Cold Weather Care for Your Senior Horse

Turning your old horse out to pasture is not the kindest thing to do during cold weather unless steps are taken to preserve the horse's health. Making sure that the horse is well-cared for and has adequate shelter available at all times is paramount in keeping it functioning and alert.

Although time takes its toll on the older horse's bodily systems, much can be done to keep the horse healthy, spry, and capable of great companionship if owners stop and consider special needs of aging horses especially when cold weather threatens their health.

As a horse ages, the digestive tract becomes less efficient. Bones and joints are less resilient and an older horse may feel the aches and pains of arthritis. The immune system becomes less reliable, making older horses more susceptible to illness and less able to recuperate from disease or injury.

Parasites take a heavier toll and older horses are less able to cope with environmental stresses such as cold, wind, and damp conditions. Hormonal changes may affect the overall body condition, hair growth, energy level and appetite.

Aging horses are also more susceptible to respiratory, eye, and dental problems making it necessary to check on them more often than healthy, younger horses.

Some of these signs of decline may be directly related to the aging process, but they may also be an indication of an underlying medical problem. Having the horse checked regularly by a veterinarian and at the earliest signs of any problem is important for the maintenance of good health.

Dental care for your older horse

Keeping a horse's teeth functioning well is one of the biggest challenges for the owner of a senior equine. As horses age, their molars often wear unevenly and teeth are lost, creating gaps where the lost tooth once was and overgrowth of the now unopposed tooth on the opposite side. Without regular dental care including floating, these changes can wreak havoc on an older horse’s ability to properly chew roughage such as grass and hay, leading to less efficient digestion and nutrient utilization.

Rough edges created by uneven molar wear can create ulcers on the cheeks and tongue, making eating flat-out painful. Although younger horses also experience these dental issues, older equines seem much more plagued with dental issues and secondary health consequences, such as weight loss.

Be on the offensive — get your hands on your horse

For many horse owners, winter is sort of a down time — the weather is uncomfortable, the horse is shaggy, and it’s cold outside for humans as well as horses. Days and sometimes weeks can pass without owners actually getting their hands directly on their horses.

Shaggy winter coats can give the false appearance of a pudgy equine, although the older horse may be losing too much weight. This is reason alone to bring your horses in on a regular basis for a good once-over. A quick grooming session will tell you if ribs are easily felt under the winter coat, indicating  weight loss. This grooming also allows for a quick assessment of any superficial wounds and whether or not a farrier's services are needed.

The bodies of older horses do not fight infections as well as those of younger horses, and identifying and treating wounds of any kind, especially on the horse's legs, can lead to infections that take a tremendous toll on the horse's health.

Don't let exercising your horse fall through the winter cracks

If you still ride your older horse, try your best to continue your exercise or work program during the winter. Cold weather is hard on arthritic joints, but even occasional work under saddle, or on a lunge line, can help keep muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joint capsules limber.

Remember, colder weather will mean spending longer to warm your horse up, and proper cooling down is essential, especially with a thick winter coat, to avoid chills. If winter riding is simply not an option, consider incorporating some stretching exercises into your horse’s routine. Neck stretches for a carrot and knee bends can also add some bonding time between you and your older horse.

When is a Young Horse Ready to Ride?

I have a fine-boned 3-year-old Welsh/Quarter Horse cross that I would like to start in regular work and training, but I'm reluctant for fear of placing too much stress on her young spine. When is it safe to start and ride her on a regular basis?

In the performance horse world and with many breeds, 3 to 4 years old should be an adequate age to start a horse under saddle. In the racing breeds we start a little earlier (around 2 years of age) and the data doesn't show that starting these horses early is a problem. But, generally, 3 to 4 years old is a good age and the horse should be plenty mature skeletally for some riding.

Horse aren't completely physically mature at this point and are still growing, and certainly a 3-year-old Warmblood will look different than a 6-year-old Warmblood. You have to play it by ear and use common sense, and you won't use the same training regimen for all breeds and all horses for that matter, even within the same breed.

If you have any questions or see any possible conformational problems, it's fair to have the horse evaluated by a veterinarian before starting training.

from: thehorse.com

Loose Stools in Old Age

Q. My 27-year-old gelding is generally healthy. However, this year he developed loose stools. It's not cow pies but not well-formed manure either, and the manure includes some liquid. He's on a regular deworming program. I have treated for sand (colic) and have him on daily probiotics, which seem to have helped but not eliminated the problem. He had his teeth floated in May, and his appetite is excellent. Do you have any suggestions?

A. Periodic loose stool in aged horses is not uncommon, and may be a consequence of the aging changes that occur in the gut. If he is maintaining his weight, you might have your veterinarian do some basic blood work to be sure nothing else is amiss. Often the cause of loose stool in the geriatric horse can't be identified or resolved. You can try some trial-and-error work seeing if any diet changes in the fiber source helps.

Encouraging Cold Weather Water Consumption

Is it a good idea to add a little salt to your horses' diet in the winter to get them to drink more water?

Yes, this is something I recommend to my clients. As a general rule of thumb, 1 to 2 tablespoons (of table salt) per horse per day can help increase drinking. It’s also important to consider the water itself. People often overlook the temperature of the water, and I think that’s critical to horses and all livestock. If the water is near freezing, horses and cattle are less likely to aggressively drink. Generally speaking, you want to get that water a bit above freezing, ideally around 45 degrees Fahrenheit, or in our case up here (in Canada) about 4 or 5 degrees Celsius.

(http://www.thehorse.com/articles/31173/encouraging-cold-weather-water-consumption)

Ever had an Orphan foal? Here is an interesting discussion on shaping their behavior.

Shaping Orphan Behavior

On a recent ranch tour, we saw some horses the owners called nurse mares. They said these mares are kept on standby for taking care of any orphaned foals, so they grow up normally without behavior problems. Is the nurse mare just a babysitter/­companion or does it also feed the foal? If that is the case, why would a mare randomly have milk when you need it to feed a foal? What sort of behavior problems would an orphan foal develop?        

 While very few foals become orphans (I would estimate less than one percent of all foals born), it can occur when the dam is incapacitated or unavailable. In addition to death or illness, a mare might not produce sufficient milk, although this is rare. Also rare is inadequate maternal behavior that might result in an orphan.

For example, a mare can fail to bond with and care for her foal or she might be uncomfortable nursing due to an udder problem (see page 39 in the December 2012 issue). Sometimes a first-time mother is actually afraid of the foal, as if he were a strange species she has never seen before, much like a horse might react to seeing a pig or a llama for the first time. In some cases the mare can overcome these issues and remain with her foal. In extremely rare cases, a mare might attack or "savage" her foal as if he were a small predator. In this circumstance veterinarians recommend splitting the pair immediately for the foal's survival.

Yes, a nurse mare is intended to actually feed the foal and, no, mares do not produce milk at random. There are two methods used to prepare a mare for lactating when needed to nurse an orphan. The traditional preparation has been to breed the nurse mare, and after she foals and starts caring for her own foal she would be available should a neonate orphan need a foster mom. At that time the nurse mare's somewhat older foal would be transferred to a "kindergarten" where he would be fed milk replacer and kept with other foals in a "play group," sometimes with one or more guardian mares or ¬geldings. A more recently developed strategy for preparing a mare for producing milk is to treat a nonpregnant mare with hormones and udder stimulation to induce lactation. This treatment takes two to three weeks to take effect.

Not every mare will accept an orphan foal, but for those that do the process varies. Some take to the orphan immediately, while others require some patience and reassurance on the part of the handler. This is probably one of the top reasons why a breeding farm might keep potential nurse mares. They can select mares known to be good milk producers as well as good foster moms.

And finally, why go to all this effort to keep and prepare nurse mares? As was indicated on your ranch tour, foals fare much better not only physically but especially behaviorally when reared by a mare and with other horses than when cared for and bottle-fed by people. The main behavior problem hand-reared foals exhibit is that they perceive humans the same as they do horses. They might behave as if they are more interested in interacting with people than with other horses. These foals can be pushy, rough, and dull to taking ordinary direction, and they tend to bite, kick, rear, and even mount people. Some owners have described hand-reared or overhandled foals as ADD-like, in that they are unfocused and difficult to train. Much of hand-reared foals' abnormal behavior has been attributed to associating feeding with humans. If you have no alternative but to hand-feed a young foal, teach him to drink from a bucket so you can dissociate the feeding from humans as much as possible. Another important factor in avoiding behavior problems is to allow the orphan as much contact with horses as possible.