Hanging around the clinic, I hear a lot about backs. My Docs will see sore-backed horses for spinal manipulation and acupuncture, along with lameness evaluations to figure out why they’re back sore in the first place. Often after a long day of treating sore horses, I hear the Docs go on about their own sore backs. This is why I stick to laying in the driveway, sleeping on my comfy chair, and holding the front counter down. No sore back here. Unless you count the time last week I lept for the hood of one of the vet trucks and missed, but we’re not going to mention that incident ever again. It’s like it never happened. Anyway, moving on! Much like exercises are available to help human back pain, there are some great exercises for horses with back pain. These exercises also help strengthen the back, decreasing the future pain potential. 

Balance Pads

If you’ve ever hurt your ankle, knee, or hip, and sought out a doctor’s advice (something you horse people aren’t so great at) you may have gotten exercises involving balance pads. These are squishy foam squares about 2” thick. For humans, you will be asked to stand on one of these pads and do fun things like stand on one leg, or touch things with the toes of the leg you have raised. These exercises improve your balance, and the little muscles around the joints that stabilize them. They also help you increase core strength, and responsiveness. 

As it turns out, these exercises are great for horses, too! Many back injuries occur when sudden change happens. Think about that reach out for something on your desk, or down to pick up something off the floor. Then BAM! your back is in massive pain. Core exercises help prepare your back for that sudden need to pick a pencil up off the floor. They prepare your horse’s back for that moment when the footing changes as you ask for a change in gait, or their foot slips on a slick spot on the trail. 

Any horse can do these exercises. In fact, they’re so easy, even a dog could do them. There are horse-specific balance pads, but regular old human ones work too (and they are a lot cheaper). Start by having your horse stand with either both front feet, or both back feet on the pads. Have them do this for about 5 minutes. You can increase the difficulty by doing all four feet, or diagonal pairs, or even by giving the shoulder or hip a tiny push to make balancing harder. My Docs have some advanced exercises as well that they will assign for homework to help specific problems. 

Stretches

Everyone knows stretches. Heck, we cats are masters of the good stretch. Back sore horses can benefit greatly from a daily stretching routine. Each horse is different when it comes to timing, but you will most likely get the best stretching after exercise. This is when the muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments have warmed up a bit and are most receptive to pushing their boundaries. The three big stretches my Docs recommend are nose toward stifle, chin to chest, and the butt tuck. 

Nose toward hip: For this stretch, ask your horse to stand still while turning their neck and head toward one stifle. The key to this one is to keep the tips of the ears parallel to the ground. If your horse starts to turn their head a bit, try helping them with some gentle pressure on the side of the head to correct things. If they continue to tilt their head, go back to the furthest spot they can go without tilting, and hold the stretch there for a count of 5-7. Repeat three times on each side. Keep this up, and your horse will be able to turn further and further.

Chin to chest: Just like it sounds. Ask your horse to touch their chin to their chest. Hold for a count of 5-7, repeat three times. Then ask them to do the same thing but lower. Ask them to bring their chin between their fetlocks.

Butt tuck: There’s a spot about a hand width out from the tail that when itched will make any horse tuck their booty. That’s the magic spot for this stretch. Keep the scratching up to keep the butt tucked for a count of 5-7. Repeat three times. 

Resistance Bands

If you’ve ever had the joy of being tortured by a personal trainer or physical therapist with resistance bands, then you know they can really take the work up a notch! While I haven’t experienced these things personally, and will use my claws on anyone who tries, I know they are fantastic at increasing workloads in a pretty safe fashion. 

Work on the horse version of these, known as Equibands, has shown them to build some serious topline muscle. It’s a pretty easy system to set up. Ask my Docs! They can show you how. Using a band under the abdomen and one around the hind quarters, you can really get that core engaged. The key to resistance bands is to start with very short work sessions! Five minutes is often a whole lot of work in one of these. Consider holding a crunch or plank for a few minutes and you’ll get the idea. You can ride in resistance bands, but be very, very cautious about how long!!!

You humans know having back pain is no fun! Incorporating these simple things into your daily routine can help your horse avoid back pain. If they’re already experiencing pain, these can really, really, really help improve the pain, and strengthen the right muscles to minimize future pain. Want a program to help your horse? Ask my Docs! They’ll help you come up with a custom program to keep your horse performing for years to come.

Until next week,
~Tony

P.S. If you haven’t checked it out already, the humans did a podcast episode called Pain In The Spine, which covers a lot of stuff that I didn’t get into here. You can find it over on the Podcast Page right here on my website, or download it on your phone with your handy-dandy podcast app. You should really be subscribed already. It’s an amazing amount of free access to your veterinarian’s brain!

Tuesday with Tony – Joint infections

Have you noticed that when my docs and techs do a sterile scrub on your horse’s joint prior to an injection, it feels like 5 hours of scrubbing for about 15 seconds of actual injection? And have you noticed that my docs get a lot more uptight about a half inch wound over your horse’s hock than a big dramatic looking wound on his chest? Like with real estate, location is everything, and this week we are talking about infections in a location that we take very seriously – joints.

In its most basic sense, a joint is a place where 2 or more bones meet, along with the cartilage that covers the bone ends, and a joint capsule with a synovial membrane that secretes fluid to lubricate the joint. Most types of joints have movement of some sort – hinging like your knee or moving in multiple directions like your shoulder. It’s the same for your horse. Think about the joint capsule like a protective balloon around the joint. It’s a really important place, sealing the joint space and providing nutrition and lubrication to the cartilage. When infection gets inside that space, there can be career ending or life-threatening consequences. That’s why my docs don’t mess around when a joint infection is on the line.

These locations that are surrounded by a fluid-secreting synovial lining are called synovial cavities. There are so many synovial cavities in a horse, especially in the legs! And it’s not just joints, but tendon sheaths and bursae too, which are similarly worrisome if they get infected. That’s why my docs’ knowledge of anatomy is so important. A wound in one spot might not be that big of a deal, but a wound an inch away could be in a synovial cavity. The treatment and prognosis could be vastly altered by just a tiny difference in location.

How do joint infections happen?

The answer is a bit different depending on whether it’s a mature horse or a foal. In foals, bacteria usually get into the joint through the bloodstream. The infection starts somewhere else in the foal, like the umbilicus or the lungs, and then bacteria travel in the blood until they arrive in the joint. This is especially problematic when foals don’t get enough immunity by suckling high quality colostrum right after birth, causing failure of passive transfer.

Adult horses most commonly get joint infections from wounds that enter the joint space, bringing debris and bacteria inside. Since it’s the same for a tendon sheath or bursa infection, we’ll just use joints as our example from here on. The wound could be an obvious laceration leaving little doubt that the joint has been compromised, but it could also be a tiny puncture wound that leaves no evidence of the injury.

Joint infection can also rarely be seen as a complication of joint surgery or joint injection. That’s why you see all the scrubbing we do before joint injections. It’s not common to have a problem, but my docs will still be very careful with sterility.

Signs of infection

The first and most important thing is if your horse has a wound anywhere near a joint, call my doc immediately. This is not the time to take a wait and see approach – it could turn into a real CATastrophe. Besides the wound itself, you might see lameness starting within hours to days, swelling in and around the joint, or sometimes fluid draining from the wound. It’s important to remember though, that if the joint has an open wound and is draining fluid, it may not show lameness or swelling yet. That doesn’t mean it’s not a big problem, so don’t put off calling my doc! If it’s been going on a while, the horse may have a fever. In a foal, the fever may be the first thing that occurs even before the joint swells up. No matter which of these you see first, the moral of the story is to call my doc and not mess around trying home remedies.

How we diagnose a joint infection

When there is a wound near a joint, my doc will clean the wound and then explore it to find out if it communicates directly with the joint. She may put on a sterile glove and feel within the wound itself. She may insert a sterile instrument into the wound to track which direction it goes. An x-ray can be used to look for bone abnormalities caused by infection or to help with determining if the wound communicates with the joint.

A fluid sample can be collected from the joint to test for infection. Normal, healthy joint fluid is clear, pale yellow in color, and somewhat stringy rather than thin like water. Fluid from an infected joint may turn cloudy, watery, and sometimes change color. There are several lab tests that can be used to determine normal from infected joint fluid.

My doc may inject the joint with sterile saline from a site distant from the wound to pressurize the joint. If there is communication between the wound and the joint, the pressurized fluid will leak from inside the joint out through the wound. If there is no current communication, no leakage will occur.

If any of these methods determine your horse has an infected joint, you’ll have to start treating quickly and aggressively.

How an infection is treated

Your horse will need his joint flushed out with large volumes of sterile fluid. This is best done under general anesthesia at a hospital. The gold standard is to use an arthroscope to inspect the joint surfaces, look for debris, and deliver a high flow of fluid to rinse out infection. He’ll also need powerful antibiotics given through his vein. Antibiotics are often injected directly into his joint or the region of infection as well. It’s important for the horse to be comfortable enough to bear weight on his injured leg and prevent too much stress on his other legs, potentially causing laminitis, so he’ll receive anti-inflammatory medication to reduce swelling and pain.

A joint infection can be difficult to treat, especially if the infection has been present for a while before treatment begins, or the bone or soft tissue structures are involved. So when there’s a wound on your horse’s leg, calling my doc quickly will give your horse the best chance to get the treatment he needs.

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. Don’t forget to head on over to our podcast page to learn more about joint infections and so much more. Click here to go to the podcast page.

You know I occasionally climb up on my soapbox on really, really important issues that horses and their humans face. Today is one of  those days. Let’s talk about people doing procedures on horses they shouldn’t be doing. I’m mostly talking about floating teeth, spinal adjustments, and acupuncture. These procedures should only be done by veterinarians. There, you have the short version. Now let’s talk about why it is imperative for your horse’s health, and good for your wallet, to have these procedures done by Doctors.

Bright lights, a Speculum, and Sedation

Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re a horse. This means you have a really, really long oral cavity, with a relatively tiny mouth. When I yawn, you can see everything. When your horse yawns next time, take a good look. You can’t see a darn thing in the back. My Docs manage this by giving a little bit of sedation, placing a full-mouth speculum to hold your horse’s mouth open, then put on a bright light to see all.the.way.to.the.back. I’m going to warn you that if I hear “My horse doesn’t need sedation to have their teeth done,” someone may feel my claws. That’s like saying you don’t need novocaine when the dentist does a root canal on you. 

If your horse isn’t sedated, they will chew and gnash on the speculum with all the might they’ve got, not to mention wiggle their tongue around everywhere. This leads to very sore TMJs, and can lead to injury when the tongue gets in the way. If you aren’t a veterinarian, it is illegal for you to administer sedation. This would be like letting the produce manager at the grocery store anesthetize you for surgery. And what are they going to do if something goes wrong? Never let anyone who isn’t a veterinarian administer sedation to your horse. There are a hundred things that can go wrong, and only one thing that can go right. Don’t risk it! 

Too Much, Too Little, Just Right

Teeth are persnickety when it comes to floating them just right. I see all kinds of mumbo jumbo about making the left side and right side exactly even, getting the incisors to line up perfectly, and even evaluating the angle of the TMJ to determine how much tooth to take off. If you hear these things, you are talking to a snake oil sales-human. Run the other way, and do NOT hand your horse over to this person. You see, horses will never be symmetrical right to left, just like you aren’t. Heck, even cats aren’t, and we’re practically perfect. Attempting to make your horse symmetrical from side to side will result in way too much tooth being removed. This can do horrible things to a mouth, including cause teeth to die, create infections, and cause extreme pain. This is one of my 8,322,498 reasons why you need someone who understands all the veterinary things. Seriously, do you want the tire store people doing work on your teeth? No, you want someone who knows all the important medical things so they don’t cause horrible things to happen. 

Saving You Money

The #1 complaint I hear about dental work: the cost! Know what costs untold amounts of money? A badly done dental float. One that doesn’t involve a light, sedation, and a speculum. Important things in the back of the mouth can be missed. Imagine a sharp point from the top tooth in the back growing so long it pokes into the lower jaw. My Docs saw this recently on a horse who had been receiving “dental work” every 6 months. This person had spent thousands of dollars over this horse’s lifetime trying to make sure they were doing the right thing. Who knows how many classes were lost, bad rides happened, and pain this horse suffered. 

Good dental care from my Docs is money well spent. Overall, it would have been far cheaper, and far better for this poor horse and human. Complete soap box moment: This is ALWAYS true. I see people spend all kinds of money trying to avoid calling my Docs. If they had only called us first, even for a conversation, they would have saved so, so much money. In some cases they would have saved their horse’s life, or extended it by several years. I know this sounds cat dramatic, and I wish I could say it was. However, this is a weekly occurrence around here. 

Horses are expensive. There’s no two ways about it. But think about this: a Wellness Plan from Springhill Equine provides a dental float and all the vaccines your horse needs for a year for about $500, which you can make monthly payments on. When you look at what you spend on your horse in a year, this is actually one of the lowest costs you have. It’s cheaper than your feed and hay, your farrier costs, your trainer, fuel in your truck, all of it. Getting rid of those unnecessary supplements will more than cover the cost of real medical care. And our Wellness clients don’t pay an emergency fee if something bad happens! This is the smartest way to spend your healthcare money. Trust me. I’m a cat.

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. Check out all the details of our Wellness Plans on our Wellness Page. And then go listen to the Supplements episode of our podcast to learn why you’re throwing your money away with most of them! You’re welcome. 

Sometimes it feels like time is standing still. Other times it feels like I close my eyes for a split second and we are already into the next month of 2021. On days when time flies, I am reminded that every day, I grow another day older. While I still feel great most days and I am certainly young at heart, there are days I can feel my age. I imagine it is much the same for aging horses. 

 Many of you own senior horses. Most of you have owned your older guys since they were youngsters. You’ve been taking care of their every need day in and day out throughout their whole lives. You’ve raised them from frisky 2 year-olds through their naughty teenage years and now some of them are well into their older years. At each life stage horses require different nutrition, different hoof care, and different veterinary care. You’ve been through the early years and middle age, so let’s talk about what your horse needs now in their golden years.

 Lucky for you all, I have established the best team of veterinarians, technicians and office staff to provide you with a wealth of knowledge about caring for you senior horse. I always place emphasis on preventative veterinary care for your horses, hence my Wellness Plans.  Preventative care is the best way to be ahead of any potential problems or illnesses that might arise.

 Dental Care

One of the most important aspects of veterinary care in the old horse is the dental examination. As horses age, they develop dental changes. These changes include tooth loss, gingival loss, infection, and fracture. Senior horses are prone to a common and painful condition known as Equine Ondontoclastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis, aka EOTRH (or as I like to refer to it as, “the letters”). EOTRH is a type of autoimmune disease in which the horse’s body recognizes their own teeth as foreign material. When this occurs, your horse’s tooth roots are attacked and reabsorbed by their body. Your horse will also lay down bone-like material around their teeth to help stabilize them. The entire process is incredibly painful and unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done to prevent the process from happening. The only treatment for EOTRH is to remove the horse’s teeth.  Tooth removal just sounds so painful, why would humans even consider this? But from what I understand, removal is significantly less painful than leaving the teeth in.

 Any dental issues can result in health problems like weight loss, sinus infections, and oral ulceration. Having my docs assess your horse for any oral or dental issues at least once a year is imperative to their overall health. Similarly, if my docs notice any problem areas, they may recommend additional visits throughout the year to address these issues and prevent further problems from developing.

 Vaccinations and Coggins

You’ve kept you horse’s vaccinations, Coggins, and deworming up-to-date throughout his whole life. For the love of cats, please don’t stop now! Older horse’s immune systems are more delicate, making them more prone to disease. My docs recommend twice yearly vaccinations against mosquito-born diseases such as EEE and WN and annual vaccination against rabies.

 Your horse is an old pasture potato now, but please keep his Coggins up-to-date. For one, if anyone from the state stops by to check on your farm, they will require to see a negative Coggins for all horses on the farm. If you don’t have them you risk being fined and/or quarantined. Not to mention, if any unforeseen circumstances occur where you may have to move your horse (hurricane, flood, illness, injury), you’ll need to have a negative Coggins on hand before you put your horse in a trailer. So save yourself a lot of hassle and keep your horse up-to-date!

 Blood Work

As horses age, my docs suggest yearly blood work. It is always a good idea to have a baseline of a normal complete blood cell count and serum biochemistry. If your horse develops an illness there will often be changes to blood work. Having a baseline normal to compare to is incredibly helpful to my docs. Blood work will also allow my docs to recognize any minor changes that may be suggestive of underlying illness. Similarly, a yearly ACTH for an older horse is always a good idea. ACTH tests for Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction (PPID) or Cushings. PPID can predispose your horse to laminitis. It lowers your horse’s immune response to disease and puts them at risk for illness. Annual testing allows my docs to diagnose PPID early on and get your horse on medication to help manage the disease.

 Hoof Care

I know you’ve heard me say it before, but I’m going to say it again: No hoof, no horse. I don’t care how young or old your horse is, he has to have 4 solid feet under him.  As we discussed, older horses may be prone to laminitis. This is why I recommend annual radiographs of your horse’s front feet. Radiographs are one of the best tools we have that allow the docs to rule out any changes to your horse’s feet that could cause them pain or lameness. Not only can radiographs show changes to your horse’s feet, they allow my docs to collaborate with your farrier to make adjustments as necessary to prevent any problems down the line. And as you know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 Nutrition

As we all age, our nutrition needs also change.  My nutritional requirements have most certainly changed over the years. I would love to eat sweets and carbs all day but with my diabetes I have to be very mindful of what I eat every day.  As your horse ages, he also will have changes in nutritional requirements. Inevitably, an older horse will have dental problems. Dental issues can make it difficult for your horse to chew his feed properly. This makes it difficult for him to digest his feed thoroughly. When he doesn’t digest appropriately, he is not getting everything he needs from his food.

 It can become nearly impossible for older horses to eat hay and grass. Because of this, it’s necessary to ensure older horse receive everything they need from their grain.  Complete feeds such as senior feeds are ideal for the older horse. A complete feed incorporates forage into it so an older horse who can’t eat hay or grass will still meet their daily forage requirements. Similarly, forages such as soaked alfalfa pellets, alfalfa cubes or beat pulp can be added to the older horse’s diet to increase water and caloric intake.

 Older horses, like older cats and older people, require a bit more attention and care. Veterinary care for your older horse is essential and may increase your horse’s life expectancy.  We love pasture potatoes around here, and love to watch them grow well into their senior years while living their best life. A little TLC will take them a long way.

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. – As you know, my minions work tirelessly on their podcasts, so take a few minutes and check them out here. They have a wonderful talk on senior horses. Also, we have a Facebook Live event coming up on Thursday Feb. 25th at 6:00 PM on fecals & deworming. Be sure to join us!

It’s February. For other parts of the country that means snowstorms, bitter cold, and all the finest winter has to offer. For Florida, it means some cold days, and some 75 degree days, and maybe some really cold days. I hate really cold days. It detracts from my strict property assessment schedule, and leaves me uncomfortable even while sunning in the middle of the driveway watching the humans drive around me. That’s right, don’t expect me to move. I know, get to the point. Here in Florida, February is the ideal time to get started on growing grass. I have listened to more than my fair share of Pasture Management Seminars. Between that and being a cat, I’m an expert. 

What kind of soil do you have?

This is the biggest reason you should start thinking about your grass now.  Soil testing will tell you what you need to do to make your ground a place grass wants to grow. Even though Florida is strong on sunshine and water, it’s often really weak on other things plants need to grow like nitrogen, and a neutral soil pH. Much like everything in life, there’s the right way to soil test, and all the other ways. The best way is to start by evaluating your property. If you’ve got a whole lot of acres, the chances are you have a few different soil types. 

Test similar soils together, and estimate how much property you have of each type so you will know how much fertilizer of each kind you’ll need. To do that soil test, you could grab a handful of soil and call it a day. This would be the wrong way to soil test. Instead, take a shovel and a wheelbarrow and start wandering your property. Every 50-100 feet or so take the vegetation away to expose the soil underneath, and put about half a shovelful in your wheelbarrow. Carry on until you’ve sampled your whole place. Now mix thoroughly. Then mix again just to be safe. Next, take a few handfuls of that soil, spread them out on newspaper and let them dry. Once dry, use the envelope you got from the soil testing lab that your fertilizer company or local County Extension Agent told you about, and send your soil off for testing. 

County Extension

Middle of the blog aside here: Call your County Extension Office!!!! These people know all kinds of useful things, and your tax dollars pay for them, so use them! From how to grow grass, to managing pests, to gardening, to managing home finances, seriously knowledgeable people. Call them. And now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

Fertilizing

Now you know what to get for your fields. It will be important to talk with your fertilizer company about the best time for actually fertilizing. Here in Florida, it’s generally before the rains start in June. Now that’s tricky timing, isn’t it? Put fertilizer out, but not too soon since it will just burn up, but not too late or it will all wash away into our poor overtaxed aquifer in one torrential rain and then the springs and your pasture will both be in trouble. Anyway, watch the weather and talk with the fertilizer companies about timing. Or look into cover crop options that may work to help get nutrients into the soil without using chemical fertilizers. 

The hardest part about cover crops is that they cover stuff. I’m not being a smart alec. Okay, I am, but really it’s that these crops generally cover the soil underneath while they’re doing their thing. This means grass isn’t growing, and horses may not be enthralled with eating the cover crop instead. Consider cover crops if you’ve got an area you aren’t using for a while.

Grass

Finally, grass. The thing we’ve all been waiting for. Talk to your County Extension Agent and your fertilizer supplier about when and how to best plant grass. There are different options depending on a number of different factors including how many horses you’ll have per acre, if this is a new pasture, or if you’re looking to help an older pasture get back to happy. There are some really great grass seed options that have all kinds of great things for Florida including drought resistance, and longer growing seasons. While you’re talking grass, you can talk about rye grass as a winter add-on.

Keep that grass happy!

Now that you’ve got grass, keep your grass. Horses are hard on their pastures! Horses are just plain hard on everything, if I’m being an honest cat. Designing your pasture to allow rotation in 2-4 week intervals will allow your pastures a break from all those thundering hooves and ripping teeth. Bonus: this is also good for breaking parasite life cycles. This can be as complex as multiple fenced pasture areas, or as simple as a hot wire that divides your pasture. If you go the hot wire route, I recommend tape. It’s easier for the horses to see, and make sure it’s HOT. Horses do tend to respect electricity! Giving grass as little as two weeks to recover will keep it growing better and longer. 

Now you know all you need to be the envy of the neighborhood. However, if you want more, we’ve got pasture management seminars on our YouTube channel, and you can always call your County Extension agent if you didn’t catch it the first two times I told you. Grass can be a tricky bugger, unless it’s a sidewalk where you absolutely do not want grass to grow. Doing a little work can go a long way to ensuring your spoiled horse has all of it they desire. More grass also means less hay, which means lower feed bill, for an added bonus. 

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. Can’t get enough of me? I’ve got years of blogs at SpringhillEquine.com on any topic you can imagine. Had enough of me? Check out the podcast by my humans called Straight From the Horse Doctor’s Mouth anywhere you get podcasts. It’s got somewhere around 70 episodes of awesome free veterinary knowledge for your listening pleasure.