Horse Management Practices

Common Management Practices

• Successful horse ownership relies on knowledge and good management.
• Management combines knowledge with practical application.

Recognizing Stress in Horses

• Stress is a demand for adaptation which is sometimes necessary.
• Each horse has unique tolerance levels.

Categories of Stress

• Behavioral stress involves vision, hearing, smell, and touch.
• Communication factors include visual and recognizing signals.
• Social behavior consists of herd instinct and social order.
• Mechanical stress factors Lameness, local inflammation, swelling, heat, and pain.
• Nutritional and metabolic stress involves colic, laminitis, and tying up.
• Immunological stress involves disease and/or parasites.

Permanent Records

• Permanent records for horses should include their name, breed, and birth date.
• Additional Important data includes weight, condition scores, deworming dates/products, injury dates/treatments, surgery dates/outcomes, and allergy causes.

Marking or Identifying Horses

• Proper horse identification holds high priority.
• The Jockey Club was the first US organization to establish accurate identification.

Methods to Identify a Horse

• Common methods include body markings, tattooing, and freeze branding.
• Blood typing, DNA testing, and microchip implantation offer added identification

Minimizing Theft of Horses

• Permanent markings help track horses.
• An ownership file should contain registration papers, a dated bill of sale, photographs, and descriptions of unique characteristics.

Neonatal Procedures

• Navel treatment involves tincture of iodine solution and natural severance.
• A foal enema prevents impacted meconium and stimulates intestinal peristalsis.

Mare and Foal Exercise

• Timing the mare and foal's first turnout depends on climate, foaling time, and weather.
• The mare should be released first and will usually run and kick.

Weaning and Castration

• Weaning can be stressful for foals.
• The foal should be in good health at weaning time.
• Weaning methods include abrupt and gradual separation.
• A castrated horse is called a gelding and can be castrated at any age, most frequently between birth and 2 years of age.
• Cryptorchid or ridgeling horses have one or both undescended testes and can be difficult to castrate.

Bedding

• Bedding qualities include being absorbent, dust-free, readily available, easily disposable, unpalatable, and affordable.

Fly Control

• Fly control relies on sound sanitation with proper stable or corral maintenance.
• Other fly control includes chemical and biological intervention.

Management Efforts

• Management efforts are needed to control diverse fly types.
• It includes understanding the life cycles and habits of horseflies, deerflies, blackflies, biting gnats/midges, horn flies, and nuisance flies.

Management of Pastures

• Horses thrive when allowed to graze.
• Sound pasture management prevents over/undergrazing, clipping pastures regularly, chain-link harrowing, and fertilizer.

Pasture Improvement

• Lime and fertilizer application can double yield.
• Complete renovation involves soil testing, destroying/suppressing old pastures and appropriate seeding methods.

Forage Concerns

• Horses are very susceptible to molds, fungi, and toxic substances in forage.
• Other forage issues include blister beetles and poisonous plants.

Wound Management and Basic First Aid

• Key characteristics include elevated/below-normal temperature, increased pulse, mucous membrane color, and capillary refill time.
• Wound classifications include clean, contaminated, infected, open, and closed.

Summary

• Stress can arise from mechanical injury, poor nutrition, and disease.
• Positive identification deters theft/fraud and is required for insurance.
• Proper management sustains productive pastures and enhances poor pastures via renovation.