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Can Exercise Protect Foals From Injuries Later In Life? Tune In To Find Out

Does exercise help young horses avoid injury? That's the topic of this month's episode of Morris Animal Foundation's “Fresh Scoop” podcast, available now for streaming and download. Host Dr. Kelly Diehl, the Foundation's Senior Director of Science and Communications, interviews Dr. Annette McCoy, Assistant Professor of Equine Surgery at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Veterinary Medicine.

McCoy discusses leg fractures in horses and her new Foundation-funded study, which is evaluating the long-term effects of a moderately strenuous exercise plan on bone development in foals. Her team is collecting data for an algorithm they hope to use to design exercise programs for foals to reduce risk of injuries later in life.

Dr. McCoy is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons.

“Fresh Scoop” is Morris Animal Foundation's monthly veterinary science podcast designed to appeal to practicing veterinarians, veterinary technicians or students, as well as animal-loving science geeks. Episodes are available on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher, as well as the Foundation's podcast page.

Horse Owner Dilemma: To Bandage Or Not To Bandage?

It seems like horses injure themselves often but even with lots of practice, determining how to best care for their leg wounds can be difficult. That includes deciding whether a wound needs a bandage, or if a covering will impede the healing process.

According to EQUUS magazine, there are three main considerations when trying to decide whether to reach for the bandaging supplies:

Mobility: A wound that pulls open with every step a horse takes will heal more rapidly if it's wrapped. Though often more difficult to keep in place if over a joint like the knee or hock, a bandage is beneficial.

Depth: If the wound is so deep the underlying structures can be seen, infection is a real risk. Bandaging the wound is the best bet until granulation tissue can fill in the gap.

Proximity to the ground: A wound near the hoof on a pastern or coronet band is more likely to get dirt, manure and debris in and on it than one located higher up the leg. Additionally, if it's a hind leg injury on a gelding or stallion, there's a risk urine will splash on the cut and irritate the tissues. These wounds benefit from bandaging.

Wounds that can remain open do well when covered at least twice daily in a thick ointment to keep bacteria, dirt and insects out.

New Scale Makes It Easier To Track Progress In Endocrine-Related Laminitis Cases

Laminitis can be an insidious disease, sometimes coming on so subtly that indications are missed until horses are blatantly lame. The ability to grade lameness according to its severity can be helpful to determine if a treatment is working and to assess the efficacy of new treatments.

A scale had previously been developed to describe levels of lameness in horses that have laminitis from a specific episode, like starch overload or sepsis, but this scale wasn't necessarily applicable to horses that have laminitis caused by chronic endocrine disorders, which are common in overweight horses.

Dr. Alexandra Meier and a research team created a method for grading endocrine-induced laminitis. Called the Meier Scale, it uses five symptoms to determine severity of lameness: palpation of digital pulse, gait at the walk, weight shifting, response to lifting the foot and gait while turning in a circle.

To test the scale, the research team used 80 horses and ponies with endocrinopathic laminitis that were referred to 16 veterinary practices in Germany. Independent veterinarians assessed the severity of laminitis using the original scale and the new Meier scale. The vets assessed the horses on the day of diagnosis and again on days four, nine, 14, 25 and 42. Pain medication was withheld for 24 hours before the exams took place.

The scientists found that patient improvement was difficult to determine using the older method, but the Meier method was able to identify more subtle changes. The team also noted that there was significant variation in improvement of each clinical sign; for example, the horses remained lame when asked to turn in a circle for much longer than they shifted weight.

The researchers conclude that the Meier method provides a reliable and consistent method for monitoring endocrinopathic laminitis and its potential response to treatments.

Read the study here.

Get The Scoop On Horse Feed From An Equine Nutritionist

Let's go back in time to 1821—for sake of entertainment, you can be a horse.

You're a drafty fellow, and there are fields to plow, wagons and carriages to pull and the five-day workweek has yet to be heard of, especially for a horse out on the farm. Like the steady workhorse that you are, you're hoofing 10 to 15 hours per day, expending a lot of energy and calories. Your source of food includes grazing low-quality forage (hungry yet?).

Dr. Jyme Nichols, director of nutrition at Stride Animal Health, says this is about the time cereal grains were introduced into horses' diets. The grains most popular and accessible to feed horses included corn, barley and oats. Knowing horses required higher levels of fiber, as it's safest for them and their diet, oats had the highest level of fiber and was a natural choice to feed for extra calories that provided horses with extra energy.

“Fast forward to present day – we have horses kept in stalls or in small turnouts, and they may have very limited hours of riding. That horse that used to work 10, 12 or 14 hours a day now maybe only works an hour a day when we have time to ride them. The rest of the time, they spend eating. But they are still receiving the same concentrated grain meal that we were giving them many years ago when they were working so hard. If you take a high-starch feed like that and overfeed them, you can make a horse very excitable or crazy,” said Dr. Nichols during an interview with Valley Vet Supply.

Equine nutrition is complex – there is no sugar-coating that; however, Dr. Nichols warns there is plenty of “sugar-coating” when it comes to our horse's grain choices, and that along with high starch are just a few aspects to consider relating to our horse's nutritional program.

With insight from Dr. Nichols, let's review top equine nutrition FAQs.

Does my horse need supplements?

The answer to that is never black or white. It depends on what you are doing with your horse; how old your horse is; whether you're feeding your horse a forage-only diet or whether your horse is on feed. It also depends on if your horse is dealing with certain problems, like if they have arthritis, gut issues or specific needs that are outside of what we would consider 'normal,' more basic nutritional needs.

Does protein make horses hot?

No, it doesn't. It is the starch and sugars in what you are feeding that make horses hot. There is some confusion about protein—it's commonly thought that horses need more feed, more protein and more nutrients, so we're going to feed this higher-protein feed. But what owners may not realize, is that when they were feeding that higher-protein feed, they were also feeding more of it. It wasn't necessarily the high protein that was making the horses become excitable. It was the fact they were feeding a really large volume of a high-starch, high-sugar feed.

Nutritionally, how can I manage or prevent a “hot” horse?

If you have a horse that is naturally more excitable and anxious, one of the better things you can do is look for a diet that is high in fiber and pull your calories from fat sources. Those fat sources are called “cool energy calories,” meaning it gives horses the calories that they need, but it's not going to make their mind and their attitude hot and excitable. For energetic horses, avoid high starch feeds. Refer to the feed tag for the “NSC,” which is the combination of starch and sugar. “NSC” stands for non-structural carbohydrates. You get to that number by adding the starch number on the feed tag to the sugar level. As a general rule of thumb for feeds considered “low starch,” if you were to add the starch and the sugar together, that number shouldn't be over 22 percent.

Can sugars impact certain horse health conditions?

For PPID horses or Cushing's horses, starch and sugar are really important in the diet to help manage. If you have a horse with a medical sensitivity, such as a horse with Cushing's, laminitis or equine metabolic syndrome – the medical sensitivity to sugar means you need to make sure that your NSC is under 12 percent. After that, you want to make sure you're feeding at the recommended levels of the feed. If you're not – and let's say that particular feed calls for 6 pounds per day and you're only feeding those horses 3 pounds per day, you're shorting them in important trace minerals or vitamins.

How do you nutritionally manage a horse that ties up frequently?

There is not a generic answer. But keep horses off green grass [which has higher sugar content]; feed low-starch, low-sugar feed; and make sure you have a proper balance of trace minerals, macro nutrients and vitamins. Also, ensure they have daily exercise.

How do I know if my hay is meeting their basic needs?

First off, do a visual check and body condition assessment of your horse. Look at rib cover – you should be able to easily feel but not easily see, ribs. Next, you'll want to look at the topline. You want the horse's topline to be essentially flat. If they can hold water on their spine on a rainy day, that tells you they're in a bit of an excess body condition. But if rain were to pour on them and just run off, and their spine peaks up like a mountain, then that tells you their body condition is probably a bit under. But the most concrete thing you can do is get your hay tested. Getting that information is the most important thing you can do, because forage is the foundation of your horse's diet and it is so important to understand what you are feeding.