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May 2008 
Horse Coat SupplementsIf your diet has good protein levels and is balanced and adequate for minerals, but you’re still having coat problems, your first step is to replace the fats lost when grass is baled into hay. If you’re going to feed fat, make sure it’s a good source of the essential omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, in a correct balance. Everyone wants to show off a shiny horse, and that’s why coat supplements command a large share of the marketplace. Poor coat quality is often the first sign of either inadequate nutrition or physical problems, such as an illness or parasitism. That’s because the horse’s body assigns a low priority to keeping the coat supplied with key nutrients. We’re going to look at products that address skin and coat from a nutritional standpoint in this article. (We’re beginning a field trial on specific color-enhancing products, which will be in an upcoming issue.) Stall Deodorizers The products fell into two general categories, those that only addressed odor and those that also offered significant moisture absorption, which means less bedding needs to be removed. We tested using both shavings and straw. All soaked bedding was removed daily and urine spots taken down to stall bottom. You’ll get more punch for your pennies if you use a stall freshener that is also highly absorbent. We found savings in bedding added up from 20 to 30% for Sweet PDZ, Stall Dry and Stall Fresh, respectively. Most studies implicate fine particulate matter and endotoxins in the air as the primary factors, and they are indeed important. However, ammonia concentrations at the floor level are much higher than in the barn air in general, and the horse will get a concentrated dose when down sleeping or resting. That’s where stall fresheners and deodorizers truly have a place in wise barn management. It’s simply a matter of good health Fly Spray The most frequent use of fly sprays is for horses in work. Pasture horses generally do fine under most conditions with a fly mask and/or fly boots, using a spray only when it’s really buggy. But trying to work a horse that is being attacked by flies is like trying to hang wallpaper with one hand. You can do it, but it’s far from easy. In this trial, we looked at a variety of fly-spray products and tested them in tough, sweaty conditions to find which players came out ahead. When it comes to fly sprays, it seems we have a dizzying array of choices these days—from traditional chemical mixtures to natural-ingredient products. The chemical types usually utilize permethrin or pyrethrins. While these fly sprays are often the most effective in difficult conditions, they can be a bit of a headache in the barn. Pyrethrins are toxic to fish, and both chemicals are classified as a pesticide—thus making you potentially subject to your local chemical disposal laws. (In other words, don’t just chuck the empty bottle in the trash, or pour the remnants down the drain.) But there is no denying the efficacy of these products. Chemicals stand up in harsh environments. Some Horse Vaccines Aren’t Necessary When considering severity of disease, the program is built around the most dangerous ones. "Core" vaccines are ones that address life-threatening diseases and therefore shouldn’t be skipped in most cases. Tetanus tops this list. Next are the encephalitis viruses: Eastern, Western, Venezuelan and West Nile. EEE, WEE and VEE have higher mortality rates than WNV, but even 50% mortality is unacceptable if you can prevent it. Last on the list of core vaccines is rabies, definitely fatal, but also relatively rare. The risk of exposure comes into play for both core vaccines and others. All horses are at equal risk of tetanus. The organism is everywhere. Horses on the East Coast don’t need WEE protection, and vice versa. West Nile is in all the states now, although it’s much more active in some areas than in others. Since timing vaccination to occur shortly before your horse’s high-risk exposure season is wise, you may choose to keep track of mosquito-surveillance data for your state (available online) to note activity in mosquitoes and birds before vaccinating. However, this does put your horse at some risk of being infected and you should discuss the timing thoroughly with your veterinarian. A Horse Trainer Is A Worthwhile Investment A 14-year-old girl who’s been riding a pony buys a 4-year-old Thoroughbred mare just a month after the mare won her last race. A week later, the mare bucks her off into the arena fence, breaking her arm. A middle-aged woman, whose two years of riding experience consists of weekly lessons on a kind schoolhorse, buys an 18-hand, high-octane, 4-year-old warmblood. And, after being unable to control him one day, she never rides him again. A 19-year-old girl has had a storybook childhood with her 14.2-hand, Morgan-Quarter Horse gelding. She’s foxhunted him, she’s won children’s jumper classes with him, and she’s won horse trials at novice and training level. Now she wants to move up to preliminary level, but the kind gelding falls after nearly flipping at a maximum-sized table fence and then is eliminated for refusals at three events in a row. Chiropractic Care Comes Of Age We interviewed Dr. Heidi Bockhold, board member of the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, to learn more about the advances that chiropractic care has made for horses. Dr. Sharon Willoughby, founder of the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, defines chiropractic care as the art and science of diagnosis and correction of dysrelationships between the nervous system and the spinal column through manual spinal manipulation. In this interview, Dr. Bockhold further explains this as restoring the normal range of motion to a joint, with the goal of alleviating any nerve irritation that may result from the vertebrae not moving freely. Chiropractic care is a form of "manipulative therapy," which also includes massage, myofascial release techniques and addressing the soft tissues of muscle, fascia and tendon. Osteopathic manipulative therapy techniques also address the spine but include the soft tissues as well. A licensed veterinarian trained in chiropractic care would be the most similar to a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) in the United States, where a DO is also licensed to prescribe medication and do surgery. Proper Warm-Up There are many different opinions about how a horse should be warmed up prior to exercise. Unfortunately, there is not much available in terms of formal equine research to validate anyone’s opinion. With flight as the horse’s major defense mechanism, he comes endowed by nature with significant built-in athletic ability. However, what we ask of our performance horses—particularly those in specialized disciplines such as dressage, cutting, jumping and high-speed work—is much more than a horse in the wild would ever do on a regular basis. A correct warm-up has the potential to influence how well the horse performs. The Threat Of The Shrinking World: Hats Off to Australia In early August 2007, five breeding stallions from Japan were admitted to a quarantine facility in New South Wales, Australia. Before long, horses at the facility began running high fevers and showing respiratory disease. The disease was confirmed to be equine influenza. Somehow, it escaped the quarantine and sick horses were showing up at barns and racetracks. What followed was a nightmare that cost the equine industry over $100 million. Australia had previously been free of equine influenza. As a result, none of the horses had any immunity to it, and none had been vaccinated. Because of how highly infectious flu is, and because it can spread both by horse contact and contact with contaminated tools, clothing, etc. , the infection spread rapidly. It eventually made its way into Queensland. African Horse Sickness Plague South Africa is experiencing an outbreak of African horse sickness, a viral disease that attacks the heart, lungs or both and is fatal to 75 to 90% of horses infected, 50% of mules and about 10% of donkeys. As of the end of March, nearly 270 equine cases had been recorded and 155 deaths. African horse sickness or "horse plague," has been recognized in horses in southern Africa since at least the 1700s. Periodic spread has been documented as far north as Portugal. It’s transmitted from horse to horse by the bites of the Culicoides species of biting midges, aka "no-see-ums," the same tiny fly responsible for sweet-itch allergy and summer-midline dermatitis in susceptible horses in this country and Europe. The virus can also be spread by other biting flies and ticks. |
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