Faecal Egg Counts

Hi everyone,

For the past year I have been using worm egg counts  (faecal egg counts) as part of Trooper's worming programme. The egg counts can be used to monitor the worm activity in your horse and therefore limit the amount of chemicals that need to be used. There some types of worms that worm egg counts do not detect, these are the encysted redworms, tapeworm and bots; it is important that horses are still treated for these.

The results of a worm egg count are often given in eggs per gram (epg) or strongyles per gram. A reading of 200 epg or less is considered a low reading, it is thought that a horse's own immune system can cope with this level of worms on it's own without the need for additional chemical treatments in most cases. For readings over 200epg treatment is usually recommended. The treatment recommended often depends on how high the reading is, if the horse needs treating for other worms, if they are in foal and numerous other factors.

The faecal egg counts can also be used to check if the wormers are working as they should be. Different chemicals are supposed to last in the horses system for different lengths of time. Unfortunately, resistance is starting to develop in a similar way seen with antibiotics. Limiting the use of unnecessary chemicals with egg counts can help to prevent resistance developing.

Trooper has not had much problem with worm activity while I have been carrying out the egg counts. His initial reading was 50epg (a low reading) all subsequent readings have been clear. He was treated over the winter with an Equest Pramox combination treatment and had a tapeworm treatment about 6 months prior to this. There are a large number of horses in Trooper's field and dung is not collected (which can increase the chance of infection), however as the field is large he would not normally have to graze near dung so this would help to prevent him becoming reinfected.

If you have any further questions into worm egg counts, please do ask.

Love Laura
xxxx

Trooper Update (Happy 2014!)

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year! Sorry about the lack of posts on Trooper lately. It is hard with him being in Cheshire with my Mum and me being Wales.

Trooper is doing really well, he is being schooled a few times a week. When I rode him over Christmas he felt really nice and wasn't stiff. He does feel slightly different in trot on one rein compared to the other. My Mum is working on this with her teacher at the moment as they think he has built up muscle differently in his hind quarters after his tendon injury. He will be 25 years old this year!!

I got him a mobility Horselyx for Christmas which he loves! It has Glucosamine, MSM and Omega Oils in it which is great! It also has antioxidants, biotin and zinc. He did keep trying to bite it though which made me think he was going to knock his teeth out! As he puts on weight easily he is just having the lick on special occasions, especially when he wont stand still! He is having 3/4 of a scoop of Happy Hood in his feed twice a day with an apple and carrot. He is out in the field during the day and in at night. At night he has 2 hay-nets that are double wrapped to slow down the length of time it takes for him to eat them!

In the field he is often with Bobby Mac (pictured below) who is at least 30 years old! They stay out of trouble from the other horses but like to play together. Trooper still likes to be first in from the field and is usually at the gate by around 2pm (after going out at about 8am). He keeps his head collar on in the field now so if he is at the gate people can easily put him in the stable as he tries to barge out and gets in trouble!

Here are some photos that speak for themselves! Please excuse the quality, they were taken on my phone.

I am not going to make any promises but I am going to try and write a post at least once a month this year. I have had a lot less time to write posts as I am out of the house from 8 am until 6.30 pm Mon-Fri. Guest posts are still welcome as I enjoy reading what you have to offer and it helps to keep new content on my blog.

I think my next post will be on his worming programme over the last year. I have learnt a lot about worming in my current job so hopefully I will be able to offer some tips!

Love Laura
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Trooper Update!

Here are some photos I took of Trooper last weekend while I was back at home! He is looking great at the moment, especially now he has his summer coat. He is a nice weight at the moment as well. I took him for a ride and he was lovely, much more springy than he has been and he isn't bothered by the leg which he injured his tendon on at all now.

Look how lovely he looks! Not bad for a 24 year old!

I haven't had the time to post as much as a used to as I am working full time. I will still be writing posts from time to time but just not very often. I have been posting a lot of guest posts as I think this is great way to get some interesting things on my blog while I am busy!

I will also write a bit more about my job at some point as I am working as an advisor for a horse worming company that writes worming programmes and carries out faecal egg counts so some of you might be interested in that!

Love Laura
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A Video Of Trooper On A GoPro Camera

Here is a video I took of Trooper last weekend while I was home. I took it with my boyfriend's GoPro camera which has different attachments so you can film with it in different ways!

*I accidentally had this video set as private but I have changed the settings now!*

I am really busy at the moment with my new job and I am moving house soon! I am aiming still try and write a weekly blog post on Sundays for now!

Love Laura
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Keeping Older Horses Supple

A lot of people have been asking me recently how I keep Trooper supple and prevent him from getting stiff. For those of you that don't know, Trooper is 23 years old and had a tendon injury just over a year ago. He no longer jumps but I school him and he still goes nicely and can do lateral work and is not too on the fore-hand. The only thing he does do is trip up a bit.

Nutrition
People have been asking me if he is on any extra supplements to help prevent him from getting stiff but he only has Happy Hoof and sometimes Winergy Ventilate in his feeds. They were asking about glucosamine and chondroitins. Our dog is on glucosamine tablets and they are meant to be quite a cheap option for horses. Cortaflex is the one of these feeds that I have heard the most from, this contains both glucosamine and chondroitin. These are meant to increase the synthesis of joint cartilage so in theory help with things such as arthritis. However, in horses more research is still needed, especially into the dosage of these products.  Codlivine is another product given, some people do not like feeding this as it is an animal product. It is hard to tell what effects these have though in each individual horse and it may be more beneficial to give them a try if you are wondering and see how your specific horse reacts to them. I would be interested to hear if any of you have tried any of these products and how you have found them! Maybe in the future we will try out some of these products and report back!

Exercise
I think the main thing that is keeping Trooper supple is the amount we exercise him. We try to ride him at least 3 times a week and he is turned out every day for at least 6 hours even through the winter. When he had his tendon injury we still turned him out as we thought keeping him on box rest may lead to him stiffening up. When I ride him I warm him up for a good 5-10 minutes and then he goes really nicely. I think he does get a bit more stiff when he has not been ridden as often.

Also I have now found a way to add more photos into my blog after the Picasa storage ran out. For those of you wondering I have uploaded the photo to Flickr. I then went onto the "share" setting and got the HTML code for the photo. I then went onto the HTML button whilst writing a blog post and copy and pasted it into there! There might be other ways to do it but this is the way I have found! At least I can keep uploading photos for free! The photo below is a bit of a random one to go with this post but it wouldn't upload the other day so I thought I would try it here!

Love Laura
xxxx

Little Update

I'll start off this post with a quick story about Trooper from earlier this week. As he is out in the field during the day, he is always at the gate waiting for us when we go to the farm around 2:30/3:00 pm. Earlier in the week around 1 pm one of the grooms at the farm saw the gate to the field was wide open. She went up and she couldn't see Trooper anywhere! When she went onto the farm she could see Joe's bucket had been moved into the yard. Trooper usually heads straight for this bucket when he escapes. Joe's stable had been messed up and some of his hay-net had been eaten but Trooper had gone. She then looked over to the small shelter area where the haylage is kept and could see the back of Trooper's bum. He had gone right inside and had been eating from the huge, round haylage bale for a while as the mud had dried on his legs from when he left the field so had a nice feast. I think he will be heading straight there next time he escapes! We're not sure how he got the gate unlocked. He does barge the gate but it has a chain hooked round it. Either someone left this open or he barged it and it came off!

And just a little update to say I am currently trying to sort out a technical issue with uploading photos so I may not be posting as often as I like to include photos. I have reached the memory limit on my Picasa storage and have to may to increase the storage amount so I thought while I may have to may anyway I might be able to host my blog on my own website so I am just looking into the pros and cons of this at the moment. It might also help with the problems I have been having with people commenting.

Love Laura
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A Very Foggy Day!

This afternoon while we were trying to catch Trooper there was really thick fog! Here is a video of us trying to find him in the field, a little stampede and Trooper generally messing around!

I am also having some issues with my blog at the moment as it says I have reached my Picasa storage limit for my photos on Blogger. Has this happened to anyone else and does anyone know how I can sort this out? The other problem I have had is that people have been telling me were unable to comment on my blog so if it doesn't work you can contact me on Twitter or Facebook, thanks!

Love Laura
xxxx

Do I Have To Be Ridden?

Yesterday we went to ride Trooper in the afternoon and he was very tired... I'll let the pictures do the talking!

There was a Halloween party on the farm the night before so maybe he didn't get much sleep! Below is a photo of his saddle pad which we have had for years but it is nice so I thought I would include it.

Unfortunately he didn't manage to get out of being ridden, this is him heading down to the indoor arena. He woke up a bit once we got inside!

Love Laura
xxxx

Autumn's Here

Here are some photos I took of Troops in the field today, excuse his muddiness!

He is staying in his stable over night now and he has 2 haynets filled with haylage over night. The blue one is double wrapped and the red one is only half full. We gave him this amount of haylage last winter and it worked quite well with keeping his weight down.

Also, sorry to finish this post on a photo of Trooper's bum, but his tail is looking amazing at the moment! I have been saying for months I need to write a post on Prize by Equisoothe as we have been using it all summer and his tail looks amazing! As he has sweet itch it has never looked this good at the end of summer despite trying lots of different things and equisoothe has really helped!

Also I have handed in my dissertation draft now so hopefully I will be able to write posts a bit more regularly!

Love Laura
xxxx

Clicker Training Session 3

The weather has turned so bad here that we had a months rainfall in 24 hours, we thought it would be a good idea to keep Trooper in at night now. He was getting really tired before and I rode him this morning and he had so much energy! I think he just needed a good rest! He still isn't wearing a rug in the field and we aren't going to clip him this year again. It was raining really hard yesterday so he got soaked but this morning he was really clean and shiny when I brushed him, I think the rain had washed a lot of the dust away.

I did another quick session of clicker training this morning. I went back to doing what we did in the first session (using a small container and staying in his stable). As he was quite lively this morning I thought it would be a good time to have a go. He was doing "touch" and "lift" with the container quite well. Sometimes when I said "touch" he was about to bite the container and then I clicked which made him stop. Because of this he was getting a bit confused distinguishing the two commands so I waited a second or two to make sure he wasn't going to lift the container in his mouth before I clicked. He was getting better at this towards the end. I think after another session he will have got the hang of this and I will have to start thinking of something else he can move on to do!

Love Laura
xxxx

Pony Panorama

My boyfriend came to the farm today and took some panorama shots on his phone. I thought it would be good to show you all where everything is on the yard so I have put stars next to some places. If you click on these photos then they can be enlarged.

Red star; Trooper's stable
Blue star; Joe's stable
Green star; hay
Yellow star; Bobby's stable
Purple star; muck heap
Orange star; Indoor arena

The photo above was one we thought we would try out with two of me! Trooper moved during the photos being taken though making him look a bit of a funny shape and I look cross-eyed!

Love Laura
xxxx

Clicker Training Sessions 1 & 2

After having a go at clicker training during an equine behaviour module at university (click here for the post), I thought it would be a good thing to do with Trooper as he is quite playful. I have finally got round to having a go with him.

In the first session I did with him we were in his stable. I cut up an apple into small pieces and just got a few bits out of the locker at a time. I used a little rectangle tub and started by getting him to "touch" with his nose. I clicked the clicker the moment he touched the tub and then followed this with a treat. Despite never having heard the clicker before he seemed to pick up the idea quite quickly and was touching it on command. Trooper likes to pick up things in his mouth so I then decided to get him to "lift" the tub. He was doing this quite well and after about 5 or 10 minutes was distinguishing between "touch" and "lift".

About a week after the first session I lunged Trooper for 15 minutes in the indoor arena and decided to do some clicker training after. Again I used small bits of apple as the treat. I had my Mum there to help me this time so she had the treats and the clicker and I held Trooper and the tub (I used a different, larger one this time). He touched the tub 2 or 3 times and then just stood there and didn't want to do it! There were a number of factors that may have caused this. He had just been lunged so he might have been tired, with clicker training they have to use their own brain and have to be willing to take part. There was also another horse in the arena that may have been distracting him. He had his bridle on because he had been lunged so was finding it difficult to eat the treats. I was told at university that a lot of factors come together for them to learn the commands, if you then change the environment this is changing some of the cues they know to perform the command and they may go back to the beginning again. Here I changed the environment and the tub used so that may have also had a part to play.

I also wrote a post on learning and training that you may be interested in reading if you like behaviour!

Trooper is still out in the field over night and in the stable during the day. The weather has gone much cooler now so I think he will be coming in at night soon (more mucking out for us!). At the moment he is not waiting at the gate in the morning and even when it has been raining he doesn't seem bothered. He is usually the first one barging the gate when he doesn't want to be in the field so I think he will be OK staying out for another week or two.

Sorry I have no photos or videos today, I forgot to take my camera! I am also back in Wales so I wont be able to take any photos this week. When I get back I want to do an update on his weight and on his tail (which has grown really well this year).

Love Laura
xxxx

Welsh Cobs

As I am sure you all know, Trooper is a Welsh Cob so I thought I would write a post about the breed. Welsh Cobs can be used for a variety of activities and are known for their hardiness and gentle nature. They have been described as "the best ride and drive in the world". They also have the character of a pony (this is definitely true with Trooper).

There are a number of different sections for Welsh Ponies and Cobs, these relate to their size. Trooper is a section D Welsh Cob which is the largest section. Horses in the section D category have to be over 13.2 hh and Trooper is 15 hh. Section D's still have a pony-like head. Their movement is powerful and extravagant.

The section A pony is smaller than 12.2 hh. The section B and C both have a maximum height of 13.2 hh with the section C being heavier and more cob like.

There is some evidence that a Welsh-type pony existed before 1600 BC. It is thought that they evolved from the prehistoric Celtic pony. They are a hardy breed due to the climate they have lived in. The Welsh Cob existed in the Middle Ages . They were also used for farm work before heavy breeds of horses were introduced. On recovering from the Horses Act 1540, many of the welsh type horses were crossed with Arabs and Thoroughbreds. They were first exported to the United States as early as the 1800s.

The stallion Dyoll Starlight (seen below) is thought to be the founding stallion of the modern breed and was from Welsh and Arab breeding. 

This image does not belong to me.

A town I have driven through many times, Aberaeron in Wales, has a life-size statue of a Welsh Cob. They have a festival of Welsh Cobs and Ponies which I would love to go to one day! I also want to go to the Royal Welsh Show as I have watched the Welsh Cobs competing there on TV and they looked gorgeous!

This image is from the BBC website.

Laura
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Trooper Trotting!

Here is just a quick video of Trooper trotting in the outdoor arena. Unfortunately with him being black he blends into the background quite a lot! I will try and get some more clearer footage soon with canter and some other dressage moves we have been trying out!

Love Laura
xxxx

A Nice Ride!

We finally got a nice day of weather and my Mum was able to come and take some photos of me riding! I went in the outdoor arena and he was being good. He was nice and relaxed and didn't trip up too much!

Excuse the bright bins standing out in the background!

I like this one, looks like he is on a photo-shoot with a wind machine!

He is very handsome if I do say so myself!

He is stretching through with his legs quite nicely, he kept messing around with his head due to flies though so wasn't staying on the bit. He is a bit on the forehand as well! Apart from that, he was going very nicely.

Some video footage to follow tomorrow!

Love Laura
xxxx

Trooper Update

Sorry I haven't got any photographs today, I have been too busy and I thought a post without photos is better than no post at all!

I would also like to say get well soon to my Grandad who likes reading my blog!

Trooper is doing well, I still think he is a bit fat but he isn't as bad as he has been in the past (photos to follow!). I weighed him with the weight tape the other day and he was around 147 kg which is actually good for him. I have been trying to ride him as much as possible but the weather has been awful so not as much as I would have hoped.

After watching the Olympics I have been making him do some more dressage movements. He is quite good at leg yeilding so I have been starting to think about half pass which he has been finding a lot more difficult. I have also been doing little walk pirouettes by walking him on a circle and leg yielding him in smaller and smaller until he is on the spot. I don't think he is quite doing it yet! I need to get someone to video me so I can see! I will put it on here too!

When I rode him one day last week I went in the outdoor arena and I was schooling him. I was cantering him on a 20 metre circle when he tripped and fell onto his knees. I then flew off and managed to land standing on my feet! Trooper was fine but a bit confused. We have a new surface to ride on up there which is really nice so I am sure that cushioned his landing. I felt his legs and walked and trotted him in hand and he seemed fine so I got back on and just rode for a few more minutes just to make sure everything was OK then I took him back down. I hosed all of his legs for around 10 minutes each as I am still wary about his tendon injury. He does trip up a lot now, I don't know if this is due to his age. It may also be due to me not wanting to get his hindlegs under him as much so I don't put more pressure on his back tendon. He has been fine after this anyway and I have been riding him as normal since.

He is still out in the field over night and has not been waiting at the gate to come in in the morning so hopefully he will have a few more weeks of being out over night before he comes in for the winter (when he only gets to go out during the day). Recently I have been going down to the farm around 10 am in the morning which is very late for me. I am finding this a better time to go and catch him though as we have a young horse in the field at the moment who insists on being first one out of the field in the morning. I already have Joe and Bobby who follow me and Trooper up the field every morning to come in. Joe and Bobby are very well behaved however and if I let them out of the field will walk to their stables with no headcollar on. I don't think I need another horse following me out, especially if it is young.

Here's an old photo I found that I thought I would include!

Love Laura
xxxx