Tuesday, May 22, 2012

What happened in practice today....

We took the review test.  Here is a copy.  The second link is the answers.  Try to take the test first, then look. 

Review Test 1
Test Key

So the few discussion points we reviewed from Friday's blog:

Energy Deficiencies:  Reduction in overall health and performance abilities.  You can also over feed both.  Overfeeding these can lead to excess fat.  It is wasteful.  Horses can develop stress from too much energy and protein. 

Protein deficiencies in young horses can hurt the growth pattern.  Protein is vital for for sustaining growth.  They can become incredibly unhealthy if they lack enough protein during this stage.  Mature horses do not need as much.  You see more problems with hair and hoof and tissues....all things that continue to grow even after the body is mature. 

Saddle parts:

English Saddle
Western Saddle

Print off or draw a copy of the above saddles.  Some parts will be on both....some won't.  Grab some crayons and Color the parts of the saddle according to what I call out below.

Red:  The Seat (both)
Green:  Cantle (Both)
Purple: Horn
Pink:  Panel
Brown:  Pommel (both)
Black: Stirrup (Both)
Blue: Knee Roll
Orange: Skirt
Light Blue:  Gullet
yellow:  Cinch Strap
Gray:  Stirrup leather
Light green:  Flap
Light purple: Twist
Red polka dots:  Fender
Tan:  Stirrup Keeper
Green Stripes:  Latigo and Latigo holder
Purple stars:  Flank Billet

Check your answers here with Western Saddle and English Saddle

I cannot figure out at this time how to post my horse color review, since it is a powerpoint.  Just read through the website from the last post again.

We did a run through of some health problems.  Each person researched two topics and shared their findings.

Alice talked about colic:  It's an abdominal pain caused by intestinal parasites, twisted intestines.  Must be treated quickly. Founder (Laminitis) caused by too much carb intake causes bacterial imbalance.  Must be treated immediately.  Treat by coating intestinal tract with mineral oil.  There comes a point when it is no longer treatable.

Ricky: Thrush is a bacterial infection in the frog of the foot.  Symptoms include black smelly material and degradation of bar.  Caused by infected soil and poor hoof health care.  Topical antibiotic.  Equine infectious Anemia is a virus.  High Temperature, depression, stiffness/weakness, anemia, jaundice, loss of condition and weight with good appetite.  Result is death.  No treatment.  Prevention is Coggins Testing.

Sammy:  Heaves is horse asthma.  There is no real cure but you can cope with it by using non dusty feed and trying to stay away from dusty environments.  Tetanus is deadly is in most cases.  Muscles stiffen. Treat by antibiotics and antitoxins.  Horses must be protected by light and sound because it causes nervousness.  Caused by clostridium tetani found in soil and feces.  Gets into cuts. 

We kinda started feeds and feeding.  Go ahead and scroll down to the powerpoints and look through the information about the different feeds and what they offer. 

Feeds and Feeding Lesson Plan

Monday, May 21, 2012

Grab Bag Mania

So here's my plan for tomorrow, so that you all come prepared to practice.

1. We will take a 25 question test reviewing everything we have talked about between Thursday and the Blog.
2. I will go over the blog to make sure there are no questions.
3. We will do a little saddle part ID activity.
4. We will do a quick color review.
5. We will talk about feed and feeding horses.
6. You all will do a quick presentation of an assigned health problem.

Today on the blog I will give you some random questions to look up. As I look through tests I see random questions here and there. Because the topic is so random and brief, I don't want to do a whole lesson about it. So instead you can look it up. I will post the answers tomorrow. I will also post a copy of the test on here tomorrow as well as everything else we do.

1. What Phylum to horses belong to?
2. How many pairs of chromosomes do horses have? Ponies?
3. What is a female donkey?
4. What is a cross between a jennet and a stallion?
5. Which side do you always mount a horse on?
6. When is a horse in the prime of its life?

Also find this information. When you are checking a horse's general health you must perform a TPR. This is vet shorthand for total physical response. In this you must find the horse's heartrate, breath rate, and temperature. Can you find out what the average TPR of a healthy horse is for each of those measurements?

Hope your break is starting off awesome!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Horse Nutrition...

As a review from yesterday I challenge you to make flashcards for the following terms. See how many you can do without looking them up.


foal, stallion, stud, mare, dam, sire, pony, hand, gelding


Read through this site on horse colors. I will quiz you on it on Tuesday. There are more colors than we discussed since Sammy was falling asleep.


http://www.equusite.com/articles/basics/basicsColors.shtml


Since I am sick and quite possibly dying (yes...I'm being melodramatic), I thought I'd post what were going to talk about today on here. I'm going to try to add stuff regularly thoughout the next couple weeks, so that you can get more than just what we are learning in our meetings. Please try to follow me on here, because this information will be invaluable to the contest.


So today's topic is going to be Horse Nutrition!!!! YAY FOOD! Which will lead into horse feeds and feeding and all that good stuff so your horse doesn't die, and you don't get arrested for animal abuse.


To really understand horse nutrition you should first understand the digestive system.


Please read through this quick bulletin from the Ohio Extension:


http://ohioline.osu.edu/b762/b762_5.html


One point I really want you to take away is the horse has a unique cecum for a non-ruminant or monogastric. Cows eat grass effectively, because they have the super awesome stomach of a ruminant. Well, horses are monogastric, but they also eat grass. Why can't we eat grass too? Well we can, but it tastes disgusting...seriously try it. Horses have an enlarged cecum. We do not. Sometimes they are referred to as pseudoruminants for this exact reason. The cecum (as you read) acts similarly to a ruminant's multi compartment stomach. That's pretty neat!



Quiz time:


What does it mean when we say horses are herbivores?


How many teeth do horses have (male vs. female)?


What two things help break down food in the stomach?


If a feed change occurs how long does it take for the microbes in the cecum to change to be able to properly digest the new feed?


Answers:


Eats forages instead of meat.


Females= 36 teeth
Males=40 teeth


Pepsin & Hydrochloric Acid


appx 3 weeks


The main feed ingrediates that horses need are going to be carbohydrates, fats, protein, minerals, vitamins and water. Carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are what is necessary for a horse to generate energy. Carbs are the main energy source. No Atkins Diet for horses. Horses will gain these from grains and roughages. This includes pasture grasses.


Nutrients are neceesary to maintain body weight and support digstive/metabolic functions. Additional nutrients will be required for growth, work, reproduction and lactation. That is why feed will change based on what the horse is used for. A pregnant mare will receive different nutrients than a horse that does cross country jumping.


Most horses receive their feed in two different parts. They get roughage (hay or pasture) and concentrates (grains and supplements).


Answer the following question to the best of your ability based off of what you already know. We will discuss on Tuesday. What can nutritional deficiencies lead to?


Side note: After 3 years horses become lactose intolerant. If you give a mature horse milk it will get diarrhea.


Fat is often used to increase performance and maintain body condition. It should be included in a performance horse diet. We do not know the ideal amount yet, so trainers often have to play around with the amount to add on a daily basis.


Look up and define the following terms thare used to measure energy: Digestible energy, metabolizable energy, net energy and total digestible nutrients.


Proteins are amino acids. Research has shown that proteins high in lysine (an amino acid) achieved the greatest growth. Mature horses do not need as much protein as young horses, because their growth process has slowed. Feed indicates protein as crude protein. This does not acurately portray what is being taken in by the horse, and digestible protein must be estimated.


What do you think the effects of protein deficiencies are in young horses? Mature horses?


Minerals are important to energy transfer as well as various functions of the body. They are categorized as macrominerals (necessary in large amounts) and microminerals (necessary in small amounts). Just because you need less does not make it any less important.


Macronutrients (probably will see a question about this): Calcium (Ca), Phosphorous (P), Potassium (K), Sodium (Na), Chloride (Cl), Magnesium (Mg), and Sulfer (S).


Microminerals: Copper (Cu), Iodine (I), Iron (Fe), Selenium (Se), Cobalt (Co), Manganese (Mn), Fluoride (F), Zinc (Zn).


Check out what they do here http://www.pet-health-advisor.com/horsenutritionminerals.html


Here's a good straight forward article about vitamins for horses.


http://www.ehow.com/info_7823824_vitamins-horse.html


Water!!! You should definitely know this little tid bit. Horses need about 10-12 gallons of water daily. Hard work and hot weather require more. Impaction happens when horses don't get enough. If you rode your horse you should cool them down or only give small amounts of water before drinking their fill. Also watch out for dehydration.