Farm Emergency Preparedness

Be prepared. I was never a boy scout, but I have certainly taught myself what it means to be prepared. Be prepared to eat, be prepared to sleep, be prepared to groom and be prepared with giant cat eyes in order to get whatever I want.  By being prepared, I can assure you I am always ready when the time comes for something in my life to change.  You’re reading my blog which means that in some way you enjoy horses, which also means you should also always be prepared.  As you know, horses are unpredictable and often find ways to hurt themselves or fall ill in the most unusual ways at the most inopportune times. Therefore, it is in your best interest to have all your emergency plans in place prior to the inevitable time that an emergency does occur.

Minor Emergencies

Everything from small lacerations, mild colics, minor eye problems, and hoof abscesses may require a veterinarian’s attention. Should a situation arise where you are faced with an emergency there are a few items you can have on hand and several things you can do while you wait for help to arrive.

First and foremost, if you believe you are dealing with an emergency, it is always, I repeat ALWAYS, best to call your veterinarian. My docs would much prefer a call for something small over something that has been going on for days. Moreover, they can help you triage your horse before they can get there, so please heed their instructions and have patience.

If your horse has a laceration that’s not bleeding too bad but has associated swelling, it’s never wrong to rinse with cold water. Avoid sticking objects or fingers in the wound, but washing topically with a mild soap such as Ivory is acceptable.  I like to lick my own wounds. I do not, however, recommend licking your horse’s wounds or allowing your horse to lick his wounds.  So, prior to my doc’s arrival, allow cold water to run gently over the laceration, wash with mild soap and if necessary, you may cover the injury with a clean bandage.

Be prepared with a laceration emergency kit. This should include mild soap, baby diapers (yes you read that right, baby diapers are clean and super-absorbent), clean towels and duct tape. With these few items you will be able to protect your horse from further injury while my docs make their way to you or you make your way to them.

 Colic

Colic is the 4-letter word of the horse world.  It’s the dreaded emergency that no one wants to ever experience with their horse, but also the illness that 99.9% of horse people will experience more than once in their lifetime.  Colic is common, but fortunately it’s usually treated and resolved on the farm.  Colic is going to pop up twice in today’s blog.

First, let’s talk about the mild colic that only requires my docs to visit once and then resolves.  It is important to be prepared for these mild colics just as much as the major colics.  That does NOT mean having medications such as banamine on hand and administering them yourself without a veterinarian’s direction. What it does mean is having a small area, whether a stall, a small paddock or a round pen where you can keep your horse separated from other horses and where he can be closely monitored for 24-48 hours.  Trust me, 2 o’clock in the morning is not the time you want to be assembling a make-shift stall/paddock. Have one already assembled with no access to food but easy access to water. While I find myself having the zoomies at 2 am, I hear people typically are not as energetic around that time. My docs will thank you for having this area prepared and you will be thankful too. It is likely you will need to keep any eye on your horse’s water intake and manure production for the next several days as well as limit their feed/hay intake.  By having a designated area for your horse, this task becomes significantly easier.

 Eyes

If you are faced with an emergency that involves your horse’s eyes, being prepared means having a designated area for your horse to stay for treatment. It also means having a clean fly mask on hand that will fit your horse well.  If you notice that your horse’s eye has excess tearing present, has swollen eye lids or the globe looks abnormal in anyway, please call your veterinarian immediately.

Being prepared for the eye problem, like colic, does NOT mean applying medications that you have lying around to your horse’s eye for a week before calling the docs. This can make a mild eye injury severe very quickly. Every eye medication has a purpose, and some medications are not appropriate for every eye injury. Therefore, while you wait for the docs to arrive, you can place your horse in the assigned small area and place a fly mask on him to prevent further damage. Once my docs arrive, they will assess your horse and develop a plan from there.

 Abscesses

There is a theme, other than be prepared, to this week’s blog and that is, have a small area to separate your horse in and keep him safe before the docs can arrive. Hoof abscesses can very often look like a broken leg and are very scary to watch.  Your horse may not want to put any weight on his leg and there may be some minor swelling involved.  If you noticed these signs you may attempt to get your horse into a small enclosure, however, if it is too difficult to get him to move, don’t move him! Just wait for my docs to arrive and assess him.

Definitely do not administer any medications prior to my doc’s arrival unless they instruct you to do so. Having fresh water available to your horse is acceptable and remaining calm is imperative.  In the instance that my docs come out and diagnose an abscess, it is a good plan to have epsom salt on hand and a low-walled rubber bucket with a flat surface that you can use for soaking feet.  Access to warm water is ideal but not essential.

The moral of the story with minor emergencies, is call early, don’t wait and be prepared.

 When Emergencies Require Even More

Being prepared for the situations when minor emergencies turn into something more can make them that much more bearable and ultimately may change the outcome.

 Transportation

Recently, my schedule has been jammed packed. All 3 of my docs have been working their tails off. That being said, we are booking out appointments 2 weeks in advance, which makes getting to emergencies increasingly difficult.  However, if you can haul your horse to the clinic, they are guaranteed to see you, and often times much sooner than if you have to wait for them to come to you. While not everyone may have a trailer of their own, having access to a trailer is extremely important to anyone involved with horses. More on trailers and trailering in a bit.

In the rare instance where your horse’s colic doesn’t resolve on the farm, the next step may be to bring your horse to my clinic or to a referral hospital. This is where having access to a trailer really comes in handy. The ability to haul your horse to our clinic for evaluation will most certainly allow for quick assessment and further treatment if necessary. Lacerations are another emergency that may be handled on the farm but may also require hospitalization. Hospitalization may be necessary for wound treatment, antibiotic administration and observation.

Having access to a trailer, whether you own one yourself or borrow one, is important. I highly recommend you have a plan in place should the need for a trailer arise.  I can guarantee you it will be nearly impossible to find transportation for your horse at 3 o’clock in the morning if you don’t already have a trailer lined up. There are some transportation companies that offer after-hours services, but I highly recommend contacting them and having an account set up before an after-hours emergency occurs, and to make sure they cover your area.  Similarly, your neighbor may have a trailer they have offered to let you to use, but are they going to answer their phone in the middle of the night?  Have a set plan in place with them so there is no doubt you can use the trailer and that it will be available should you need it.

Have a backup plan too.  Trailers like to have flat tires at the most inopportune time. Knowing where all the equipment is to change the tire will save you a lot of headaches, as will having a backup trailer or transportation available should an emergency arise. If the trailer available to you doesn’t get used much, make sure you air up the tires and pull it around the block once in a while. Also, make sure you know how to hook it up! A crisis is not the time to learn all the things.

 Cost

While no one likes to talk about money, we have to talk about money.  Part of being prepared for an emergency means knowing how much money you have available for said emergency. It may be $200, or it may be $20,000, but knowing exactly how much you are willing to spend is necessary to make informed decisions about your horse’s care. I highly recommend having a separate savings account for your horse emergencies. Let’s be honest: it is not if your horse is going to have an emergency, it’s when.  Having money saved for emergencies allows for significantly easier decision making. Typical colics and lacerations that can be handled on the farm usually cost between $400-600 depending on the extent of the problem. Colics that require hospitalization with fluids and monitoring are usually around $2000, and severe colics that require surgery can cost anywhere from $10,000- $20,000.  If you have questions about the cost of common emergencies, be sure to ask my docs the next time they are out for your horse’s wellness visits.  They want you to be prepared and able to make the best decisions for you horse just as much as you do.

Remember: being prepared for all types of emergencies may reduce the severity of your horse’s problem, help you make the best decision possible, and could even save your horse’s life.

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. The humans have a podcast that covers even more aspects of being ready for anything! You can find it here on my Podcast Page.

Sugar, starch, carbs. All words describing the same thing when it comes to horse diets, and lately, all words to strike fear into the hearts of those who feed horses everywhere. I’m a diabetic cat. I get the concerns about sugars. I’m also here to tell you that only a very small population (literally, it’s mostly ponies) of horses need to super-closely monitor their sugar intake. For the rest of you, the word of the day is moderation. For any horses working as athletes, the word of the day is need, as in you need some sugar in your life. So let’s talk sugar! 

What is sugar or starch or carbs?

Carbohydrate is the broad category nutritionists put sugars and starches into. Carbohydrates are the things the body breaks down into glucose, which it then uses for energy.  Starch is the name for the way plants store sugar, and sugars are the building blocks of all of this. Sugars come in chains, and those chains are named based on lots of things, but mostly how many sugars they have in their chains, and how those sugars are holding hands. 

For horses, there are two other categories of carbohydrates that are important: structural, and non-structural. These are sort of what they sound like. Structural carbs are inside the parts of plants that give them structure. That blade of grass needs some support to grow up instead of being a blob. These guys require help from bacteria for the body to absorb them, and that happens in the large intestine. Non-structural carbs are mostly inside grains, and are the plant’s own energy storage. Your horse (and you for that matter) can break these down all by yourself, and your small intestine takes care of that task.

Why all the worry?

Sugar, rightly so, is very, very strongly associated with laminitis. Let me backup a bit to give the full picture about sugar and laminitis. It’s not as simple as my diabetes. If I eat more sugar than I have insulin to process it with, my body can’t handle it, and things go poorly. Horses handle things differently because horses are weird. 

Give a horse more sugar than they need for a day, a week, a month, or even a year (What? I watch Friends when no one is around) and not a whole lot happens. The pancreas makes insulin in proportion to the amount of sugar around, the cells absorb it, and if they don’t need it right away they turn it into fat. After a while your horse has all the fat even the body thinks it needs. Like survive an entire year of drought, not just a season. Remember that’s how our metabolism thinks: survival. The metabolism says Okay, we’re good, and stops listening to the insulin. The pancreas says, Whoa! We’ve got a lot of sugar running around,”and makes lots and lots more insulin. 

This is where the cat and human pancreas give up and say, if you’re not listening we’re not playing, and stop making insulin. The horse pancreas NEVER gives up. No, seriously, NEVER. There are only a very few documented cases of horses who stop making insulin. 

All that insulin has other tasks it directs, and those don’t quit. Most of those tasks have to do with building and repair. This makes sense if you think about it. When you’ve got energy (aka: sugar) you should build and repair. The problem is with all that insulin screaming at those building and repair mechanisms, they get a bit rushed in their work and don’t do a great job. The feet are a prime example. The body is so busy building lamina that it does a not-great-job at it, and the cells are so busy not listening to insulin that they don’t even get the sugar to do the job they are designed to do. 

It’s not a great plan all around, and one Mother Nature avoids by making horses in the wild work really hard for their food, and presenting them with periodic starvation so they use those fat stores. You modern day horse owners definitely don’t make them work hard for food, nor do they experience periodic starvation unless you count breakfast being 5 minutes late! 

Don’t Panic!

If your horse considers a walk from one side of the pasture to the other exercise, and sports a body condition score of 7 or above (ask my Docs how to get a weight and BCS on your horse), you need to monitor sugar. Here’s the important thing: most of the sugar is coming from the grass in the pasture your horse is moseying across. Most of the calories are coming from that grass as well. A grazing muzzle and low-sugar diet like a ration balancer are your best friends.

If your horse does any work at all, evaluate the sugars in your diet with less of a critical eye. Most commercial feeds these days understand the value of controlling carbs in equine diets and they do a great job. There are some in there, but not too much for the average horse doing some level of work. If your horse is maintaining good weight, and a BCS of 4-6 you don’t need to critically evaluate how much sugar you’ve got for fear of all the dreaded carb side effects.

If your horse needs a burst of energy doing their job, you NEED some of that sugar! You read that right. You need some sugar. To turn that barrel, jump that jump, make it through that upper level dressage test with some pizazz, or spin and lope off, you’ve got to have sugar available. The muscles responsible for that quick fire use sugar. If you’ve had the zip in your step you were looking for, consider your horse’s diet. Keeping the athlete on ration balancers and alfalfa, for example, will have them looking good, but doesn’t provide much in the way of high test fuel for those muscles. Putting them on a high sugar feed isn’t the right answer, either. That’s akin to asking Michael Phelps to swim the Olympics on nothing but McDonalds. It’s all about fueling the athlete for the job they are being asked to do.

Need help formulating the perfect diet to keep the Dad Bod at bay? Or add some zip to your spins? My Docs are a great resource. They can help you get started, and help you find a great equine nutritionist to help with special needs. Just like lots of other things in life, sugar is perfectly fine in moderation. 

Until next week,

~Tony

It’s spring in Florida and that means my docs are out checking new foals to make sure they’re healthy. With their long, awkward, spindly legs, it’s a wonder any foal can ever stand up and run around, but they seem to accomplish it somehow. No foal is a match for my feline elegance, but sometimes, a foal is born with legs more crooked than usual, or his legs become that way over time. If you’ve got a foal around, it’s really important for you to know what to look for in limb conformation. What you do now to take care of your new foal can set him up for success (or potential crippling lameness problems) for the rest of his life. Crooked foalsYeah, no pressure! The good news is my doc can fix a lot of these issues if they are identified in time. Now let’s talk about what we mean by “crooked foals”.

There are 2 major categories we’ll discuss: Angular limb deformities and flexural limb deformities. I know those names are kind of intense, but here is a super basic breakdown: an angular limb deformity looks crooked when viewed from the front, while a flexural limb deformity looks crooked when viewed from the side. There are different causes and treatments for each of these, so let’s look at them a bit closer. This week we’ll talk about Angular limb deformities, and we’ll go over flexural limb deformities in part 2.

Angular limb deformities (ALD)

An ALD is an inward or outward deviation of the leg from midline, when viewed from the front (or back) of the foal. We call an outward deviation “valgus” and an inward deviation “varus”. Then we add the name of the joint at which the deviation starts. So for example, if you’re looking at a foal from the front and his legs are straight until the knee (carpus), then the lower legs deviates outward, he would have a “carpal valgus”.

It’s not uncommon for a foal to have a mild “knock kneed” appearance at birth, but it’s really important to have an exam by a vet to ensure that it’s not a conformation problem that is going to extend into adulthood. This type of deformity can have several different causes, some present when the foal is born and some developing over time. The treatment is very different depending on the cause, so you’ve gotta have my doc out to find out what the underlying problem is. Here are several potential issues:

• Incomplete ossification of the cuboidal bones

During gestation, the small bones in the foal’s carpus (knee) and tarsus (hock) turn from cartilage into bone. We call them cuboidal bones since they’re roughly shaped like little cubes.  Normally, these bones are fully turned to bone (ossified) by the time the foal is born. If the foal is born premature, or the mare was sick during pregnancy, or for one reason or another the baby doesn’t “cook right”, those little cuboidal bones are still cartilage when the foal is born. Here’s the big problem with that – cartilage is much softer than bone and not meant to support the foal’s weight through the joints. If there is only soft cartilage where bone is supposed to be, it can be crushed by the foal standing and moving around on it. Once it turns into bone, it will be fixed in whatever shape it was deformed into, dooming the horse to joint pain and lameness on a malformed joint. So we really have to start working on these cases immediately – you really don’t want to wait long before calling my doc to have a look! Foals that have signs of prematurity should have x-rays taken of their knees and hocks to make sure the bones are fully developed into bone. If incomplete ossification is found, the foal will need his legs splinted and to stay resting in the stall. My doc will take x-rays at intervals to check when the bones have formed. Once the bone is there, the foal will be allowed to resume more normal activity. If we can keep the bones from crushing, they will ossify over time and the prognosis is good.

Normal  ossification of the bones in a foal’s carpus

 The bones of this carpus are incompletely ossified – that’s why they don’t show up on this x-ray.

See the crushed bone in this hock? You don’t want your foal’s hock to end up looking like this!

• Laxity of ligaments around the joint

Sometimes the ligaments that hold the joint straight are a bit too loose when the foal is born. My doc might notice this when she manipulates the joint. She would be able to manually straighten the leg, but when the foal stands on it, it becomes crooked again. If she takes an x-ray and is satisfied that those cuboidal bones aren’t the problem, that’s probably good news, since ligament laxity will usually improve in time. Controlled exercise and growth of the foal will usually resolve this problem.

• Disproportionate growth

This is the most common cause of angular limb deformity and can be caused by unbalanced nutrition, excessive exercise, or overload of the limb, which damages the growth plate. As the foal grows, one side of the leg increases in length faster than the other, resulting in an angular limb deformity that develops over time. My doc has several tools at her disposal to influence the rate of growth to correct the imbalance so that the limb will straighten up over time. The trick is she has to be able to do this while the growth plates are still active. Different growth plates close at different times, and for some joints (especially the fetlock) we have to act sooner than others. Unfortunately, if you wait too long to call my doc and the growth plate has mostly closed, there isn’t a whole heck of a lot she can do. For the fetlock, we have to act before the foal is 2-3 months old, so don’t mess around!

For a foal that is only mildly affected, therapeutic trimming of the hoof and glue-on shoes may be enough to help the foal stand more correctly and encourage the joints to align correctly. For a more significantly affected foal, a surgical procedure called a “periosteal strip” (aka “periosteal transection and elevation”) can be used to stimulate the growth rate on the side of the limb that is lagging, helping it to catch up to the other side. However, in situations where the foal is more severely crooked or when there is not much time left until the growth plate closes, a procedure called a “transphyseal bridge” may be needed to correct the deviation. This involves temporarily placing a metal implant across the growth plate to slow the rate of growth on the side of the leg that is growing faster, allowing the opposite side to catch up. The implant is usually one screw or two screws with a wire in between. It will be removed when the foal’s leg has straightened.

This screw is used as a transphyseal bridge to show the growth on that side of the limb so the opposite side can catch up.

You’ve waited a long time for your foal to be born, so give him the best start by having him evaluated at regular intervals. My doc will make sure those legs are growing nice and straight and help you avoid CAT-astrophe!

Until next week,

 Tony

PS – Don’t forget to check out our podacst page. It is filled with tons of knowledge. I am quite certain you will learn something new!

Dermatophilus congolensis

Spring is here, the flowers are blooming, the vehicles are covered in pollen, everyone is sneezing and boy oh boy the horses are shedding. The docs and techs around here are obsessed! They cannot stop themselves from scratching and rubbing and plucking out all the long tufts of hair the horses are losing. They claim it’s therapeutic, but I think it is just messy! The birds seem to like it, so I guess there’s that.

Now that spring is finally here, we’ve had some really warm days, and some rainy days as well.  For horses who haven’t quite lost their winter coat, this can prove to be problematic, as they can develop the dreaded Skin Funk underneath all that hair. Take it from me, skin problems are no fun. Your horse is miserable with it, you are miserable trying to get rid of it and everyone around you is miserable because all you talk about is skin!

What is this skin funk?

Contrary to popular belief, that “rain rot” your horse has is probably NOT fungus. I know, I know, you’ve been around horses forever, and it’s always been fungus. Wrong! It has never been fungus. In fact, it has always been Dermatophilus congolensis. Maybe “fungus” is just easier to say, but Dermatophilus congolensis is actually a bacteria. The fun part about it is that the bacteria is naturally occurring on your skin. Most of the time it remains dormant and doesn’t cause a problem. However, when the environment changes, and all the stars align (which isn’t hard to do for Dermatophilus) the bacteria activates and proliferates.

Horses with long coats that get damp to the skin are significantly more prone to developing Dermatophilus. That’s why we see it so much this time of year.  Any small breaks in the skin from an insect bite, a laceration or an abrasion allows the bacteria to enter the top layer of your horse’s skin. It then forms pustules that create scabs. These scabs are what you see and feel on your horse’s coat.  They’re referred to as “paint brush” lesions because when you pull off the scabs, the hair comes with it and looks like a paint brush.  I think they just look itchy and irritating, but I’m no artist.

While unsightly, irritating, and frankly just a pain in the rear end, Dermatophilus can be a rather mild infection. However, if left untreated it can become a much more serious bacterial infection such as streptococcus or staphylococcus. Strep and staph infections are significantly more difficult to treat, they are more painful, and can lead to systemic infection.

Symptoms and Causes

Symptoms of a Dermatopilus infection may include matted hair, small, crusty bumps on the skin, and hair loss. Your horse may be painful in heavily infected areas, their skin may be inflamed and there may be some pus-filled scabbing present.

The fun part about Dermatophilus is that it’s easily spread among horses. Sharing grooming tools, saddle pads, blankets, wraps, etc. are all very effective ways to spread the bacteria between horses in the same barn. Even just being in the same area as a horse with an active infection can cause the bacteria to spread to others. The good thing is, it’s not transmittable to people or cats! Remember, horses may have the bacteria on their skin in a dormant status, which means they’d have no signs but can still spread it to other horses that could develop the infection.  Horses with an impaired immune system from stress, travel, illness, or malnourishment are significantly more susceptible to developing outward signs of infection.

Diagnosis

Diagnosing Dermatophilus is usually straightforward. The clinical signs are pretty clear. However, there are some other skin diseases that are important to rule out, including ring worm, parasitic infections, and other bacterial infections.  This is done by several different means.

Skin impressions are an easy and inexpensive diagnostic tool that will confirm diagnosis based on clinical signs.  A hair tuft is obtained and placed on a slide, mashed around, and then stained with special stain. The docs look at it under the microscope and if they see the classic “railroad track” bacteria, they know it’s Dermatophilus.

Another diagnostic tool my docs have up their sleeves is the skin scrape.  Oh, heck no, you’re not coming towards this cat with a blade and the word ‘scrape’ in mind, nope, not going to happen. A skin scrape is performed using a dull surgical blade (don’t worry, it’s not previously used or anything) and my docs will make a small abrasion in your horse’s skin to get a sample of the deeper layers. They take this sample back to the clinic and look at it under the microscope as well. Rarely, they might find some little bugs (or mites) in the sample which would indicate an underlying problem causing your horse’s skin funk.

Treatment

Do me a favor: go in your tack room or wash rack or wherever you keep all of those expensive shampoos.  It’s okay to cry a little, but those that say “anti-fungal” on them, they’re not going to solve your problem.  You’ve spent a small fortune, I know. You probably could’ve sent your kid to college with the amount of money you’ve spent on different shampoos. You don’t have to dump all of those out, don’t worry. You can still use them for bathing at horse shows, or just for fun. However, they won’t be of use for treating Dermatophilus infections.

Since Dermatophilus is a bacteria, anti-fungal shampoos usually don’t contain the anti-bacterial properties necessary to kill it. Almost always, you’ll need an antibacterial shampoo that your veterinarian will prescribe. My docs love Kinetic Vet CK shampoo. They recommend bathing at least twice a week and allowing the shampoo to soak for 10 minutes each time. Occasionally, for very severe infections they may require more frequent bathing.

You might think, oh no! My horse has rain rot all over, I should go clip him right away. DON’T! Yes, it might seem like the easy fix, but it can cause small breaks in the skin allowing the bacteria easy entry and encourage spread.  Same can be said for aggressive grooming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for an aggressive grooming. I love it, it’s like a deep tissue massage. However, very aggressive grooming can also cause small breaks in the skin, and when your horse has an active infection, it can be quite painful.

On rare occasions, my docs may recommend systemic antibiotics. Meaning medications that are given either orally or via an injection. Luckily, this usually only happens if the bacterial infection has progressed to a strep or staph infection. Similarly, my docs may recommend a topical antiseptic ointment to apply to any open abrasions to prevent the spread of bacteria.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, do not share equipment between horses. Every horse should have his or her own brushes, saddle pads, blankets, wraps, etc.  If you have to share, clean and clean often!  Bleach is your best friend in this scenario. Soaking brushes in bleach water is a great way to get rid of the bacteria. Follow up the bleach soak by drying them in the warm sunshine. Bacteria hates dryness and sunshine. Wash your saddle pads and wraps after every use, and blankets, well, let’s just not share those.

Dermatophilus, if recognized and treated early, does not have to be the pain in the rear that we all know it to be. Horses recover easily and well from it. That being said, it can and will reoccur, so if you think you have a problem with skin funk, give my docs a call and have them come see your horse so you can come up with the best plan to manage that nasty bacteria.

Until next week,

~Tony

PS – You know the drill by now..be sure to take a listen to our Podcasts. Our docs work tirelessly gathering the best horse information out there. You can sign up on our podcats page right here. Also, did you know we have a YouTube page? We do, follow this link and catch one of our famous seminars. We have a few on Skin Funk.

Spring is springing. Grass is starting to grow. Pollen has backed off a little bit. ‘Tis the season to wonder what to do about hay. Every year my Docs get questions this time of year about hay. This year I thought I’d be a helpful cat and answer your most often springtime hay questions. I’m awesome like that. Just ask me. I’ll tell you how great I am. 

I can’t get hay!

Lots of you humans feed coastal hay to your horses. It’s a great option for those easy keeper horses. I relate. I look at food and put on a pound or two. This can be a tricky time of year to find coastal hay. The new crops aren’t baled yet, and farmers may be on short supply from last year’s crop. This can mean questionable quality and quantity of hay available. My number one piece of advice here is don’t buy the low quality stuff!! This is a surefire way to see my Docs on emergency late at night or on a weekend. 

Low quality coastal is way, way more likely to cause colics. Coastal hay loves to cause a specific type of colic called an ileal impaction. This happens when the hay stacks up like a bad lasagna at the very end of the small intestine, called the ileum. Luckily, since you are a regular reader of my weekly wisdom, you are feeding some alfalfa to your horse to prevent these colics because you know that’s what I recommend, and you follow every word of my advice. This means your horse’s GI tract is ready to increase that alfalfa some, and stick to quality coastal even if it means decreasing quantity. My Docs can help you adjust for calories and overall quantity so your horse doesn’t get too fat, or have too little roughage in that finicky GI tract. 

Adding different roughage types can really help provide roughage without adding too many calories until farmers can get good quality coastal baled again. Some great options are available such as beet pulp, hay pellets, and even bagged hay. Anytime you change up roughage be sure to go slowly. Add small amounts to start, then increase over 7-10 days. The bacteria in the gut need a few days to adjust to a different roughage type. If you go too fast they get upset, and take it out on you by causing increased gas production, or diarrhea. Neither of these is a fun option.

 SAND!!!

Ooooohhhh those little tiny bits of green grass that are just coming in are just the most delicious things on the planet! At least that’s what I hear from the horses. I eat some grass, but I am no connoisseur of the stuff. The problem with those super delicious little bits of grass is they come with bits of sand as well. The horse GI tract is an excellent collector of sand, but not so excellent at getting rid of it. What’s a human to do? Feed more roughage. Now, this can be tricky this time of year as I will discuss in my next section. Roughage does an excellent job at picking up sand and moving it on out. 

Feeding a minimum of 2% of body of your horse’s body weight will keep the beach outside where it belongs! Don’t know how much your horse weighs? Any one of my minions can show you our quick and easy technique. Like I said in the previous section, you can get creative with roughage types. Beet pulp, hay pellets (or cubes, as long as they’re soaked), and bagged hay all count as roughage. There’s also the tried and true psyllium method. My Docs recommend one of the horse psyllium products rather than a human product like Metamucil. The horse products have more psyllium per scoop, and cost less so that’s a win-win! For a horse suspected or known to have lots of sand, start with a double dose for one week, then go back to the normal dose for one week out of every month. It’s super important to only do this one week out of the month. You know those gut bacteria? They can learn to digest psyllium which will inactivate its super sand fighting properties. By only exposing the bacteria to psyllium intermittently we can keep them from learning this skill. 

 I don’t want the hay

As those tiny bites of delicious greenness come up, your horse may decide they taste way better than any dried version (hay) you have to offer. I don’t personally relate, but this may cause them to [GASP!] leave hay behind. I have never voluntarily walked away from food so I have no idea why a horse would do this. Anyway. My Docs get asked what to do about this all the time. To start, it’s important to assess your pasture and decide if you have enough grass present to potentially meet your horse’s roughage needs. My Docs or a county extension agent can help you here. If you do, then it’s likely you can dramatically decrease or even stop hay offerings. This is why you want good pastures! You get to save on hay! Take advantage of all that beautiful grass if you can. 

If you are concerned you don’t have enough grass to meet those roughage needs, you may need to make hay a more appealing option. The two most common ways to do this are increasing the quality of your hay, and confinement. Slowly introducing better tasting stuff like alfalfa or orchard grass hays, or adding beet pulp to grain meals can convince your horse that they can still eat hay while your grass gets a chance to grow. Confining your horse to a stall or small sacrifice paddock with some hay will also allow your horse to realize they may as well eat the hay since there aren’t other options. Some horses will see this as ridiculous horse torture, but let’s be honest: it isn’t. 

Never fear, the grass will grow in, the farmers will bale new hay, and, with a little help from you the human, your horse will survive this time of roughage scarcity. Need help figuring out the best option for you and your horse? My Docs are here to navigate the plethora of options available in the roughage market. They will work with you to find the best option for your horse, farm, and lifestyle.

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. Are you looking for more horse knowledge? Check out the podcast that my docs produce. It’s called Straight from the Horse Doctor’s Mouth and it is absolutely loaded with great information. And it’s free! Any cat knows better than to pass that up. I’m just saying.