Too much of a good thing?

[Jessey]

Random thoughts on my way home, do we give our horses too much of a good thing?

When I was a kid managed grazing was a winter field and a summer one, we didn't poo pick and I don't remember them being fertilized, perhaps a muck spread from a local farmer once in a while. They lived mostly out in big mixed herds, IF they NEEDED a rug they got a standard neck New Zealand (canvas) in the only weight available, not very thick and bloody heavy to lift! If flys bugged them they got to use their field mates tail to swat them off their face and their own for the rest. They ate grass, meadow hay if they HAD to come in for any length of time. If they lacked oomph they got oats, if they got really skinny they got some sugar beet (molassed) or some barley rings, no supplements unless the vet gave you meds but If we had a lame horse we kicked it out and would see how it looked in a week or two before calling the vet.

Now days they often get grazing managed to within an inch of its life, they get the highest quality pre-mixed feed that does everything you can think of plus a few others mixed with it for good measure and best quality seed hay or haylage plus supplements left right and centre, and you can get rugs in so many different styles and weights it's tough to know what to go for. Yet now it seems every other horse has metabolic issues, ongoing lameness issues, allergies etc (my own included and they live basic lives compared to some)

I know plenty of horses who lived most of their lives on basics and are still going and now in their 30's, it does make you wonder.

 

[Trewsers]

Well having come to horse ownership late in life aged 34 I didn't realise how horse keeping had changed. What I mean is, I just assumed that there had always been a vast array of rugs / food etc. I wonder though if its a bit like people in that you get some folk who live to a ripe old age without much medical intervention and then others that are in and out of hospital / docs etc. Joe was a real sick note and couldn't have just lived out with one rug, he'd have expired long before he did lol! Or maybe that's just a tb thing....
Having said that, Chloe the "hardy" cob has a lot of issues - she is 24 but has Cushings so needs careful management and doesn't particularly like being out 24/7. Not saying it would do her any harm but she does seem happier and chooses to come in twice a day to sleep and shelter from the flies or rain.
I think horse keeping is different for different people on so many ways. What suits some goes against the grain for others. On paper it can sound simple - and it ought to be but when you have issues like lammi prone ones or arthritic ones you have to choose to keep them under sometimes quite complicated conditions.

 

[Trewsers]

Just wanted to add: I wonder many years ago how many horses were pts because there wasn't the care available? I don't mean that to sound like it was the dark ages for horse owners but these days there are so many things out there to help make their quality of life better and I do wonder even about basics like teeth - did owners actually know to have them done more often as they got older? Or was it just accepted if they lost condition through struggling to eat?

 

[Mary Poppins]

I grew up as a horse mad teenager and remember at our yard the horses all lived out 24/7, had basic bits and feed and were not shod.

These days I keep my horse much the same. He lives out in a small herd (there are 5 of them), does not get any hard feed at any time of year, doesn't wear any rugs at all despite a trace or blanket clip, has a snaffle mouth, only has front shoes. He is a horse and I let him live like a horse. However saying that, if he showed me a need to change my routine then of course I would rug him, feed him, give him supplements for joints etc. if he needed them. I have long given up comparing or even caring about what other owners do, or what other owners think of my methods. My horse is healthy and happy and that's all I care about.

 

[Jessey]

Even TBs coped with just a New Zealand, though I guess they were the ones more likely to get the sugar beet or be brought in. In my young teens I don't remember horses having their teeth done unless they had a problem. I agree perhaps more were PTS sooner than they would be now, I don't know, on another line of thinking does being able to manage problems encourage us to breed from less suitable stock? Eg my mares older brother had really terrible sweet itch, in years gone by would that have been enough to put you off breeding from that line again?

My point is really that we spend so much time managing things like cushings, lami and arthritis but are we perhaps contributing to the need to manage it? I mean yes old horses (20 plus) got cushings but now days it's being diagnosed in horses as young as 7, which we then manage. And there is such a high rate of lami now, I've been around horses for 30 years and I can barely remember hearing about it for the first 20! Is the newfangled feed really helping? And so many arthritic horses suffer worse when they stand in during the winter, perhaps when they were out more it appeared less of an issue as it was less noticeable?

Perhaps the internet has a lot to do with my perception of the size of the problem, you see and hear so much more.

What got me thinking was talking to a friend relatively new to horses, he commented how muscly his horse was and I sniggered and said she was pretty fat, he didn't think she was and when I asked if he could see or feel ribs he was shocked that I would want to and said "you can't on any of the others on the yard" which started me thinking about "new normals"

 

[Cortrasna]

Tis like anything I guess......survival of the fittest back in the day. I too remember those days, actually days many decades earlier than you refer to Jessey!

But back then I seem to remember it was mostly hardy little ponies that were long lived and trouble free. No lammi for them, they worked hard and lived on sparse and rough grazing. The more refined and 'bred' type were kept a little more sympathetically, but when the years were on them and lameness or other health issues became an issue, they were culled. End of. Harsh but that was the reality.

These days I think we have become very soft and precious about this horse owning lark (myself included!) in some ways it is nice, we want to keep our faithful horses with us for as long as we possibly can, but has the way we keep them contributed to their demise? Quite likely IMO.

I never poo picked a field in my life until we first moved over here and only had an acre, it was just common sense to do so. But why would you on a holding of many acres with only a sensible number of horses on it - and HOW would you? I think now so many people have horses and land is scarce, of course it becomes sour and a worm burdened nightmare. We always rotated with cattle back then, and luckily I can still do that now with my neighbours help - I have never yet lost a horse to problems associated with worm burdens - touching wood furiously etc. etc.

 

[Kite_Rider]

I think things have definitely changed not only with the way we keep horses now but also with the amount of tack people use. When I was a kid all we had was a headstall, browband, bit (snaffle) and reins, when I got back into horses I was amazed by all the 'new' stuff you could get.
Having said that, the way I manage my good doer is a necessity if I want to ride her, or I could get her shod so I didn't notice any footyness, up until we moved we never had any problems, she's on a pretty much forage based diet but I do give her minerals as a supplement purely because she is on such restricted grazing, she has to be on this yard as it's old cattle pasture and full of ryegrass, I've also just learned that ryegrass contains 332mg/g of fructose compared to perennial meadow grass which only has 0.52mg/g !!! No wonder she was sore. So while I agree that maybe we should be less 'fussy' the only choice I have is to move yards to somewhere less lush or restrict her.
Other than that she's kept as much like a horse as she can be.

 

[newforest]

We had all the allergies and health issues we just didn't have the advances in vets to manage it, so they were put down, field ornaments. You can't really comment about whether keeping a horse with health issues is contributing until your horse gets diagnosed with a life threatening condition. Its easy to look at the situation until you are in it.
My cob wouldn't be here had she been born twenty years ago. The knowledge now and drugs saved her. She has the same quality of life. The vet said she had to live out and be a horse else we would have made a decision for her. A few told me to put her down, they wouldn't pay the vet fees. Get another one.

I am on a yard that doesn't believe in the dentist, the back person, physio, or insurance. They are not pets they are working. If they don't work they get sold, move on, retired. Its not cost effective to treat all especially back in the day when there were 70 here!

Horses only actually need hay, grass, nuts and beet. Even the racehorses get just oats and barley no processed crap. Our grazing in general is not suitable, its cow grass not the sparse moorland stuff they need to roam about on. They don't get enough exercise, I know dogs who get worked more than horses do.

Talking of tack the racehorses have a bridle with a hollow mouth snaffle and a saddle. A lot of the gadgets weren't around years ago. The riding stables I was at just had a bridle and saddle, no knee rolls and it was hard on your bum. But they worked for four hours per day and we just did trekking.
The majority of horses you see in competition have these dutch gags, I remember one horse out of thirty at the yard being in one years ago. I wasn't allowed to ride it because I didn't know how to use the two reins, but now you see it being used with one when its designed to be used with two.

 

[Gimp]

The way I see it times move on, we have alot more knowledge these days and advances in medicine, feed and a more widely known insight into being able to read our horses better, better lightweight breathable materials for rugs when needed, a better understanding into tack fitting, all off which Id say is certainly a good thing to have

 

[notpoodle]

When I was growing up a colic usually meant the horse would often end up dead as there was just 'the vet', not these big practices with people on call 24/7. Yes, there is the 'good old days' (depending on how old you are these could have happened any time between 1940 and 199o it seems!) but I think that a lot of the 'advances' made are great, like sweet itch rugs etc.

Where I grew up, big horses were kept stabled 24/7 (some livery yards didn't even have fields!!!), ponies would be kept in a little barn with a little dirt pen around it and let out onto super lush fields in the summer. Not how I'd chose to keep my horses.

We used to chuck any old saddle on that vaguely looked like it might fit, and usually only stopped using it if the horse was covered in white hairs or red raw! I am actually glad there are saddle fitters around these days!

 

[newforest]

If you look at any "advancement", cars didn't have seat belts years ago, they were slower and built like tanks. Now you have seatbelts as the cars crumple up like a tin can and go twice the speed.
They were noisy, a plus in my book, as now out hacking I can't hear the bloody things but thankfully The Cob doesn't miss anything. Though I am glad tractors are quieter!
Its not always a good thing to develop new ideas for old thinking.

 

[Jessey]

All good points, don't even get me started on tack and those who use things for fashion!

Jess has cushings, diagnosed at 10 years old, I've owned her since she was 18 months, I often wonder if I could have done anything differently, perhaps I could have delayed the onset? With that comes the lami risk, an almost constant worry and she is prone to colic after a bad episode as a youngster which left her hospitalised after narrowly avoiding surgery and I had to have my gelding PTS at the end of last year at just 15, he had bone spavin, but then had a terrible reaction to the treatment causing the joint to start disintegrating so I do think I can comment on my experience of these.

I'm not against change for the better, at all, but I sometimes wonder if things we do with our horses is more for our benefit. Don't get me wrong I don't want to go back to those heavy rugs, or having to PTS for very treatable things, or that moment when it's -5c outside and you realise you forgot to soak your sugar beet before the hose pipe froze solid, but I would give my right arm to be able to turn my horse out on a large acreage and have enough grass for winter and to be able to watch them in a big herd without worrying about how fat they are getting.

The guy I mentioned, is still feeding his horse twice a day, pony mix and Alfa-a, his mare is a big chunky native type and she is fat (BSC 4+), comes in every night "because otherwise the others pinch her feed" and is perhaps ridden 2 hours a week, he is following others lead on the yard, luckily he is very keen to learn and open to different ideas so I'm going to send him some info on condition scoring as I think she is a big lami risk currently.

 

[newforest]

I lost my other chap to colic, six weeks after surgery. Would I do it again hell no! But, I know of horses that survived, mine was just too far gone.
Some thin horses get lammi, its not just over weight ones. We have a plump Welsh A, not got it. The nutrition course I did listed loads of reasons why lami can occur, stress was one of them. So sometimes keeping a horse on rations in a small area causes stress and the release of the chemical that causes them to gain weight=lami
Where do you draw the line, broken leg pts, fracture pts.

 

[Jessey]

I totally agree, i was relieved not to have to decide on colic surgery. I had experience of atypical lami with Bo, not fat, on 6 acres but when the owner of the land thought he would help out and top it for me Bo galloped on sun baked ground until he had concussive lami in all 4 feet, but why keep feeding something already overweight and increase the risk? All too often I think it's the human desire to give a bucket feed, not the horses need for it, same with lots of rugs (I rug mine but I've seen horses wearing a duvet plus 3 rugs in a closed American barn) and stabling, none of these things in moderation is a bad thing for a domestic horse but I wonder more and more if too much is.

With Bo the line was colic, his bone spavin started flaring and he was in pain but coping, after steroid injections it got worse, more X-rays revealed fragments breaking off, vet thought he had a slim chance if he stayed in and rested it, then due to the immobility he got bad colic, he wasn't properly weight bearing and certainly not able to travel to hospital and I was not prepared to risk him colicing again in the night and dying slowly and in pain. It broke my heart.