Bev's Horse Advice

My first question to you would be, “How many massages have you had in your life?” If the answer is none, then you need to get a good full body massage in order to understand where I am coming from. If you are an avid follower of sports, you know that most athletes are massaged, whirl-pooled, given chiropractic alignments and hooked up to machines of many different types on a regular basis. Our bodies as well as our joints were not designed to endure the constant pressure and stress that we put them under during the rigors of competition. Prey animals were designed to run in short spurts in order to escape from their predators. They were not intended to go at top speed for five or six furlongs or run one or one and a half miles a few times a month on a regular schedule. Horses were not designed

Now that I have given you the information that you need to bathe and groom your horse like a professional, the next step is to help you learn not only the way in which you properly clean a horses stall, but to understand how important it is to offer your horse a very clean environment. To think that horses don’t care, as far as I am concerned, is a bit of a myth. So, so many times, I have acquired horses that have come from an unclean situation, and when I bring them into their new very clean stall, the first thing they do, without hesitation, is to get down and roll in the new shavings, and get up, get back down and roll again and again. This tells me that they are very happy not only to get down and roll and scratch, but the fact that they do

What is better than going to the barn and seeing your horse standing in the stall, shining like new money, mane perfectly pulled and laying beautifully on your horses’ neck, dapples everywhere just talking to you saying , look at me, tail free of tangles, almost reaching the floor, thick and wavy. Not to mention your horses forelock is where it should be, not too long or too short, and no dirt or dust on your horses nose and that shining look in your best buddies eyes. Wow!!!…Hah, GET REAL. These things happen only after many weeks or months of constant serious grooming and elbow grease. A proper balanced diet as well as a regimented exercise program with a minimal amount of stress are contributing factors to a beautiful coat on your horse. Breeding will come into play but with hard work, a brilliant coat can be achieved. Successful, well groomed

Years ago, I was living on a farm that had many different kinds of animals; cows, chickens, pigs, horses and so on. These were old time farm owners, and were used to being self sufficient using what was available. I loved the old school attitude. One day we brought in a steer from the field that had a large gash over the point of his hip. I immediately said that we needed to call a veterinarian. The farmer quickly laughed at me. The old farmer told me that he was going to teach me something. He went into the barn, brought out a box of powder and threw several handfuls of this powder onto the wound. He told me don’t worry, it’ll be juuussst fine. Well, the next day, the wound was juuussst fine. I could not believe my eyes. The wound was all dried up and was about half of its size from yesterday. This was

From the very moment of birth, foals, yearlings and older horses will inevitably and almost constantly acquire a considerable amount of cuts, abrasions, bruises, and unfortunately sometimes very severe injuries. It is important to always be prepared with as many different types of medications that will address cuts and wounds using conventional, homeopathic and perhaps even herbal methods. Wounds that are topically not too serious or severe will just need the usual topical applications. If we delve into situations with deeper wounds but are not severe enough to call a veterinarian, then you may want to use basic homeopathic elements to help the healing process. People that are new in the horse industry may have to rely on a veterinarians advice and guidance until they learn the difference between a horse that can heal from a wound with the help of proper care internally and externally, and a wound that

Why do we need to use lead shanks? Control! Without it you can break or even lose a finger. Whenever you walk into a stall and put a halter on a horse, unless you have a tie chain in the stall and you are going to tie your horse in the stall, you should always have a lead shank snapped onto the halter. Even though horses are domesticated, they still will resort back to their instincts when frightened. Horses were here millions of years before man and their means of survival was flight or fight. I can assure you that flight is the first instinct they will follow. If you walk your horse out of the stall or out of the pasture holding the halter without a shank and your horse sees something and decides to shy or duck sideways very quickly and your hand is inside of the halter, you may endure injury. I can say this

You are probably tired of me saying that horses are creatures of habit and that they will basically follow the same pattern every day. If your horses are in stalls at night, when you arrive in the morning, hopefully the same time each day, or as close to the same time as possible, you will notice that each horse will basically be standing facing pretty much the same direction in the stall. If they sleep at this hour, when you arrive they will probably just be getting up to greet you and have breakfast. If your horses are out at night and come in during the day, usually because of hot weather, then they will be standing at the gate waiting, or if they are grazing they will more than likely be in the same area of the pasture. Many horses seem to eat, then drink and often take a nap.

Unlike humans that chew their food, horses grind their food; a process called mastication. Because of this grinding motion which is from side to side, horses teeth will become sharp on the outside next to their cheek, and on the inside bottom next to their tongue. As you can guess, if you do not have a horse dentist come in and float their teeth, meaning the dentist will have long handled tools called floats, go into their mouths and take off the sharp edges of both the top and bottom of their teeth, your horse will encounter problems grinding and digesting their food in the proper manner. There are a lot of misconceptions about horses’ teeth and how often they need to be floated, and at what age you should start with dentistry.

Just as in most areas concerning horses, opinions vary greatly. I can only give you the formula that

Decisions, decisions. I can understand how a person just getting started in the horse world could become confused when deciding what to feed and how much. Personally, I came from the old school of oats, corn, barley and molasses. Electrolytes, salt and a good quality hay, preferably more than one kind of hay. Usually if the horses in consideration were riding or show horses, then a good timothy and a good quality of clover hay was sufficient. Racing horses were fed the same but there was a good quality alfalfa added to the diet. Young horses from the time they were weaned, were given vitamins and different supplements with their daily grain. As young horses grow, their nutritional needs are different because of the constant developmental stages they go through, similar to those of growing children. In my experience, young horses seem to get fairly round on the corners and

First on the list is deciding which kind of halter you want to buy for your horse, nylon versus leather. Personally, I only use leather equipment on my horses. Unfortunately, leather equipment is more expensive but will break in the case of an incident. If a horse is wearing a nylon halter and it gets caught on something, the nylon will not break and this can be dangerous or fatal. Horses have a tendency to panic if they get their halter caught on something and can sometimes hurt themselves. All nylon halters that are going to be used on a horse for more than just bringing them in or turning them out, should have the piece that goes over the crown of the horse’s head made of leather. That way if the horse gets their halter caught on something, the leather will break and give way avoiding injury. The cost