Glenshea Equine
Retirement

Horse Care Tips

Horses are wonderful animals! Strong, intelligent, they have great personalities that are as individual as humans, and readily return love, care and attention.

Like any animal kept for work or as a pet, some care and attention can make all the difference for the animal’s health, happiness and temperament.

Barbed Wire

Barbed wire and horses don’t mix! Unlike cattle, a horse’s skin is relatively thin and easily torn. Never pasture horses in barbed-wire fenced paddocks, as brushing against the wire, or becoming entangled, can cause nasty injuries that can easily become infected.

Strong wooden rails are a good fencing method; if using plain wire fences, electric or ‘hot’ wires quickly teach horses to keep away from the fence — we use this method at Glenshea and find it very effective.

Hoof care

Horses hooves require regular maintenance. Depending upon your horses use, its hooves will need trimming about every 6-8 weeks or your horse may need to be shod. Shod horses still need their feet trimmed and the shoes re-fitted every 6 weeks or so.

Retirement care

Older horses often need some special attention because of the effects of advancing age (don’t we all?). Special diets may be required if your horse has teeth problems or is failing to hold good condition in its old age.

Arthritis

The heavy ‘wear and tear’ on a horse’s joints, especially in working horses, can progress to arthritis, in much the same way humans suffer arthritis in heavily-used joints.

The common symptoms are lameness or joint stiffness.

There are treatments available to make your horse more comfortable, however it is always best to get veterinary advice in each individual case.

Boredom

Stand around doing nothing all day and you’ll soon understand about boredom. As an intelligent animal, a horse needs some daily stimulation, such as other horses nearby, human interaction, changing paddocks, occasionally even a toy to play with!

This is especially important in older horses, who are less likely to amuse themselves with self-imposed exercise, or for those horses that must be kept in very small paddocks.