Horse Health - a brief look at your horses health. Including conformation, the horses hoof, the feet, parasites and worms, the horses breathing and digestive systems.

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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 should be a prime part of your ongoing education and training, for as long as you own or ride a horse.

Prime horse health 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 links below to find out more about your horse, how it is put together, how it moves and what you can do to make sure it stays fit and healthy.

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 :
The horse's 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.

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 keeping horses unshod and you should investigate all aspects of this before deciding

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

The horses respiratory system (breathing):
The respiratory system of the 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.

The horses digestive system (eating):
The horse evolved as a continuous grazer and will graze 14 to 20 hours a day if given the opportunity. The 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.

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