Hi. Welcome to the horse husbandry section of this week. I'm Dr. Jo-Anne Murray and I am a senior lecturer in animal nutrition and husbandry here at the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies. What we're going to cover this week then is we're going to look at horse husbandry. So in terms of the learning outcomes for this week, I'm looking for you to be able to describe what is good horse husbandry. So in terms of what we're going to cover this week, we're going to begin by looking at the natural environment of the horse, and then we're going to look at how we've managed horses in a domesticated setting, and then we're going to finish off by looking at what is good husbandry and how good husbandry can ensure good health and welfare of our horses and ponies. So we're going to begin by looking at the natural environment of the horse. So horses are nomadic animals. They will roam over a number of kilometers per day. So in the wild somewhere between 6 and 26 kilometers per day, and what they'll do is they'll graze little and often during this time so they'll take a couple of bites of grass, forage, they will move on, take another couple of bites. And so therefore they're grazing little and often. And in terms of their intestinal system, this has developed to ingest forages on an almost continual basis, and therefore to be eating little and often. And the types of feedstuffs that their intestinal system is designed to process is feedstuffs that are low in nutritional quality and are therefore high in fiber. Also when we think about horses and their natural behaviors, horses are highly sociable animals. They move around in herds and they do this to increase their chance of survival, but when we also look at horse behavior, they do still seem to require their personal space, and when we look at how they behave in the wild environment, they tend to have their preferred grooming partners. The other thing to remember is that horses communicate through body language, so they're very good at picking up on our body language while we are not necessarily very good at picking up on theirs 'cause we're used to communicating verbally. The other thing is, horses are prey animals so they will instinctively run away from perceived danger, and if they can't run away they will fight. So it's important to be mindful of the horses' natural environments and of their instinctive behaviors, so that we can try to cater for this when we manage horses in the domesticated setting. Now let's consider the management of horses in the domesticated setting. So let's first of all consider how we currently use horses. So first of all, we use them for recreational purposes, so for leisure riding. We use them for breeding. We use horses a lot in sport. For example, in racing. And in some parts of the world we use horses for meat production. So what's changed in particular about how we manage horses in the domesticated setting is that we put them in a stable environment. So we house them indoors, and let's just remember that horses won't voluntarily confine themselves so this is an unnatural setting for the horse. And we do this because it allows us to manage our horses when we're using them for riding activities because it allows us to keep them cleaner. We've got more control over their feed intake. If we've got expensive horses that we use in sport we're reducing the risk of injury by minimizing their turnouts, but we still need to be mindful that horses do need to have that social interaction, and they do need to have some turnout to ensure good health and welfare. So I'd mentioned that one of the reasons to stable horses is to control and manage their feed intake, and what's particularly changed as well is the types of feedstuffs that we're feeding to horses. So if you think about the horse in its natural setting, it is designed to ingest low-quality forages in an almost continual basis, but because we've moved to using horses for higher level activities, so they have more energy expenditure, we've added higher energy feeds into their diet, and predominantly we've included high starch cereal grains in the diet. Now, horses can digest starch in their gastrointestinal system, but they have a limited capacity to do this. So if we have too much starch in the diet it can cause gastrointestinal problems. The other issue is that, if you cast your mind back to the natural environment, the forages that horses would typically graze on in the wild would be low nutritional quality forages. But horses in the domesticated setting are grazing what we call these improved pastures, pastures with a higher nutritional quality. And also because during times of the year when grass growth is limited, we're actually adding supplementary feedstuff to the diet toward including conserve forages in the diet. So in the wild where you would see horses gain better weight during the spring and summer and lose a bit of weight over the winter, we're not necessarily seeing that in the domesticated setting, and so therefore we do have some increasing issues with obesity in horses. The other thing that we've done is we've moved to managing horses for human convenience, so we've moved towards meal feeding, which again is very different from how the horses evolved, this eating on an almost continual basis, because what we need to remember again is horses won't voluntarily fast and horses shouldn't be left without access to forage for any more than three hours. And sometimes in the stable environment, particularly overnight, this can happen, and this again can have impact on their gastrointestinal system. So when we think about how we manage horses in the domesticated setting then, if we don't manage them appropriately, poor management practices can lead to, as I've mentioned before, digestive upset or other health issues. It can lead to the development of stereotypical behavior such as crib-biting or wind-sucking. And it can also lead to difficulty with us being able to handle and manage our horses, so I think it's very important that we look at what good husbandry is and how we can implement good husbandry practices. So now let's look at good management. So first of all we need to ensure adequate turnout, and turnout onto well-managed pastures, pastures that are not overgrazed or under-grazed. We also need to make sure that our horses have access to clean water and that we check them on a regular basis to check that they're not injured or have become unwell. We need to provide them with shelter, so that can be natural shelter from trees and hedges or it can be purpose built manmade shelters. And if they need additional protection during particularly cold times of the year or wet times of the year, we can use rugs for that purpose. During times of the year when grass growth is limited we need to provide additional conserved forages for our horses in the field as well. Then thinking about management of our horses in the stable environment. First of all we need to make sure that the stable is the correct size. The recommended sizes are 3.65 metres x 3.05 metres for a pony and 3.65 metres x 4.25 metres for a horse. We need to ensure that there's good ventilation because horses that actually respond to developing respiratory disorders and the recommendation is a minimum of four air changes per hour. If it is cold, we should never close the top door. We can provide extra warmth by using rugs. We need to provide good bedding in the stable environment, bedding that is low dust and also bedding that is kept clean. If the bedding becomes dirty, horses can be prone to developing fungal foot infections, and also remember that ammonia is a respiratory irritant so can lead to the development of respiratory issues. We need to remember to provide clean water in the stable. We can do this by providing water buckets, so using automatic drinkers, but we need to remember that we check actually that our automatic drinkers are working at all times. And if you cast your mind back to the natural environment of the horse, horses are designed to eat in an almost continual basis, so we must provide forage in the stable for our horses. We mustn't leave them in the stable for long periods of time without access to forage. And therefore feeding supplementary feedstuffs, then we need to provide them little and often, and we also need to be mindful that not all of our horses need supplementary feedstuff. In fact, most of our horses are used for leisure purposes and can be maintained absolutely fine on a forage only diet. So what we've covered as we've looked at the natural environment of the horse, we've looked at the management of horses in the domesticated setting, and then we've looked at what's required for good management. So I hope you find this helpful, interesting, and continue to enjoy the course.
