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Horse Care and Maintenance Tips From the Experts

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By Allen Brown

When a horse owner, instructor, or rider focuses primarily on the external appearance of their horses, or only on their performance in races, moreso than to their care, it can leave the horses in poor shape. This neglect can be seen as a result of poor nutrition and inadequate protection from the elements, and can play out in a variety of illnesses that horses can contract. Horse care and maintenance needs to be taken seriously so as not to impede the horse’s health and wellbeing. Below you'll find information from the experts to help you better care for your horse.

Protection from Illnesses

Aside from basic care, horses need to be protected from various illnesses, viruses, bacterial infections, and internal parasites. This can be achieved with regular vaccinations and deworming. You should consult your veterinarian on what kind of vaccine your horse should get as this strongly depends on its age, the amount it travels, as well as the current location in which it is stabled. A veterinarian’s opinion on this and for your horse is the primary one you should follow for your horses well-being.

Additionally, be sure to consult with them about deworming your horse as worms can cause a poor coat, colic, as well as weight loss, all of which can pose a great threat to your horse’s health. Your veterinarian should do a fecal egg count test and give you advice on which dewormers to use throughout the year. It’s also important to note that it’s equally important to minimize your horse’s exposure to further parasites.

Essential Care

Some of the essential care and maintenance tips that the experts offer focus primarily on three things: feeding, tying, and basics care. Make sure to provide your horse with fresh clean water, fodder, and concentrates. Experienced trainers and instructors from poseidon-equine.com suggest adding supplements to a horse's diets to ensure the best gut health. And, if you’re feeding hay, the approximate amount to provide is around three percent of the horse's body weight, along with key supplements.

Furthermore, you'll want to make sure to provide your horse with adequate blanketing and shelter. No matter if your shelter is a run-in shed or a stable, having a place for the horse to go is crucial for proper care, as horses will need to get out of the wind and rain. Make sure you are always on the lookout for signs of illnesses such as runny eyes and noses, coughing, or wheezing to keep on top of your horse's well-being. Visual checkups should be performed daily, so you don’t miss anything that's preventable by mistake.

Exercise and Riding

As you might be well aware, exercise is crucial for the overall health of your horse. This means that daily "workouts" are necessary to increase endurance and stamina, improve the health and functioning of the cardiovascular system, and facilitate proper bone and hoof development. Each exercise should consist of four steps which are very similar to the way humans approach workouts. This includes a warm-up, stretching, the actual exercise, and the cool-down at the end.

If your horse can withstand riding, you should do your best to attend riding lessons at your local club or hire a personal instructor. On average, every horse should be ridden about three times a week to keep it in good shape and to maintain good overall health. Before you embark on riding, make sure to take precautions for a safe ride for both your horse and yourself. After you’ve finished, reward the horse for a good job.

Provide the Best Environment

Last but not least, you should provide your horse with the best environment. Horse care and maintenance is a handful because it has many factors that should be taken care to make sure you don't allow any preventable damage to your horse's well-being. Providing them with a good environment is just as important. Their environment should be very safe and as natural as possible. And ideally, if you can provide them with companions, all the better.

Horses live in herds, which means they can get anxious if they’re the only ones around. Older horses are especially prone to this, and they generally require a bit more care than the younger ones. This is also true if you have calves in your possession too. Their stables should be cleaned twice daily and should be reinforced enough to be able to stop the elements from posing a threat to your horses. Remember that a proper environment applies to both the indoors and outdoors.

Proper horse care and maintenance have many aspects, all of which are extremely important for the horse’s physical and mental health, as mentioned above. Their nutrition should be a number one concern as malnutrition can most readily cause serious health problems. This can easily be solved with the use of horse supplements which will help promote a healthy gut. Furthermore, they should be provided with clean and safe stables, and natural pastures to roam freely as often as possible.

Best Environment, Care, Essentials, Exercise, Horse Owners, Horses, Illnesses, Riding, tips

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