7 Flashcards
,Horse owners must keep a file on every horse that includes the following information:
- Permanent identification, birth date, and registrations
- Reproductive history, breeding dates, and foaling dates
- Weight and condition scores
- Normal temperature (T), pulse (P), and respiration (R), or
TPR - Deworming dates and products used
- Vaccination dates, diseases, and products used
- Illness dates, diagnoses, and treatments
- Injury dates and treatments
- Surgery dates and outcomes
- Allergy causes
Stress can be grouped into four different categories for horses:
- Behavioral or psychological
- Mechanical
- Metabolic
- Immunological
Managing horses in a low-stress environment requires understanding how their senses perceive
the world and a few principles of their behavior.
Behavior
. Horses do not see the world as humans do. Horses have both binocular and
monocular vision. Monocular vision allows them to see 220 degrees around them when their head is
down to graze. Binocular vision allows them to focus on objects in front of them.
Horses hear much better than people do, but olfaction is even more acute- smell is their strongest
sense. Horses are also very sensitive to touch. Their untrained natural response is to move into pressure.
Sensory perception
Horses communicate with each other through visual signals. Recognizing these
signals can help owners understand their horses. Anger is demonstrated by laying the ears back, pursing
the lips, and swishing the tail.
Communication.
r of horses is controlled by the herd instinct. Horses seek out
and enjoy the company of other horses (Figure 7.2). Social order is important, and there is an established
dominance hierarchy in any herd of horses. Dominance is the ability to control access to resources.
The dominance hierarchy requires that each horse recognize other horses and determine through
some initial aggressive acts (biting or kicking) and submissive acts (running away) which horse is
dominant and which is subordinate.
After the initial conflicts establish the hierarchy, just
the signs of anger from the dominant ar1imal will be
enough to warn subordinates.
Social behavior
Mechanical Stress
Structural injury can be detected
lameness, local inflammation, swelling, heat, and/or pain.
Three metabolic problems in horses are closely associated with nutrition:
Colic
Laminitis
Tying up
Some of the vaccines available include protection against
tetanus
; influenza
rhinopneumonitis
Eastern,
Western, and
Venezuelan encephalomyelitis strangles
Potomac horse fever
rabies
leptospirosis
and clostridium.
An effective deworming program must include good management practices as well as regular use of antiparasitic drugs.
Some important guidelines include:
- Treat all horses at the same time
- Rotate clean horses to clean pastures
- Design feed and water facilities to prevent fecal contan1ination
- Remove manure frequently from stalls and paddocks
- Clip and harrow pastures regularly
- Consult with a veterinarian on selection and use of antiparasitic drugs
- Monitor the effectiveness of the parasite control program by checking egg counts in feces
MARKING HORSES
In today’s competitive world of equine sports, proper identification is a high priority. Thorough and effective identification ensures that a horse being bought, sold, raced, or bred is indeed the horse claimed.
Some circumstances in which positive identification is important include:
- Health and disease control
- Theft prevention, documentation, and recovery
- Slaughter
- Breeding
- Recovery of animals lost or killed in natural disasters
- Fraud prevention
Today there are many methods used to identify a horse, including body markings, tattooing, freeze branding, blood typing, microchip implantation, and DNA testing.
Today there are many methods used to identify a horse, including
body markings, tattooing, freeze branding, blood typing, microchip implantation, and DNA testing.
There are two types of meconium retention:
in the large colon (high), and in the rectum (low).
The signs of meconium retention and constipation are similar:
restlessness, tail switching, attempts to defecate, elevated tail, straining, colic pain, rolling, getting up and down often, and lying upside down with knees and forelegs extended toward the head.
Characteristics of a wound include:
- The horse’s temperature is usually normal, but will be elevated when infection is present and below normal if the horse is going into shock.
- Pulse is often normal even with severe wounds, but may be increased if blood loss is excessive.
- Mucous membrane color will range from normal to pale in cases of excessive blood loss.
- Capillary refill time will be normal except in the case of blood loss and shock, when it may be over 2 seconds.
