This summer I have been trying hard to get Trooper to lose weight. It is very hard to keep track of your horse's weight. As weighing bridges for horses are very expensive and not all of us are lucky enough to have them on our own yards we need other methods to see how much they weigh. Knowing your horses weight is useful when looking at their daily food ration as they are supposed to eat 2 % of their body weight a day, for example, a 500 kg horse will consume 10 kg a day of food in total.
Just looking at your horse and seeing if you think it looks fat can be difficult when you are seeing them every day. Another way I often use to see if he has put on weight is how easily the saddle fastens up and which hole I can get it to fasten on.
I also have a weight tape that I like to use. I got this for free from Baileys Horse Feeds, I am not sure if they still give them out but it is worth sending them a message to ask! Click to go to the Baileys website! If not other feed companies may send them out. This is a good way to track your horses weight and it gives you a rough idea of what they weigh which would be very hard to estimate! A weight tape is like a tape measure to use but rather than centre-metres or inches it has what that horse weighs in kilograms. You wrap the tape around the horse's body at the withers and underneath where their girth is fastened. This can be seen on the picture below. Trooper currently weighs 484 kg which is a lot less than the start of the summer!
The weight tape around Trooper.
Another way to tell if your horse is the correct weight is by using condition scoring. There are reference diagrams to compare your horse to along with descriptions. Condition scores can be on a scale of 1-10 or more commonly 1-5. The BHS have a Condition Scoring file you can download for free telling you how to do it. Click here for the Google search and it is the top one! The images below are taken from their fact sheet.
Good condition score (3)
Fat condition score (4)
Below are some photographs of Trooper with the condition scores (before and after his weight loss regime!).
A photo of Trooper taken end of August.
A photo of trooper taken at the start of June.
The main difference I can see on trooper in these photographs is on his belly. I wish he had his head up in the photo so I could make a proper comparison but it is clear to see that he has lost weight. On the first photo, at his current weight, I would give him a condition score of 3, or maybe 3.5! But on the second photo at the start of the summer he was a condition score 4.
I am glad Trooper has lost weight now and I am sure he will be much healthier for it!
My favourite type of riding gloves are the Mountain Horse Crochet Back gloves. I have had a number of pairs of these over the years. I like them because they are suitable to wear in the winter and the summer as the crochet back makes them cooler and in winter they still keep your hands warm. They wear in nicely and are comfy. They are quite thin leather so it is easy to feel the reins. They also come in a range of colours! They are from the Equestrian Clearance website where they are for sale for £9.99.
My Mountain Horse gloves have now got some holes in them, I think I have had them over 2 years, so I am going to get a new pair of gloves! I don't want fleece lined ones as I want to be able to wear them all year round. Even though I really like the Mountain Horse ones I want a change so I am going to look for some different ones.
The Mountain Horse gloves (image from equestrianclearance).
Some of the other gloves I have had in the past can be seen on the image below. They are both white as I used them when I did some competitions so they are not the most practical gloves to wear day-to-day.
Two pairs of white riding gloves I own.
The cotton gloves on the right are cheap and are good when you are first starting riding. However, they get worn out very quickly if you are riding quite often so I think if you want value for money it is worth spending a bit more on ones that will last longer. I do think they are good if you do occasional competitions as they will not get used very often and look smart. Click here to go to the Robinson's website where they sell for £2.70!
The SEGs gloves are good as they have a cotton back and a rubbery inside hand section. This gives them good grip. Click here to go to the Chester Jefferies website where there is a similar pair on sale for £22.50. I have had mine for a few years so I don't know if they still make them the same!
I think the gloves I have decided to get are the Roeckl Chester Riding Gloves. These come in lots of different sizes, there is a guide on their website of how to measure your hand to get the right size (click here for the guide!). They also come in a variety of sizes, I think I prefer the dark brown ones (pictured below). I think they are very nice and smart looking gloves. The cheapest I have found them for is on the Equine Country Store website click (click here) where they are £23.48. It is my birthday in a month so I am going to wait and get them for my birthday!
Roeckl Chester Riding Gloves (Image from equinecountrystore.co.uk)
If anyone wants to recommend any other gloves to me then I would be glad to hear about them!
I have spent this week doing work experience at a donkey sanctuary. I have already learnt a lot and I am going back next week as well! Before going I had no experience with donkeys and expected them to be very similar to horses. During my Equine Science degree we didn't learn anything about them either. I have found donkeys to be much more different from horses than I had expected.
Here are a five things I have learnt this week!
1. Donkeys eat a lot of straw! Coming from a horse background I am definitely not used to feeding straw. Donkeys have evolved to live of forage that is not as rich as the grass the horse eats. Therefore they can put on weight easily when given too much grass, hay, haylage etc.
2. Donkeys put on weight in different places than horses! When horses put on weight it is generally evenly distributed around the body. In donkeys they get "saddle bags" these are areas where the fat is. They can get them along the sides of the neck. On their back and sides they get fat concentrated in areas which looks like lots of lumps. When the have been fat it can also make their neck drop over to one side. I can stop worrying about that donkey I saw on holiday who looked like he had a broken neck now!
3. There are all sorts of breeds of donkey. I did know that there would be breeds of donkey but I didn't know what a variety there would be. In the sanctuary I was helping at there was a cheeky Miniature donkey and two big Poitous who are the size of a small horse and one of them had very long hair, they are about 14.2 hh!
4. Donkeys form very strong bonds with another donkey. Trooper has his best friend Joe, they spend all their time together in the field, yet if we separated them for any length of time they wouldn't mind. Donkeys on the other hand, form a very strong attachment to another donkey. They can get very upset or distressed if taken away from that donkey. Donkeys that come into the sanctuary are kept together and when they are sent out on foster they will not be separated from a donkey they are strongly attached to.
5. Donkeys can get a disease called Hyperlipemia. From what I understand of this disease, it can happen when donkeys get stressed. They stop eating and their body starts releasing fat. However, the body then doesn't stop releasing the fat and they can become very ill very quickly. This makes it very important to make sure a donkey eats if it has just been under stress. Horses and ponies can get this disease but it is much rarer, apart from in miniature breeds.
All the donkeys were so lovely and all have such strong personalities. The donkey sanctuary I was working at is just a small one. I am going to ask them if I can write a post on their donkeys but I keep forgetting! I want to ask first as they are rescued donkeys and have come from a variety of backgrounds. Hopefully I will be able to do a post on some of the donkeys that have stood out to me over the two weeks.
Here are a few photographs I took on my phone, hopefully next week I will get a bit of time when it's nice weather to take some photos on my proper camera!
I have already talked about the digestive system with regards to anatomy (Click here for link!), now I am going to go into this in a bit more detail with regards to nutrition.
There are two types of digestion, physical and microbial. Physical digestion happens during things such as chewing, it is the mechanical break down of food. Prehension is the receiving of food into the mouth. This happens via the lips, tongue and teeth. Mastication is chewing, this is a strong reflex in horses as they chew grass thoroughly. They do not regurgitate grass back up to chew as cows and sheep do. Grass has a high silica content which is difficult to chew.
When the food has been chewed into balls it is called a bolus. Saliva is important for sticking it together, it also makes the food the correct pH for the enzymes and microbes to work. The gap between the front and back teeth is called the diastema, this is where the bit lies. This has happened due to lengthening of the face during evolution. It also helps to separate chewed food from unchewed food.
Degluttination is swallowing, this is a reflex action. There are voluntary and involuntary actions involved. The epiglottis blocks the trachea (the wind pipe), the larynx moves forwards and upwards to let digesta past and the tongue acts a plunger. In the involuntary actions, the soft palate elevtates, there is relaxation of the cardiac sphincter and peristalsis which squeezes the food along. Below is a video from YouTube showing how this works.
The stomach can be divided into four regions. Mainly protein digestion happens here, there is also a bit of storage and it regulates the flow of digesta. The oesophageal region of the stomach is non glandular, there is a small amount of fermentation of carbohydrates here. The cardiac region secretes mucus, this is good for protecting the stomach lining and stops acid damaging the epithelial cells. The fundic and pyloric regions have gastric pits which make the gastric juices. They have G cells which secrete a hormone called gastrin. The fundic region is glandular and secretes mucus. It is stimulated when the stomach stretches with food inside it. Gastrin is the produced and triggers other reactions. The pyloric sphincter controls the rate digesta can leave the stomach. This is why over feeding can cause colic, as the food will build up in the stomach.
The small intestines is the place where the majority of mammalian digestion occurs (this is the digestion not carried out by microbes). There is secretion of mucus, enzymes, alkalis, hormones and bile etc. here which help to neutralise the acid that has escaped from the stomach. A lot of mixing also happens here. The majority of carbohydrates and fats are digested in the small intestine. Problems can occur is the carbohydrates reach the caecum. The rate of movement is slowest in the ileum (the last section) as this is the carbohydrates last chance to be absorbed before the caecum. They are absorbed through the villi and microvilli which are finger-like projections that increase the surface area.
Image of villi (image from technion.ac.il)
The caecum has an anaerobic environment because air is squeezed out as food falls into the bottom of the sack. The caecum contains friendly bacteria and protozoa, they are anaerobic and produce amino acids. It has a pH of 5, this is critical for the micro organisms to live as below this it will be too acidic and they will die. When they die, toxins are released which can get into the blood stream and cause laminitis.
In the large intestine it is a major site of water re absorption.
The horse's digestive system is quite complicated but an understanding of it will help with choosing the correct diet for your horse.
Today's post is on Equimat rubber matting. I have this on the floor of my stable, I have had it for a long time, definitely over 5 years but I am not sure how long! Trooper has shavings for his bed but we are able to give him a thinner bed than we normally would due to the rubber matting. It also insulates the stable floor well in the winter so is good for when he lies down.
Below are some photosI have taken of our Equimat.
Here are some photos from their website which I have linked at the end of the post. As you can see ours isn't as bright green any more. It has gradually gone lighter and a bit more white in the areas which he urinates the most.
When I muck the stable out I usually leave it to dry for as long as possible before putting his bed down. With the rubber matting it dries out very quickly, it can take under an hour depending on the weather. Trooper's stable has a slight slope and some of the urine goes through the rubber matting and runs down to this side of his stable. At this side we have no rubber matting and put shavings down that can be taken out. This is then much nicer to put the clean bed back down onto. I muck it out with a plastic shavings fork as a metal one would stab into it.
Once a year, in the summer we lift up the rubber matting, power hose it, and clean out the stable floor underneath. Over time the rubber matting gets wider as it spreads out with use. We sometimes have to cut a bit off the edge before it is put back into the stable as it is not meant to go right up to the edges. Another great positive to Equimat is that it is light weight to lift up. I know a lot of people who have rubber matting that is very heavy and to bring it out of the stable to clean is very hard. One piece of this can be carried by one person. The only thing that makes it harder is that it is big and a bit bendy.
Trooper has respiratory problems and rubber matting is good for this as it reduces the need of lots of bedding. He also stamps his feet and the Equimat has been able to withstand this well and has not ripped or torn. It is starting to get slightly worn near his door but I think this has just been squashed down with lots of use.
The Equimat comes in different sizes. Our stable has 4 larger squares, which jig-saw into each other in pairs. We then also have a smaller piece that jig-saw onto the end. They have very secure and there is no risk of them coming unattached. Below are more photos from their website that show this.
Equimat is expensive but I believe you will get your money back in the long run. There are prices on their website but prices start from £360 per stable. On their website it suggests you will get your money back in 18 months due to less bedding used. The also do trailer matting and wall matting but I have no experience of these.
Having rubber matting in our stable has definitely saved us money and made it easier to muck out, and in my opinion, Equimat is the best type of rubber matting.
