Feb 8, 2016 | Feed, Hoof Care, Q & A
I was just wondering what fescue grass hay is? I have lived in Florida all my life, and have never heard of this kind of hay. I plan on moving my horse to Virginia, and the barn there feeds fescue grass blend hay, and I was just wanting to get more information about this hay.
Fescue hay is the most common type of grass hay that grows in the Southeastern US. It is similar to Coastal Bermuda grass hay that is used here. Less nutritious and palatable than Timothy or Orchard grass hay, it is also much lower in protein, calories, and calcium compared to Alfalfa or Peanut hay.
It is a fine hay for most horses, but you may need to feed more of it to get the same amount of nutrients, and they tend to waste more because it doesn’t taste as good as Alfalfa, Timothy, or Orchard grass.
As with any hay, the most important factor in nutrition is the ”cutting” or stage of maturity at harvest. First cutting hay is usually soft, leafy, tasty, and has a high nutrient density. 3rd cutting or later hay is often coarse, stemmy, and has a lower nutrient value.
Thanks for the question!
Oreo is losing some muscle mass this winter. I can see more ribs than usual this time of year. He has lost behind the withers, and also his rump above the tail. He will be 18 in April. He has access to Tifton 85 hay 24/7. I give him chopped forage in the morning with a cup of oats and a supplement. Do I need to feed some kind of grain? Or something else?
Short Answer: Yes.
Long Answer: It seems that every horse has a certain day of a week, of a month, of a year, when they suddenly decide to become an old horse overnight. 18 years old is about right for this transformation.
Congratulations, your easy keeper that has stayed fat and happy on a certain ration his entire life has now become a hard keeper, and needs to be fed about 3 times as much!
In addition to your horse’s new title as a “senior,” there are other factors that could be contributing to his weight loss. For example, older horses sometimes don’t have the best teeth. Regular dentals can help with that, but at a very old age they simply run out of teeth to chew with! As horses age, they are also at increased risk for Cushing’s disease, which can cause weight loss, among other symptoms. Regular fecal egg counts and a good deworming program are also important so that your horse can effectively absorb the nutrients he is eating.
As far as choice of grain, it may be time to consider a Senior feed for Oreo. Nutrena, Triple Crown, Seminole, Purina… take your pick. Every major brand has a specially-formulated Senior feed that is a bit more digestible and higher in fat, fiber, and protein than your standard Maintenance feed. Keep the hay and chopped coming as well, because forage is always the most important part of a horse’s diet.
Spreading out Oreo’s ration over two feedings (three for super skinny horses) is a good way to put weight on a horse, because it is closer to how they would eat in the wild. Any feed changes should be made gradually over a period of about two weeks. If you don’t see positive results after one month of the new diet, we should come out to check Oreo for any underlying problems that may be contributing to his weight loss.
Thank you for the excellent question!
One of my horses have splits in his front hooves. What can I do to get rid of them?
There are two types of cracks we generally see in horse’s feet: vertical at the toe or heels, and horizontal at the heels. All cracks are indications of unbalanced forces on the hoof wall. The direction of the crack and the location gives us clues about the forces involved.
Vertical cracks at the toe are most commonly seen in horses with naturally poor quality hoof wall who live in sandy environments and don’t wear shoes. These cracks can be improved by making sure the foot is trimmed appropriately and the breakover brought back to the right spot. For more on what a proper trim looks like and what the heck a breakover is, check out this back-issue of Tony the Office Cat’s blog here: Tuesday’s with Tony blog. It is important to remember that any changes will take a lot of time to appear in the hoof. It takes an entire year for the hoof wall to grow from top to bottom. Sometimes it takes a proper trim and shoes to fully control the stress on the front of the foot. These cracks can sometimes become a wonderful environment for White Line disease, so it is important to have Springhill Equine check the feet to rule out this insidious problem.
Cracks at the heel are much harder to deal with. Heel cracks are a direct result of very unbalanced forces on the hoof wall. We highly recommend radiographs and a combined veterinary/farrier appointment. This allows Springhill Equine and the farrier to best determine where the issue lies and formulate a plan to fix it in the most efficient manner.
Thanks for the question, and we hope this helps!
Jan 7, 2016 | Allergies, Feed, Q & A, Skin Funk
My older Cushings horse developed something like a nasty rain rot. Her skin was hot and it was painful to her to be brushed. Dr. Lacher’s recommended treatment (bathe with chlorhexadine, coat with baby oil, leave on overnight, bathe again) was an overnight fix. However, the problem has returned and it seems also to be occurring now, much more mildly, in some of our other horses. Is this a contagious issue? If not, why would they all be getting this–is there an environmental trigger?
What can I do to prevent this from recurring? It’s a pain to treat!
The joys of Florida! All our heat and humidity are great for creating skin funk. Let’s start with a bit of equine history. Horses were designed to live in much colder places than Florida. This means they have an undercoat, along with their regular coat. An undercoat works to trap heat radiating from the body and block water coming from the environment. Unfortunately those same properties cause the undercoat to trap heat and water vapor coming off the body in our climate. This creates a wonderful sauna at the skin level. What loves a sauna? Bacteria. In particular a bacteria called Dermatopholis congolensis. Here is a beautiful picture of D. congolensis.
A few others sometimes join in like Staphylococcus aureus. These bacteria are part of the normal flora of the skin. It does seem like it is contagious but it is more a matter of all horses are exposed to the same environmental risk factors at the same time.
Treatments are aimed at killing the little buggers and then setting up an unhappy environment for them. We start with an antibacterial shampoo like Equishield CK. The most important thing to remember when using this shampoo is TIME. Gently get the soap down to the level of the skin and then let it sit for 10 minutes. Scrubbing hard removes the crusts but also damages the skin making it easier for the bacteria to invade. After 10 minutes rinse the soap off, again, gently. If your horse has a particularly bad case spray the worst areas with Equishield CK spray. Equishield CK salve can used on the backs of the pasterns to treat and prevent infections in this tricky location. In bad cases antibiotics are used.
Prevention is tricky and involves daily battles to win the war. Prevention starts with a curry comb, and a good diet. Regular grooming keeps the skin happy so it is better prepared to ward off invasions by bacteria. Good nutrition keeps the immune system primed and ready to attack the moment bacteria are spotted. So groom regularly and feed well: check. Next, while grooming every day, check for telltale bumps and crusts on your horse’s skin and treat immediately. Silver Sox on the legs do a great job treating and preventing infections on the lower limbs. Keeping your horse as dry as possible by using waterproof sheets or blankets during the winter helps reduce the severity of infections. Unfortunately, body clipping increases your horse’s risk of skin infections by causing tiny amounts of damage to the skin and removing the protective layer of hair making it easier for water to get all the way down to the skin.
Could you please present the available calming supplements/medications available to owners with highly reactive, AKA “spooky” horses? It would be nice to see them described from lightest effect to the most likely to produce effects on all horses. Cost of each would be helpful too. Thanks!
Ever since the first human was bucked off for the first time, we have been looking for a little help at better living through chemistry. Calming substances generally work one of two ways: they make the brain tired or they make the muscles slow to respond.
If you are looking for a reliable, consistent response pharmaceuticals are the best bet. These include the powerful sedatives like Dormosedan, acepromazine, and Sedivet. These also include two common long acting sedatives: reserpine and fluphenazine. Sedatives will always work but they also are prohibited in the show ring.
Herbal or Nutraceutical options are sometimes effective, sometimes not so much. Our general rule of thumb is if it is banned by USEF it is probably effective. These include Valerian Root, melatonin, and high doses of tryptophan. GABA, and its metabolites, are relatively new calming supplements that have been banned by most organizations. If you are looking for a little bit of calm on a green horse headed out to a new experience things like valerian root can work really well. Each horse responds differently to this class of calming agents so experimentation is key. We also recommend assuming an herbal or nutraceutical will test for horse show purposes.
Two new options are Zylkene and ConfidenceEQ. Both are safe for horse shows. Zylkene works off the same principal as the “milk coma” babies experience. It is a feed through powder that is started several days before the event. Dr. Lacher has tried it on one of her very hot horses. She was happy with the results which left the horse feeling well lunged without the lunging. ConfidenceEQ is a pheromone. Pheromones work as inhaled communications between horses. This particular one is the “be calm” pheromone and works best on horses who experience fear or separation anxiety.
Prices for these products are highly variable with the herbals generally being the most expensive. Each horse and each situation is very different so we recommend giving us a call or e-mail to help formulate a plan.
How accurate and successful is allergy testing and injection therapy for horses with Culicoides (gnat) allergy?
There are two types of allergy testing available: intradermal and serum.
Serum is a simple blood draw. The blood is then tested to see what substances it reacts to. Serum allergy testing is easy, but not very accurate. It creates a lot of false positives. The blood will react to something but the horse isn’t actually allergic to it.
Intradermal testing injects small amounts of the allergen in to the skin to determine if the body reacts. The severity of the reaction is directly related to the severity of the allergy. This information can then be used to formulate immunotherapy (allergy shots) or to alter the horse’s environment to avoid the worst allergens.
On to Culicoides allergies specifically. Intradermal and serum testing can tell us a horse is allergic to Culicoides. Unfortunately, immunotherapy does not work on this particular allergy. Culicoides is very complicated as allergies go. It involves several different parts of the allergy response system. Immunotherapy works to dampen a small portion of the system that doesn’t play a large role for gnat allergic horses. But….there’s always a but. Allergies are cumulative. That means every response your horse has to every allergen works to enhance the response to the next allergen they are exposed to. This means allergy testing can help you identify all the great stuff your horse is allergic to. By managing as many of the allergies as you can, you decrease your horses response to allergens overall.
I’m trying to establish a daily equine routine. Is there a recommended time frame for exercising your horse? For example, waiting a certain amount of time after feeding or not directly before feeding time. I’m referring to light work and training exercises.
Horses thrive on schedule in their lives. This means exercising them at the same time of the day is the most important thing for them. If you can’t exercise them at the same time of the day, set up a pre-exercise routine. Put them on the cross ties, groom them, bring out the saddle, etc. This will allow your horse to mentally prepare for exercise.
Old wisdom dictates one hour after feeding before your horse can be ridden. This advice is largely based on how humans feel after eating and not how horses feel. It is also from a time when very different meals were fed to horses. Horses once lived on lots of oats and other whole grains which required the digestive tract to work extra hard to extra nutrition and created a lot of excess gas. Modern diets are formulated to the horse’s GI tract in a much more scientific way. We recommend giving your horse time to eat and 10-15 minutes to empty the stomach before riding. This rule does change if you are heading out to do trot sets or a long gallop but if you are headed out for a light to moderate ride, saddle up and go!
