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- Horses & History
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Equine Health 101: How to Keep Your Horse Healthy
03/30/2009
If you have a horse of your own, or if you’re helping take care of horses, you know that your top priority is to maintain the best level of equine health possible.
If you have a horse of your own, or if you’re helping take care of horses, you know that your top priority is to maintain the best level of equine health possible. There are a lot of different equine health factors to take into consideration. Here is a primer sheet of what it takes to provide equine health for your horse:
Prevention is Better than Cure
As with human health, in equine health prevention is the most important form of disease control. Some aspects of preventative equine health care come naturally because of how similar they are to human needs: regular exercise, regular trips to the doctor, vaccinations. Horses are not immune from diseases such as tetanus, the flu, and rabies. Even West Nile virus can affect equine health. As with any mammal you care for, parasites can be an equine health issue. If you notice your horse displaying symptoms like a dull coat, colicky coughs, or severe weight loss, then worms have begun to affect equine health adversely. Worms can occur even in horses with perfect equine health because of overcrowding in a pasture, lack of pasture diversity, and unsanitary food and board. Regular trips to the vet for deworming, rotating pastures, and clean vittles are sure ways to keep equine health—and keep the worms away.
Eat, Drink, and be Merry
It would be easy to confuse a cow with a horse sometimes based on the amount of grass they eat. When a horse has a good level of equine health, he or she will be grazing on grass constantly. But as with any diet, diversity is imperative for true equine health. Don’t let your horse subsist on grass alone! Provide lots of clean (ie dust, mold, and bug-free) hay. Grains can be nice for a treat—but more than sparingly, grains can hurt equine health by causing a horse to put on weight, and is rough on the gastrointestinal track. Water is also very important when considering equine health. Clear, clean, unfrozen water should be freshly provided each day.
Long in the Tooth
Tooth and ‘Nail’ (ie hoof) care is one of the most important parts of equine health because it is often overlooked. A horse with a good level of equine health will have long, prominent teeth meant for grinding up grasses and grains. These teeth are always growing, but they are also wearing away at different rates. To avoid painful chewing, keep equine health in check by having an equine dentist look at them annually, filing them down if necessary. These visits will also help determine if your horse has any cavities.
As far as hooves go, like fingernails, horses maintain equine health by having their hooves trimmed every two months or so. Of course, race horses and work horses—horses that see a lot of exercise—have their hooves kept naturally long through wear and tear. Not all horses have to be shoed, so talk over other options (like natural hardening) with your equine doctor.
