscle definition and protruding bones. When the diet has excessive calories, the body will build muscle and adipose stores. The simplified solution to poor weight is to increase the caloric content of the diet while ensuring adequate protein content. The three nutrients which can supply energy to increase the caloric content of the diet in the horse are fiber, starch and fat. Each nutrient is utilized for energy in a slightly different way in the body which, depending on the horse, can be advantageous or not.

Fiber

Of the three major energy sources for the horse, fiber is the most important, most underestimated and the safest. Fiber is the major component of grass and hay. Some horses can maintain their weight on fiber sources alone. For the hard keeper, however, fiber alone will not maintain weight, but there are fiber feeding strategies that can increase the ability of the horse to derive energy from fiber.

Icelandic horses and loved all over the world and it has never been easier to buy horses in their home country and export them to their new destination, due to a great number of experts and professionals in the industry.

In this video we see the horses being brought down from the highlands in the fall and gathered at Víðidalstungurétt, where the owners bring them back to their farm. We speak with horse trainers, tourism operators, exporters and also a farm in Europe who assist with the transitioning. Enjoy!

The video was filmed and edited by Wild Horse Films.