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Update on Horse Anti-Slaughter Bill

May 31, 2007 By Leave a Comment

There was an update about a week ago on the Horse Anti-Slaughter Bill in Illinois and I am sorry to be late in posting this. I read it and forgot to post it to the blog.

Governor Rod Blagojevich signed the Anti-Slaughter Bill in Illinois the home of the last operating horse slaughter plant in the US on May 24th. So now we shall see what is going to be done about or if there even is an “unwanted horse” problem.

You can read a brief article from The Horse about the signing – http://www.thehorse.com/viewarticle.aspx?ID=9683

Oh this also does not effect the Federal Bill, that is still being discussed and will be used to prevent raising horses and transporting them to Canada and Mexico for slaughtering purposes.

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Equine Emergency Kits

May 28, 2007 By 2 Comments

Horse season is here in the midwest and an increase in emergencies is seen this time of year due to the increase in outdoor activities with horses. So it would be time to invest in an emergency kit for your horse.

kit003.jpg

I have found one at a reasonable cost and is pretty complete – The Trailering Kit small from Equimedic is an excellent choice for a first aid kit for horses. Here is a list of what you will find in this kit…

Small Trailering Soft Sided Bag
10 long handled cotton tipped swabs
8 medical towels
6 wood applicators
24 non-sterile gauze pads
6 sterile gauze pads
5 non-adherent gauze pads
3 3M Vetrap Bandaging Tape
1 one third pound roll of cotton
1 adhesive tape roll
10 alcohol wipes
10 hand sanitizing towelettes
4 povidone iodine swabsticks
1 four ounce eye wash
1 betadine surgical scrub
1 eight ounce hydrogen peroxide
8 iodine wipes
1 flashlight
6 exam gloves
1 hoof pick
1 tourniquet
1 bandage scissors
4 bandage pins
5 18 gauge by one inch needles
2 ten cc syringes
2 twenty cc syringes
1 thirty five cc syringe
1 stainless steel thumb forcep
1 wrap cutter
10 antibiotic foil pouches
6 three quarter inch adhesive bandages
6 one inch adhesive bandages
2 Electrolyte Gold packets
1 two ounce small antiseptic ointment
1 four and a half ounce small liniment
1 six ounce bloodstop

To this kit I would add a few more items -
1 pair of wire cutters
tools to remove shoes
1 roll of Duct Tape
A pair of EZ Boots (properly fit for your horse)

Then some emergency medicine that you can ask your vet about such as -
Banamine
SMZ-TMP 960mg tablets (Tribrissen tablets)
Acepromazine
Epinephrine

Remember the Boy Scout’s rule to always be prepared. So at this time of increased activity with your horse be prepared for emergencies with an Equine Emergency Kit. You can either build your own or purchase a First Aid kit for horses already prepared by Equimedic

Filed Under: Horse Health Tagged With: , , , ,

Other Humane Issues for Horses besides Anti-Slaughter

May 21, 2007 By 3 Comments

OK Here I go again! The Anti-Slaughter issue is based on humane or more exactly in-humane treatment of horses. We are going so far as to make it a federal law to stop the slaughter and in-humane treatment caused by slaughtering, so what about the other in-humane activities that go on in the horse world and many times are accepted as general practice or as the way things are.

For examples – (now I will be talking from experience with all these topics, meaning I have either witnessed the occurence or have witnessed the after effects of the “in-humane” treatment)

Arabian Show horses – being gingered which entails applying ginger, a caustic substance to the anus of an Arab so that it is uncomfortable to place its tail down in the area. Although this is an “illegal” show activity, it happens many, many times as it helps maintain an appropriate tail flagging height.

Western Pleasure – Chemically denerving or blocking of the tail, causing the tail to be limp, so no flagging occurs during a show. Consequently, the horse can no longer swat flies either. Or my favorite since I am an animal chiropractor – tying the head up for hours and hours. Why? So that the head hangs low, the muscles are too exhausted to raise the head up, so it “teaches” the horse to ride with its head down really low. Oh and this last one is legal!

Racing – allowing young horses to heavily train so they can race when they are two. Reason – because otherwise you have to wait one more year to see if your investment will be a good one or not!?! Although the health of these horses are of the utmost importance when winning or trying to make a horse a winner, the big picture is lost by allowing them to train too early.

Jumpers – polling – using a long pole to smack the front legs of a horse as he comes over a jump to “teach” them to tightly fold their knees to avoid brushing the bar.

Saddlebreds – What can I say the entire process to make them do what they do. OK they have a natural gait but the techniques that “improve” or exaggerate those gaits can be very shocking and is widely accepted such as tail cutting and applying a tail set, which is cutting the lower ligaments of the tail allowing for exaggerated tail movement up over the back and applying a bar behind the tail and leaving it there for hours and hours to train the tail to be in that position. The shoes which create a long term defect in the feet, causing a pencil thin frog and crushed heels.

Halter horses – Forcing yearlings to grow so fast and large that they look like 5 year old studs and I am talking about the fillys!

I can go on and on about almost any of the sports and activities we do with horses. Are these next on the agenda for legislators? Are humane groups looking into these activities? Or is the horse world going to have to police itself and when the majority finds these activities inhumane will they stop or is the desire to win that much stronger?

I really do not have an answer to these questions and I have to deal with horses that have these things done to them on a regular basis. Am I contributing to their inhumane treatment by working on them, allowing them to continue to perform? What do you think? Do these activities really affect the horse’s health or are they even really in-humane?

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Horse Slaughter Bill and High Gas Prices

May 17, 2007 By 85 Comments

So what does the Horse Slaughter Bill and the High Gas Prices have to do with one another? Unwanted Horses!

The Anti-slaughter Horse Bill is one of those topics I like to stay away from, it has passionate people on both sides of the fence and it seems much more FOR the anti-slaughter bill than against and although it has a lot to do with horse welfare it doesn’t really pertain to health, but since when has that stopped me…LOL

Pretty much I agree that horses are companion animals and should not be slaughtered for meat; however it is a free country so if it is legal, I feel that it should be done in the most humane way possible. However, according to the accounts of the people supporting the anti-slaughter bill this is not the case.

Now it has been proposed by the opponents of the anti-slaughter bill that if it were to pass there would be a large increase in numbers of unwanted horses – approximately 90,000 a year, as that is the number being slaughtered here in the US each year. I am not convinced completely of that argument as we have had ever decreasing numbers in horse slaughter over the past 20 years without a huge influx of unwanted horses coming from that decrease.

But wait now lets add in some money! The increase in fuel costs is now leading to a big surge in alternative fuels and the one that is at the forefront right now is the use of ethanol made from corn. What is happening is interesting. The price of corn has increased so horse feed made from corn (which I advise against feeding) has increased in price and not only that but many hay fields are becoming corn fields this year! That’s right, there is an expected hay shortage coming this year due to lower production because people wanting to get on the high price of corn for use in making ethanol! This will really drive the cost of feeding horses up.

Now lets add to this the decrease in prices at horse sales, whether it is from the perception that there is an over abundance of horses or the economy is slowing down and people are just not wanting to buy horses or whatever, the price for horses is dropping.

All this adds up to unwanted horses. Unwanted horses have no where to go. Now supporters of the Anti-slaughter bill are claiming that there is no unwanted horse problem and that there will not be. Unfortunately, I think they are wrong and there is evidence already in Illinois. Shawnee National Forest now has a wild horse herd. Now I have not seen this herd I have only heard about it from a client, so I went and did a little research on the net and here is a statement from Jim Fraley, Illinois Farm Bureau commodity livestock program manager (now I know his viewpoint may be a little biased as he is an opponent of the Illinois bill)

We’ve already seen first-hand accounts of people who have ‘turned loose’ unwanted horses in the Shawnee Forest. I’m sure we will see more of these types of abandoned animal stories in the future. Simply saying that these horses will be adopted out is looking at the issue through rose-colored glasses. It simply is not viable.

This quote is from the Prairie Farmer dated May 9, 2007 – Horse Slaughter Ban Puts Animal Agriculture on Guard by Cherry Brieser-Stout. This does not suggest that there is a herd there but I certainly can see that it is a possibility.

So although I think morally and ethically the Anti-slaughter bill is a good law to have I believe there are problems with this legislation that will have to be addressed that the supporters are either ignoring or are just not realizing the reality of the situation. These issues will have to be dealt with, so I am hoping that these proactive people who have a desire to stop the inhumane treatment of horses due to slaughter will continue their mission when the bill becomes law and creates another inhumane condition for horses. Although if I were a horse I certainly would like to live in the Shawnee Forest, but with that said, I certainly would not like to see a large herd develop there or anywhere were a population of people are… I have hit a deer with my car before and did some damage, I can only imagine the kind of damage that can be done by a horse that weighs several hundred pounds more.

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Oral Hyaluronic Acid – a change of opinion?

May 16, 2007 By 1 Comment

Oral preparations of Sodium Hyaluronate or Hyaluronic Acid (HA) are marketed as a joint supplement. One of the original HA products was Legend (trademark by Bayer) and was only available in intra-articular injection (joint injection) or intravascular injection (IV) forms. Intra-articular injection has been shown to be more effective however with the risk of joint infection and the inconvenience of having to have a veterinarian perform the procedure plus the added cost, IV injection seemed to be the way to go, especially after the Colorado State University study in 1997 that should that intravenous injection of HA decreases inflammatory mediators in the joint and improves lameness. For study info Effects of intravenous administration of sodium hyaluronate

Then came the oral administrations and intial results were not that great with many horse owners saying that there were no signs of improvement. It was surmised that in order of preference for using HA intra-articular injection was better than intravenous injection which was better than oral administration. I have been promoting that mantra for a couple of years now.

Well along comes a study from Rood and Riddle last year…Oral hyaluronan gel You can click on the link to the abstract of the study but let me quote for you the Conclusion of this study…

“CONCLUSIONS AND POTENTIAL RELEVANCE: Oral preparations of hyaluronan are being used to treat joint disease in horse. Anecdotal reports supporting the efficacy of these preparations already exist. This study provides objective evidence that oral HA reduces joint effusion post operatively following the arthroscopic removal of an OCD lesion in the tarsocrural joint.”

Which means that oral HA does have some effectiveness and is better than what I had initially thought. With that said it is still expensive in comparison to other oral joint supplements and the studies have not been conducted to determine if it is any better than other supplements or better than injectable HA. I know it is not better than Adequan as the research on Adequan suggest some cartilage rebuild where as HA does not.

So for those of you that I have told you are wasting your money that is only partially true…it does seem to work but I am still on the fence as far as cost effectiveness.

I think I am going to go through all the joint supplements and explain each one in the next few posts. Leave feedback in my comments if you have a request on what joint supplement you would like to know about and don’t forget to check out my website E-VetClinic

Filed Under: Horse Health Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pergolide – Update

May 12, 2007 By Leave a Comment

OK I make a post about pergolide and the very same day FDA makes another statement about it.

http://www.fda.gov/cvm/pergolide.htm

Thanks to Suzzane from SingingHorse Essentials and Cassie’s Story for updating me on this.

The unfortunate thing is that supplies may still be slow in coming because of the original shut down by the FDA.

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Pergolide – No availability

May 11, 2007 By 4 Comments

If you have a horse with Cushings and it is taking pergolide here is something you should know – FDA News

This means that they have pulled pergolide from the market and it will not be available for your horse. Personally I like for people to try using the Chasteberry products such as Hormonize or Evitech, but many times the pergolide is the horses last hope for remaining symptom free.

The Horse did an article last month on this – Don’t know how I missed it but I did – and it contains information on how to petition the FDA for special use for horses – heres the story – http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=9405

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AAEP Healthy Horses Workshop for Owners!

May 2, 2007 By Leave a Comment

The AAEP is going to have a Healthy Horses Workshop in Colorado according to a press release found at The Horse ( http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=9502 )

Some excellent topics are lined up with some of the more prominent equine experts in Colorado. Heres the line up taken from the Press Release…

Infection Protection: It’s Not Just About Vaccinations Anymore. Josie Traub-Dargatz, DVM, MS, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo.

Colic: Interesting and Up-to-Date Information for Horse Owners. Nancy Loving, DVM, Loving Equine Clinic, Boulder, Colo.

Equine Veterinary Acupuncture and Chiropractic: What, When and Who? Ed Boldt, Jr., DVM, Performance Horse Complementary Medicine Services, Fort Collins, Colo.

Equine Endocrine Disorders: The Basics. Emily Graves, VMD, Equine Consulting of the Rockies, Fort Collins, Colo.

Is My Horse Lame? How to Determine the Cause and Source of Lameness in the Horse. Terry Swanson, DVM, Littleton Large Animal Clinic, Littleton, Colo.

Looks to be a good seminar to attend. Mark your calendars for Saturday, July 28th for a trip to Fort Collins, Colorado.

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