Horse Health Advice - a brief look at your horses health.

Including horse health advice on conformation, your horses hoof, your horses feet, parasites and worms. Your horses breathing and digestive systems.

Your horse is a large powerful animal that has evolved over millions of years for flight rather than to fight. Your horse will always try to run from danger unless it is trapped and cannot get away.

It is vitally important that all aspects of your horse, concerned with the ability to run from danger, are healthy and horse health advice will be a prime part of your ongoing education and training, for as long as you own or ride a horse.

Good horse health advice should also include the care of your horses breathing or respiratory system as well as the more obvious points such as joints, feet, hooves, legs, etc.

Use the sections outlined below to find out more about your horses health, how your horse is put together, how your horse moves and what you can do to make sure your horse stays fit and healthy. Good horse health advice is invaluable.

Horse conformation :
Conformation has a strong impact on movement, performance, and soundness. Although movement is most obvious as the motion of the lower limbs, it is an integration of the action of the upper limbs, back, neck, and in fact, the whole horse. Conformation refers to the physical appearance of a horse as dictated primarily by his bone and muscle structures and his outline. There is no definitive single standard of perfection or specific ideal for normal conformation as guidelines depend on the classification, type, breed, and intended use of the horse.

Your horses skeleton :
Your horses skeleton is composed of approximately 210 individual bones (excluding those in the tail). The skeleton gives support for the muscles, protection for the internal organs, and possesses the necessary mobility for the horse to move at various speeds, sleep standing, lie down or graze.

Horse teeth & the equine dentist:
By the time your horse is five years old, all the permanent teeth should be through and the gums should be a healthy pink colour with no bruising. Horses teeth grow and erupt throughout their lives and regular attention from an equine dentist is a must.

Your horses foot & hoof :
Every horse owner should have some understanding of the care of a horses feet and of shoeing. `NO FOOT - NO HORSE' is an old and very true saying. Any horse being ridden regularly on a hard surface, such as a road, must be shod, or the wall of the hoof will be worn down quicker than it can grow. This will cause friction, soreness and lameness. Hardy ponies, working lightly and solely on grass, can do without shoes, but their hooves should still be looked at regularly by a farrier. There is a modern trend for the barefoot horse and keeping horses unshod, but you should investigate all aspects of this before deciding whether it is suitable for your horse.

Parasitic Disease, horse worms & de-worming :
Essential horse health advice on the use of good horse wormers in a worming programme. Help to minimise the worm problem that your horse has to cope with, and help optimise your horses health and performance. Use a combination of horse wormers to make the pasture safer for your horse to graze on. Parasitic worms can cause fatal colic, weight loss, poor performance, rough coat, pot belly and stunted growth.

Your horses respiratory system (breathing):
The respiratory system of your horse is well adapted to athletic exercise, with un-restricted upper airway diameters, and a large lung capacity afforded by 18 ribs. These combine to enable air intakes of up to 1800 litres per minute in a galloping horse. Volumes of up to 300 litres of blood are pumped at high pressure through small lung capillaries surrounding 10 million air sacs to take up and deliver over 70 litres of oxygen per minute to the working muscles at the gallop.

Your horses digestive system (eating):
Your horse evolved as a continuous grazer and will happily graze for 14 to 20 hours a day if given the opportunity. Your horse has a digestive tract amazingly well adapted to ingesting and digesting forages. Because the basis of any equine diet should be forage, special attention should be given to the type and quality of feed fed to the horse. Not all forages are created equal and pasture grasses and legumes as well as hays can vary greatly in the protein, energy, vitamin and mineral content depending on the type of forage, the maturity of the plant and where it is grown.

Use our horse health advice sections to make sure you are as knowledgeable as possible on the needs of your horse and to ensure its continuing health and wellbeing. Remember, though, the information contained in the horse health advice section is no substitute for a professional, fully qualified vet.

Return to >> local riding >> horse health advice