Archive for the ‘Horse Articles’ Category
It is common for oat hay to mature and turn yellow after it has been cut. Generally speaking, oat hay is acceptable for horses.
Usually, the more mature the hay, the less nutritious and palatable it is for the horse. However, in order to find out for sure, it is recommended to get it tested for nutrient content, see Equi-Analytical (http://www.equi-analytical.com/) for more information.
Another concern for oat hay includes making sure the oat grain is not still in the hay. Otherwise the hay will have excess energy content, and consuming too much of the hay could lead to obesity.
There is no reason to leave him a stallion until he is 2 years old. If you want to get the secondary sexual characteristics (increased muscle mass), you need to leave him a stallion until he is mature (usually older than 2 years for most breeds).
As for the size issue, theoretically, if he is castrated early, he will grow taller since testosterone leads to the growth plates closing sooner. To determine how much difference is really seen, one would need to have paired clones and castrate one while leaving one intact.
It is very difficult to body condition score a horse via photos or descriptions since most people depend on actually feeling the horse's body.
Some general guidelines are:
- If the ribs cannot be seen but can easily be felt, that would be a 5 (average).
- If you can see her ribs, but she appears to have some fat over other parts of her body, the score will be below a 5, so probably about a 4.
- When the horse starts looking bony, that is when you enter the 1 - 3 range. The exact score depends on how much fat cover is present.
For more specific guidelines for body condition scoring, follow the link to the Learning Lesson: http://www.extension.org/pages/HorseQuest_Learning_Lesson:How_to_Body_Co...
If you would like another opinion, you should contact your veterinarian.
Any time a horse is unwilling to eat, there is reason for concern.
With foam coming from his mouth, one of the first problems to consider is choke (a blockage in the esophagus). If the problem does not resolve in an hour, your veterinarian will need to pass a stomach tube to check/resolve the choke.
Other possibilities that need to be considered are colic, respiratory problems, foreign bodies in the mouth/tongue, etc. All these problems are made worse in the heat of summer, when dehydration also becomes a concern. In any of these cases, it is best to contact your veterinarian.
Most herbicides used in roadside spraying do have grazing and harvest restrictions. Contact your local township or county to inquire about what product(s) was sprayed, when it was sprayed, and then read the herbicide label to determine if/how long the grazing/harvest restriction is. Once the grazing/harvest restriction time period has passed, it is safe to harvest/graze along the roadside.
