Equine wellness
Equine
Your natural resource!
wellness
Going Bitless
Starting off on the
right foot
Tips for a successful transition
Something
fishy
Advice on trimming your foal
The benefits of fish oil
Hospice for horses
Scents for
stress How to deal with common problems related to stress
5
selfdefense tips
Feeling stalled?
Four ways to make stall rest easier
for the trail
“Bit�
Crash course
What you need to know to prevent accidents
confused? Taking the mystery out of bits
July/August 2009 Display until August 11, 2009 $5.95 USA/Canada
VOLUME 4 ISSUE 4
EquineWellnessMagazine.com
equine wellness
Contents July/August 2009
Right: ©Krents | Dreamstime.com (page 4)
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features 14 On the road again
Safe trailering means more than buying the right trailer. Training, logic and common sense also play big roles.
Want to ride without a bit? Follow these tips to help your horse make the transition successfully and safely.
Fish oil is not the first supplement riders think of when creating their horse’s feed program, but it may be one of the most beneficial things you can offer your equine.
20 Scents for stress
33 On the right foot
18 Go bitless!
From separation anxiety to sweet itch, many common problems are symptoms of stress. Aromatherapy is an easy and effective way to help calm your horse.
24 Stay alert, stay safe!
What would you do if someone tried to attack you on the trail? These five tips will help ensure you don’t become a victim.
28 Something fishy
equine wellness
Start trimming your foal early and you’ll set him up for a lifetime of soundness.
39 Crash course No matter how confident you are around your horse, taking safety precautions is the only sure way to prevent accidents.
48 Hospice for horses
How do you know if your horse’s condition is terminal? Hospice care recognizes death is part of the cycle of life, and helps us take the time to say farewell.
54 Disaster
Natural disaster preparedness isn’t just for humans. Include your horses in your plans for safety so they don’t suffer or go missing.
58 Feeling stalled?
Keeping your horse confined while he heals can be challenging. Here are four ways to help him stay happy and healthy till he’s ready to be turned out again.
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Departments
Columns
10 Neighborhood news
8 Editorial
36 A natural performer
31 Heads up!
Profile of a natural performer
46 From agony to ecstasy 51 Holistic veterinary advice Talking with Dr. Hannah Evergreen
60 Book reviews
42 Equine Wellness resource guide
61 Marketplace 64 Classifieds 65 Events calendar
64 Did you know? 66 Your health
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Something
fishy
Fish oil is not the first supplement most riders think of when creating their horse’s feed program, but it may be one of the more beneficial things you can offer your equine.
W
hen you think about a horse’s diet and feed program, I’m sure fish oil is not at the top of your list. It seems to still be a fairly new concept for many, and is often met with a look of skepticism – horses are herbivores, after all, so meat and fish are not common equine fare. But it really isn’t all that new. Icelandic horses, a small, hardy breed native to Iceland and descended from Mongolian horses,
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equine wellness
have been eating fish for a long time, likely since domestication. They didn’t catch the fish themselves, of course, but were provided with barrels of “free-choice” salted fish in their winter pastures when other food and forage became scarce. Now I don’t think many of us relish the idea of giving our horses a nice salty herring with their evening grain. Thankfully, you can buy fish oil supplements for horses that can be added as a top dress to grain. Fish oil is the fat from fish, and doesn’t contain fish protein.
Understanding EFAs Essential fatty acids (EFAs) have become all the rage in human diets, and that has spilled over into animal diets as well. Essential fatty acids are “good fats” (polyunsaturated), and are necessary and mandatory for many body functions, including brain function, cellular repair, and immune, cardiovascular and reproductive support. They must come from your diet, as the body cannot produce them on its own. Omegas 3 and 6 are the two families of EFAs.
Title Image: ©Klikk | Dreamstime.com (page 28), Left: ©Chode | Dreamstime.com (page 29), Top right: ©Panaroid | Dreamstime.com (page 29).
Corn oil
Omegas over time
Before domestication, horses consumed omegas 3 and 6 in approximately a 1:1 to 4:1 ratio, from their diet of free-choice herbs, forage and occasional grains. Once we began putting horses to work, we started looking for ways to add energy and bloom to them. Riders began to add corn oil to the feed as a common top dress. It is still very common to feed corn oil to horses, particularly in show and race barns. While it certainly works, it throws off the balance of omega-3 to omega-6 significantly. Omega-6 is the most prevalent omega in today’s complete feeds, due to vegetable oils (most commonly corn oil) and its prevalence in cereal grains (i.e. corn, wheat). Omega-3 is expensive and difficult to add to feeds, given its propensity to become rancid when exposed to the air. Omegas 3 and 6 should essentially be fed in balance with one another. Omega-3 fights inflammation while omega-6 promotes it, so if more omega-6 is being ingested, then the beneficial effects are lost. Both horses and humans are typically omega-3 deficient due to our modern diets.
The human balance of omegas should be approximately two to four times omega-6 to 3, but it tends to be 14 to 25 times more omega-6 to 3. “The point to be made is that the food industry has created fatty acid imbalances through the overuse of less expensive fatty acids and partially hydrogenated oils in manufactured food/feeds that can be harmful to both horses and humans,” writes Dr. Bo Martenson in Good for You, Even Better for Horses! “Some horse owners actually compound the negative effects by adding corn oil to the horse’s diet thinking that it offers a beneficial source of energy.”
Omega-3 Omega-3 is a polyunsaturated fatty acid found in fish, certain plants and nut oils. It provides extra calories in a beneficial and highly useable form. It plays a vital role in cellular repair and formation, brain function, growth and development. It reduces inflammation and improves calcium deposit and bone strength. Omega-3 has been proven to help horses with stomach ulcers, arthritis, allergies, auto-immune diseases, hoof quality, reproduction, joint health, laminitis, respiratory issues and more. It also decreases the risk of colic and pulmonary bleeding.
Omega-6 Omega-6 is another polyunsaturated fatty acid that assists with brain function, growth and development, and is found mainly in plant and grain oils. However, it also promotes inflammation, and can lend to the development of inflammatory diseases if the level of omega-6 greatly overtakes that of omega-3. “Too much omega-6 and too little omega-3 fatty acids has been recognized as a major predisposing cause of the degenerative changes observed in arthritic horses,” writes Dr. Martenson. “In cases of arthritis with cartilage degradation, there is found high concentrations of omega-6 fatty acid derivates creating inflammatory mediators. Two of these mediators, PGE2 equine wellness
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