Horse Journal - June 2009

June 2009

Grain Quality And Your Horse's Feed
Grains are graded by a USDA grading system. Grade 1 is the highest quality, with three more grades below this. Factors such as bushel weight, number of damaged kernels, heat damage, foreign material and odor determine the grade, so lower-grade grains aren’t just less nutritious. They’re potentially dangerous. Moisture content is important since high-moisture grains can spoil/mold easily. The grade of grains used in your feed is information you rarely find on the label. We want to see #1 or #2 grains in our feed. Beet pulp, soy hulls and distillers grains are good sources for highly fermentable fiber as non-starch calorie sources and acceptable to us in feed mixes. Peanut or oat hulls are poorly fermentable and basically fillers we can do without. The protein content of a grain mix comes from the grains themselves, plus alfalfa and a variety of high-protein byproducts, such as seed meals, wheat mids and brans. Although the name suggests otherwise, byproducts are often very nutritious portions, stripped out during the processing of human foods. For example, beet pulp is a byproduct of extracting sugar from beets. The value of any particular byproduct must be considered in the framework of what the basic feed recipe needs. Some mixes require specific amino acids, such as lysine and methionine, while others may need protein boosting across the board. It’s therefore impossible to identify the ideal protein booster. But, as a rule, milk or whey are the highest-quality protein supplements. Soy is also popular because of its high lysine content.

Protective, Versatile FUTI Boot Covers
One of our testers has a pair that she uses year-round in the barn and switches to her briefcase as a rain cover for low-heeled dress shoes. Even though FUTIs have open heels, they have a tight seal and will stay put even in hock-sucking mud. You can easily slip spurs over them and also half chaps if used with paddock boots. The FUTIs have flexible nylon uppers and ribbed rubber soles. They’re essentially booties, so when you take them off you can fold them up for storage. They come with a strong zippered nylon pouch, and even if they’re crusted with wet mud you can stuff them in the pouch and keep your tack bag or pockets dry and clean. Our tester has found them to be both versatile and practically indestructible but easy to misplace since they come only in black and tuck away into such a tight package.

Another Look At the Bitless Bridle
Dr. Robert Cook, who developed and markets the Bitless Bridle, took exception to our evaluation of his product in our April issue. We also received many letters from supporters of the Bitless Bridle (see page 15). We decided to find out why our experience was so different. "The welfare aspect deserved more attention. This is an opportunity for people to do something wonderful for the horse after 5,000 years," Dr. Cook said. "Reins are a form of communication—but they don’t have to have a bit attached to them. The mouth is such a highly sensitive body cavity that if you could do it without interfering with it, isn’t that a good thing?" We asked Dr. Cook to respond to our analysis. "I didn’t design the bridle—it traces back to the beginning of the last century. What I do claim credit for is bringing it to the attention of the public, of explaining why it works and why the bit doesn’t," he said.

Symptoms of Equine Skin Disease and Skin Disease Product Solutions
Everyone wants their horse to have a perfect coat and be free of skin problems. The reality of it is that a variety of skin issues are fairly common in horses and you need to be armed. Skin disease spreads quickly and can be a disaster if you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Commonly known as "rain rot" or "rain scald," this organism flourishes under dense winter coats. The first sign of a problem is usually small tufts of several hairs each that are standing on end. Under these tufts are scabs, which will take the hair with them when they come off, leaving a raw spot. If untreated, these spots will spread and often coalesce. Any horse can develop this infection, but it is most likely to occur in horses with compromised immune systems from malnutrition, old age or diseases like Cushing’s. Aka "scratches," this is a fungal, bacterial, Dermatophilus or mixed infection of the skin on the back of the pastern. It likely gets started when particles of dirt get trapped in the skin folds and are held there by sweat or moisture. The organisms that invade this irritated skin depend upon what’s in the environment and the individual horse’s usual skin organisms. Horses with trace-mineral deficiencies compromising their immune systems may be more susceptible. Because there is so much movement of the skin in this area, early attempts at healing can be pulled apart and heavy scabbing is common.

Horse Trailer Hitching Made Easy
Some people have little problem backing up to their horse trailers, dropping the tongue on the ball and taking off for a show, event or trail ride. Then there are the rest of us. We back up, get out and look, pull forward, move over three inches, back up again, get out and look. . . . We looked at ways to make hitching up alone easier and found there are some tricks to learning how to back up straight. And there are some silent assistants available that can help make hitching up a trailer a one-person job. The main problem we encounter when backing up to a trailer is that everything is done in reverse: you’re driving backward, you’re seeing everything inverted in the side- or rear-view mirror. Factor in that you can’t see the hitch or trailer tongue from the driver’s seat and it’s a challenge trying to match up a two-inch ball with a two-inch coupler. We used experienced and inexperienced trailer drivers to find out what you need to know and what can help you get hitched up without being there all day to do it—and without bashing up the license plate on your truck in the process. Here’s what we found: The straighter you can back your truck to your trailer the faster the final hitching up will be. (Don’t try to hitch up from an angle.) It can help to put some kind of mark in the center of your truck’s tailgate (or inside the rear window of your SUV) right above the hitch. Put another mark high up on the front of the trailer (so you can see it in the rearview mirror) right above the trailer’s tongue. But because you can’t see the hitch, the final coupling is no an easy trick. This is where hitching aids can help.

Riding Older, Riding Smarter
The adages that contrast experience vs. youth apply to horsemen as they do to life in general—"You’re not getting older, you’re getting better"; "Age doesn’t matter unless it matters to you"; "50 is the new 30"—but they also contain a whiff of desperation, as if we have to convince ourselves we’re not slowing down. We like this one better: "Work smarter, not harder." Accept that you develop physical limitations as you get older while you access a lifetime of knowledge and apply leverage to tasks instead of strength so you can keep working in the barn and riding long after your civilian friends have given up golf and tennis. There’s a dilemma here. Riding and barn chores help keep you fit. But you have to do more than just ride to stay fit if you want to be competitive and injury-free as you move through your 50s and beyond. Horse Journal contacted a couple dozen riders who are enjoying their horses and competing well past middle age about what helps keep them in the saddle. We also looked back at our 15 years of product surveys for items we’ve learned help get the job done when the mind is more willing than the body.

Patience, Rails and Gymnastics
Usually, rushing results from one of two causes: The horse just genuinely loves to jump and is overeager about the task, or he’s been poorly trained and is frightened, seeking to "get it over with as fast as possible." It’s easier to settle horses who love jumping too much than it is to calm the nerves of horses who’ve been frightened. The most basic exercise to develop your horse’s understanding of jumping and trust in you is to place rails on both sides of a crossrail or vertical (2 to 3 feet). Each rail should be 8 to 9 feet from the jump, depending on your horse’s size and stride, and they can be on the ground or set a couple of inches off the ground as cavaletti. Trot rhythmically and softly to the jump and soften your hands as you reach the first rail, allowing him to jump and figure it out. Resume your rhythmic trot on landing and keep trotting a circle over the fence, until he settles. Trot it from the other direction until that’s quiet, too.