Sunday, June 12, 2011

Is your horse living “better” than it ought to be?

In the western world today, obesity is becoming common place among people. Horses – and some breeds are more prone than others – suffer similar problems due to over feeding, feeding things that are un-naturally rich for the horses when compared to what they would be living on under natural conditions and lack of exercise. One of the most obvious and common outcomes is "Equine Metabolic Syndrome", which can also manifest as laminitis and founder. This can be a serious and crippling issue in some breeds.
We love our horses and want their best. Sometimes we do what we may think is “take good care” of the horses but are in fact doing them a great dis-service. We think of horses in “Human” terms, but they are not human and they have different needs. As any other aspect of a horse’s life, we should look at how they would live in the wild and make some attempt to give them some of that. When we interfere with nature in a major way, we more often than not do major damage in the process. The following page explains EMS in some detail:   http://www.livestocktrail.uiuc.edu/horsenet/paperDisplay.cfm?ContentID=10118