Beating the summer heat

Hot and humid summers can be tough on humans and even tougher on horses, horses rely on us to choose how they deal with the heat.

Horses can live outside 24/7 if provided with 2 very important things: Fresh water at all times, and shade, somewhere they can go to get out of the direct sunlight and heat. As for water it must be clean and drinkable, all horses in the paddock must have access to it, no matter the height of the horse or pony. If horses are stalled at night, it is advised that they have 2 water buckets as they will drink more in the heat. Buckets get slimy after a day or 2 so also dumping buckets out and scrubbing them is a must. Slim build up will result in bacteria ingested by the horse. Provide free choice mineral/salt licks in pastures unless they are in the horses stalls. 

Shade can be in the form of large trees, and or run in shelters big enough for all horses in get out of the heat together, as they normally travel in packs. Providing UV ray scrim sheets/ light summer fly sheets will also protect horses from the bug bites and the elements, Fly masks are also a good idea so horses don't get bug bites around their faces and then their faces swell up most times. 

Horses that have light faces and or light pink noses may need sunscreen as well applied everyday they are outside and or exposed to the sun. Chesnut horses with pink noses are very susceptible to burns on their noses.  In the hot and humid summer months horses maybe be left inside during the day to avoid the UV rays and turned out at night to be more comfortable while being outside.

If possible and the weather is decent open all barn doors and windows to allow airflow through the barn to cut down on the heat being trapped inside. Installing fans on each horses stall front is advisable if possible to give each horse its own cooling system when stalled to avoid over heating. While being stalled horses need access to hay and fresh clean water at all times and electrolytes would be advisable too to encourage the horse to drink in the humid weather. 

Be fair to your horse and avoid working him/her during the high temperatures, ride very early morning or later at night to avoid the humidity. If you must work your horse only ride for about 20-25 minutes at a time with more walk times in between other excersises.  Effective warming up and cooling down are crucial in the summer times, hosing horses off after a workout will help bring down their body temperature and reduce heavy breathing. Don't let your horse stand still to cool down, keep him walking until his breathing returns to normal. 

During the summer keep an eye on your horses drinking habits and make sure he is taking in lots of water to stay hydrated to avoid vet bills.  

Find a Boarding barn....

Check you the barn yourself:

A visit lets you see the facility and level of care for the horses. You should have a list of questions to ask the owners or the manager running the farm. The facility need not be fancy but must be safe for horses to reside at. Things to check:

Fencing
All gates and fences should be in good repair and not broken and functional, Fencing doesn't have to be 4 boards or no climb mesh. Electric tape can be just as good as long as it works, barbed wire is not acceptable.

Stabling
Check stalls for dangers like holes in corners ,broken boards and protruding nails, look for fire hazards and exposed wires and any signs of a fire extinguishers and smoke alarms. There should be clean stalls, clean water buckets. Also take a deep breathe in... you shouldn't smell ammonia.. if you do.. that is a sign of poor ventilation.

Feeding
Ask how often horses are fed and how much, and if they have a custom feed plan for each horse that comes in for boarding. When peaking into the feed room you should see lots of grain and different kinds and supplements stored in a rodent proof containers. There should be a chart with each horses name and what it gets for AM/PM feeding time.  Check the hay.. it should be leafy and green and sweet smelling not dark brown, dusty, course or stemmy.

Turnout
Paddocks that are grazed down to no grass and muddy suggest over crowding of horses in them.  Paddocks should have a good source of water, space between paddocks will prevent aggression along fence lines.

Amenities
Make sure the farms arenas meet your needs and that footing is maintained and appropriate for your discipline.  Keep in mind that no barn is perfect , pick the amenities you want and ones that are just an added bonus.

Horses
Look at the condition of the horses.. they should be fat and look healthy, not sore. They should be relaxed and happy.

20 Questions to ask:

1) How long have you been in operation?
2) What id your turnover rate?
3) How often do you feed?
4) What do you feed?
5) How often and where are horses turned out?
6) Do you require the use of a specific vet and farrier?
7) When are horses de wormed?
8) Do you require boarded horses to have negative coggins?
9) Does someone live on the property? how often are horses checked on?
10) Are there days where i cant visit or ride my horse?
11) Do you require the use of a specific trainer?
12) Can someone blanket my horse if im not there?
13) What services are not included in the board price?
14) Where can i store my tack?
15) Do you have a boarding contract?
16) Can I see a copy of the barn rules and regulations?
17) Do you provide trailering?
18) Do you have liability insurance?
19) Can you provide names and numbers for references?
20) If there a waiting list?


Good luck and have fun choosing a place for your horse to live at.
:)

Managing Carbohydrates in Your Horse’s Diet

Equisearch 


By Bill Vandergrift PhD with Elaine Pascoe

Learn how to maximize your sporthorse’s performance by managing his carbohydrate intake


Grain and forage meet your horse's energy needs by supplying a variety of carbohydrates. Understanding how your horse processes and puts them to use can help you make smart feed choices. The different kinds of carbs can be classified in several ways--by their roles in plant tissue, by the way they're digested by the horse and by the way they’re analyzed in the lab. Here are some important types:

Structural carbohydrates, such as cellulose and hemicellulose, make up the stiff, supportive cell walls of plants. They provide fiber, much of which is fermented by microorganisms in the horse's hindgut. (The term "crude fiber," used on feed labels, refers to structural carbohydrates.) Fiber is essential for the horse's gut health, and it's an important source of energy.

Soluble fibers are fermented more rapidly than structural carbohydrates. They include pectin, a component of plant cell walls that is converted into fatty acids in the hindgut. Beet pulp and soy hulls have high levels of pectin.

Nonstructural carbohydrates are the sugars and starches stored inside plant cells. They include simple sugars (glucose and fructose) and complex polysaccharides, such as starch and fructans, which form when molecules of simple sugars link up.

Starches are the main nonstructural carbohydrates in grains, legumes like alfalfa, and warm-season grasses, such as coastal Bermuda grass. Various grains contain different types of starch, some (oats, sorghum, corn) more easily digested by horses than others. Starches are broken down into sucrose and fructose and absorbed in the horse’s small intestine. If a horse consumes more starch than his small intestine can handle at one sitting, the excess spills over to the hindgut--causing a population explosion of microbes that ferment sugar and starch and setting off a cascade of events that can lead to colic or laminitis.

Fructans, which are made up mainly of fructose, are the major nonstructural carbohydrates in cool-season grasses such as orchardgrass, fescue and timothy. Fructans are not absorbed in the small intestine; instead, microorganisms in the hindgut ferment them into lactic acid. In susceptible horses, an overload of fructans may set off a cascade of events like the one that leads to grain-induced laminitis.

For horses with histories of diet-related laminitis, insulin resistance or PSSM, limiting nonstructural carbohydrate levels in feed and forage is essential. Most feed labels don't provide this data or much other information about carbs, however, and the only way find out what's in pasture and hay is to have it analyzed. Labs that do this work, such as Equi-analytical Laboratories in Ithaca, New York, use specialized tests and terms to distinguish carbohydrate fractions. For example:

• Water-soluble carbohydrates are those that can be extracted in water. They include simple sugars, sucrose and fructans.
• Ethanol-soluble carbohydrates, extracted in ethanol, are mainly simple sugars and sucrose--so a lab can determine the fructan content of forage by subtracting ethanol-soluble carbohydrates from water-soluble carbohydrates.
• Neutral detergent fiber is a measure of three structural carbs--hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin, which is not digested.
• Acid detergent fiber is a measure of cellulose and lignin; as ADF increases, overall digestibility of the forage decreases