Tips to Prevent Tendon and Ligament Injuries in Horses

Essential components of the musculoskeletal system, tendons and ligaments enable a horse to move, and injuring either can result in severe pain and subsequent lameness.

What Are Tendons and Ligaments?

Tendons

Tendons are sturdy bands of connective tissue that consist of collagen and protein. They do not stretch or have much give, as they are responsible for attaching the body’s muscles to its bones.

Ligaments

Ligaments wrap around the joints and bones and are more like cords of connective tissue. They provide a little more stretch and flexibility than tendons and are responsible for stabilizing and supporting the body’s joints.

What Causes Injuries to the Tendons and Ligaments?

Horses can injure both tendons and ligaments as a result of ongoing stress, repetitive use, overwork, and trauma. As a result, injuries sometimes occur gradually over time, and other times they happen suddenly, such as if a horse suffers a fall.

Since these injuries affect the horse’s joints, they can make it very difficult and painful for a horse to move around and put weight on its joints.

How to Prevent Tendon and Ligament Injuries in Horses

1. Choose a Horse With Good Conformation

The shape and structure of a horse have a lot to do with the amount of strain that’s placed on its joints. Choosing a horse with the best possible conformation (musculature, structure, and shape) is the best way to avoid injuries in the future. A full prepurchase examination by an equine veterinarian can help identify conformation issues that may cause lameness.

2. Avoid Strain With Proper Shoeing

Choose an experienced farrier to keep your horse on a regular shoeing or trimming schedule. Improper shoeing throws off your horse’s posture, putting abnormal strain on the joints.

3. Maintain Fitness

To avoid all musculoskeletal injuries, it’s essential to keep your horse in good shape. If your horse doesn’t get regular exercise, do not overwork it by doing too much too quickly.

4. Mix It Up

Another way to avoid injury is to cross train. Take your horse out on different terrain, do trots, sprints, and endurance walks.

Schedule a Lameness Evaluation With Our Equine Veterinary Specialists

Before purchasing a horse, we strongly encourage you to schedule a prepurchase exam with one of our equine veterinary specialists at Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley. We will thoroughly examine the horse you are considering purchasing to ensure you are well aware of any conformation issues, musculoskeletal problems, or other health concerns before making such an important decision.

To learn more or schedule an exam for your horse, we welcome you to contact us today.

Tack Box Must-Haves

Whether you’re going away for a day, the weekend, or an extended show tour, packing for you alone is tough enough. When you also have to remember to pack and organize what seems like a million items for your horse, it can become truly overwhelming, and the odds of forgetting something that you or your horse needs are high.

So, the next time you’re organizing your tack box for a competition or show, take a look at the following list of essential items to make sure you have everything that you really need when you need it most.

4 Categories of Must-Haves for Your Tack Box Checklist

1. Tack and Equipment

If you forget an essential piece of tack, you can probably purchase what you need at a pop-up tack shop on-site, but do you really want to spend the money when you already have what you need at home? Of course not! So, remember these essentials:

2. Grooming Supplies

To help your horse look his or her best, be sure you have all your grooming supplies tucked away in your tack box, too.

3. Horse Care Supplies

Pack all the essential care items and a first aid kit to keep your horse happy and healthy away from home.

4. Rider Essentials

Remember you need to be show-ready, as well.

Ask an Equine Vet for Personalized Tack Box Recommendations

For personalized tack box recommendations, we welcome you to schedule an appointment with a veterinarian at Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley. To learn more contact our veterinary office in Fishkill, New York today.

Choosing Your First Horse

Deciding to purchase your first horse is an exciting yet enormous decision that should not be taken lightly. Due to the high time, cost, and commitment demands of horse ownership, becoming a horse owner is similar to becoming a parent, and the decision should be taken just as seriously.

That being said, when you know you’re ready to own a horse, you’re ready to start meeting horses and learning how to choose the one that’s right for you. If you’re thinking about buying your first horse, consider the following tips.

7 Tips for Choosing Your First Horse

1. Lease First

Before you become the full owner of a horse, consider leasing a horse. Leases can be partial, where you have access to the horse on set days during the week, or full where you have access to the horse at all times. Generally, both come with some degree of financial responsibility for the horse, which should be outlined in a lease agreement.

2. Take Riding Lessons

If you’ve never had professional riding lessons, then you should definitely invest in them before purchasing a horse. Riding lessons will allow you to learn to handle, groom, tack, and ride a horse with a professional instructing you and helping you along the way.

3. Stay Cool and Keep Your Options Open

Horses are beautiful, graceful animals, and it’s easy to fall in love with every horse you meet. However, it’s important to take your time and meet several different horses before choosing the one that’s right for you and your family. If you have a relationship with an instructor from taking riding lessons, they can be a valuable resource in finding and choosing the correct horse.

4. Bring an Experienced Friend

When purchasing a horse, you should always bring along someone with plenty of knowledge and experience to help you identify any potential red flags. Riding instructors or other experienced horse professionals can help with these initial evaluations.

5. Ask About History

Ask about a horse’s history before purchasing. You can’t ask too many questions. Find out about previous owners, request a copy of the horse’s records and registration papers, and ask why the seller is selling.

6. Meet Slowly

When you meet a horse for the first time, ask the seller to lead the horse out to observe it being handled. You can also ask to observe the current owner riding the horse before you ride the horse yourself.

7. Schedule a Pre-Purchase Exam

When you think you’ve found the right horse, schedule a pre-purchase exam with a veterinarian before completing the transaction. A pre-purchase exam should include a full nose-to-tail evaluation of the overall health of the horse, an evaluation of conformation, and a ridden or in-hand lameness exam with flexion tests. This is a critical step before purchasing a horse and can bring to light issues that you will want to be aware of prior to owning the horse.

At Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley, our equine veterinarians provide comprehensive pre-purchase exams to help prospective horse owners ensure they know exactly what to expect when it comes to their new horse’s health. If you’re thinking about purchasing a horse, we welcome you to contact us for guidance or additional information.

Taking Care of Horses on a Busy Schedule

Every horse owner knows that having a horse – and owning a horse responsibly – is more than a fun hobby; it’s a big commitment and an everyday job. When you have a full-time job, family, and other responsibilities in life on top of owning a horse, these daily chores can start to feel overwhelming. To ensure your horse’s needs always fit into your schedule and theirs, consider the following horse care tips.

5 Tips for Daily Horse Care and Your Busy Schedule
(What's Flexible and What's Not)

1. Feeding

Horses prefer to be fed at the same time each day. However, feeding a horse an hour late or early should be tolerable. Feeding a horse three to four hours off of schedule won’t be as easily tolerated – especially if your horses do not have hay available to them between meals.

2. Turnout Time

For their mental and physical health, you should always strive to allow your horses as much turnout time as you possibly can. However, on days when you’re particularly short on time, it is okay to shorten your horse’s daily turnout to a quick exploration of the area and social check-in with other nearby horses.

3. Stall Cleaning

A horse’s stall should be cleaned every day with no exception. It’s okay to remove only the obvious liquid and solid waste one day, but the next day, your horse’s stall will need a thorough and complete mucking out. Often it’s simpler and requires less time altogether if you don’t skip any days.

4. Water Supply

You absolutely must check your horse’s water supply every single day to make sure there’s an adequate, clean supply at an optimal temperature (50°F to 65°F). Check-in on troughs and ensure that all automatic water supplies are functioning properly.

5. Inspection

Each day, you should check in on your horse, assessing feces and urine and the amount of water and food consumed.

Minimize Your Horse's Needs With Comprehensive Wellness and Preventative Equine Care in Fishkill, NY

Minimize your horse’s ongoing care needs by providing them with comprehensive wellness and preventative care with an equine veterinarian. At Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley, our veterinarians specialize in everything equine, and we can help you ensure your horse has all the necessary care to prevent diseases, minimize parasites, and ensure early diagnosis and management of chronic conditions, as they arise.

To learn more about our equine veterinary services or to schedule an exam for your horses, we welcome you to contact Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley today.

How to Establish an Effective Grooming Routine for Your Horse

Regular grooming is an essential part of any horse’s care. Grooming promotes circulation and pain relief with massage-like brushstrokes. It also helps keep your horse clean and free from parasites and irritants like dirt, debris, and even fungi. Additionally, grooming provides you with the regular opportunity to closely inspect your horse for signs of injury, soreness, swelling, and infection. Horses that are groomed regularly tend to be healthier because these types of problems are detected early before they’ve had a chance to worsen.

Establishing Your Horse's Grooming Routine

Start With the Right Brushes

Every horse owner should have the right tools on hand to ensure their horse gets the proper grooming. In this order, your horse’s regular brushing routine should include:

Determine the Proper Schedule

While show horses will likely be set on a more frequent grooming routine, every horse should be thoroughly brushed at least a few days per week. Bathing schedules will vary, but less is usually more when it comes to maintaining a shiny coat. Shampoos and soaps strips the coat of its natural oils. Rinsing with clean water will help remove sweat without removing helpful, natural oils.

Leave the Tricky Tasks to Your Veterinarian

While some geldings will tolerate sheath cleaning while unsedated, many will not and its much safer to have your veterinarian perform this task with your horse properly and safely sedated and restrained. Your veterinarian will also evaluate any masses or abnormalities during a thorough sheath cleaning.Your horse only needs a sheath cleaning every 6-12 months, more often can cause irritation.

Remember That Beauty Starts on the Inside

Even the best grooming routine can only do so much to improve the health of a horse’s skin and the appearance of its coat, tail, and mane. A balanced and healthy diet that’s also rich in omega 3 and 6 fatty acids will do wonders to improve skin health while creating a lustrous, shiny coat.

We welcome our clients to talk with our equine veterinarians about the types of grains or other nutritional supplements that can be added to your horse’s diet to improve skin and coat health.

Get Expert Grooming Advice From Our Equine Veterinarians

At Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley, our equine veterinarians specialize in providing top-notch care to horses while also providing our clients with the knowledge and tools to help them raise healthy and beautiful horses for any purpose. To learn more about horse grooming or establishing a proper grooming routine for your horse, we welcome you to schedule a consultation with an equine specialist at Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley today.

Why Equine Vaccinations Matter

Horses are strong, hardy animals, but, like all animals, they’re still susceptible to disease. Whether your horses are working animals, show horses, livestock, or simply companions, you can protect them from some of the most common contagious and dangerous diseases with a regular schedule of vaccinations.

Core and Risk-Based Equine Vaccine

Not every horse needs to have every vaccination that’s been developed. Equine vaccines fall into two categories: core and risk-based vaccines. Core vaccines include those that are typically recommended for all horses, and risk-based vaccines include those that are only recommended on a case-by-case basis.

Core Equine Vaccines

The five core vaccinations for horses are:

All of the diseases from which these core vaccinations safeguard horses have high fatality rates and/or long-lasting symptoms that will hinder a horse’s health and performance for life. In most cases, equine veterinarians recommend that all horses receive a regular schedule that includes these core vaccinations.

Risk-Based Equine Vaccines

Additional risk-based vaccinations that are commonly administered on a case-by-case basis include:

What Vaccinations Do My Horses Need?

Not every horse will need to receive every vaccination. For individual horses, equine veterinarians usually make recommendations that include a combination of core and risk-based vaccines. These recommendations are based on each individual horse’s:

Our veterinarians at Advanced Equine keep track of all disease outbreaks that occur in our region, and we’ll make recommendations based on what our veterinarians and equine veterinarians from other practices are seeing in their patients. Additionally, horses that are exposed to lots of other horses (on neighboring farms, in horse shows, or at competitions) will likely receive a greater number of vaccinations due to their increased exposure risk.

For any horse, a thorough veterinary examination and evaluation are necessary to determine the appropriate schedule of vaccinations to keep that particular horse thriving and healthy.

More Ways to Strengthen a Horse's Immune System

The most important part of safeguarding a horse from disease is maintaining overall good health and an equally strong immune system. You can help support your horse’s immune system by always providing a balanced and nutritious diet, plenty of exercise, shelter and a clean environment, and regular veterinary care.

To schedule a checkup and vaccinations for your horse, we invite you to contact Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley today.

The Importance of Equine Preventative Dental Care

With regular wear and tear, a horse’s natural teeth are designed to last about 20 years, as the reserve crowns continuously erupt while the exposed crown wears away. With exceptional care, horses are living well into their 30s. A sedated oral exam performed with a mouth speculum and treatment (primarily odontoplasty) performed annually by a veterinarian is essential to maintaining your horse’s health and wellbeing.

3 Reasons Why Equine Dental Care Is So Important

1. Monitor Development

Foals are constantly teething from their first year until about age 4. While teething, horses should be monitored for proper development, tooth eruption, and shedding of primary teeth. This ensures healthy development and allows an equine veterinarian to address any concerns before they have the chance to develop into serious problems.

2. Prevent Tooth Imbalances

In the wild, horses have varied diets that help their teeth maintain normal wear patterns. The domestic equine diet differs greatly. Without professional dental maintenance, horses develop imbalances and malocclusion in their mouths, such as:

These issues are uncomfortable, make eating difficult, and are downright painful. Neglecting a horse’s teeth will harm the animal’s health.

3. Geriatric Health

Senior horses are prone to developing periodontal disease (bacterial infection of the gums), which can lead to systemic disorders and break down the periodontal ligaments that connect a horse’s teeth to the jawbone. This leads to loose and/or missing teeth.

Achieving perfect balance in a senior horse’s mouth is not always possible. Yet, maintaining their oral care and some degree of balance is essential to the horse’s overall health. Without a proper bite and healthy teeth and gums, a senior horse’s ability to process feed will deteriorate and so will the horse’s condition.

When to Schedule a Dental Exam for Your Horse

Equine oral health begins with a strong foundation of dental care. A horse should have its first comprehensive dental exam before it reaches 1 year. The horse should then have semi-annual dental exams until about age 5. After age 5, a horse’s schedule of dental exams will vary based on the individual horse’s condition and needs, but generally annual dental exams are recommended.

Schedule Your Horse's Next Dental Appointment in Fishkill, NY Today

At Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley, our equine specialists provide on-site dental exams, odontoplasty, extractions and other treatments to horses in NY and western CT. In addition to providing comprehensive equine dental care, our veterinarians have access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, enabling us to offer a comprehensive list of advanced equine veterinary care services.

To schedule a dental exam for your horse contact us today!

Horse Ownership 101: What You Need to Know Before Buying a Horse

Deciding to bring home any kind of animal is a big responsibility. When thinking about purchasing a horse, even more planning is needed. Consider the following when deciding if you are going to purchase a horse.

What to Consider Before Getting a Horse

1. Leasing

Loving horses doesn’t mean you should own one. Caring for a horse requires an enormous commitment of time, emotional energy, and money. Depending on how much you want to commit to horse ownership, leasing a horse might actually be the best option.

Having a partial or full lease on a horse means you’ll be able to spend a predetermined amount of time riding and enjoying the horse’s company without having to be 100% responsible for the horse’s care. Lease contracts will establish the level of access you have to the horse (partial to full) and predetermined responsibilities to it (board, vet, farrier, etc) without having to buy the horse. Leasing is an excellent option for people that are unsure if they want to own, are unable to buy a horse, or are moving up the levels and may require one type of horse now, but will need a different type of horse in a year or two. If a lease doesn’t afford you enough time with the horse, then ownership might be the better option for you.

2. Your Budget

Responsible horse ownership not only requires ample time, but it also demands a substantial budget. The first consideration is how much you want/need/can pay to purchase a horse. Prices for “starter” horses typically start at around a few thousand dollars and go up from there (some racehorses are worth millions of dollars). How you plan to use the horse and what you need out of its performance will largely dictate the amount you end up spending. However a horse’s care will far outstrip what you initially pay to purchase them.

3. Future Costs

Purchasing a horse is only the first expense in a long line of horse-related costs. To start, you’ll need to budget monthly for boarding, which may or may not include daily care, feeding, supplements, stall cleaning, and boarding-staff related fees, depending on your type of boarding situation. Horses also require regular farrier care and veterinary care. Add to that the price of equipment and tack, lessons with a professional, competition entry fees, and the cost of transportation, plus any unexpected costs (which are an unavoidable part of owning a horse). Altogether, you’re looking at dedicating a pretty significant amount of money toward your horse’s care and upkeep.

4. Choosing the Right Horse

If you’ve decided that ownership is right for you and you’re ready to handle the responsibilities, then it’s time to consider what horse will be the right one for you. Based on your intentions for the horse, you can make a decision based on the horse’s experience, age, temperament, and breeding. A professional trainer can help you make the best decision about your new potential equine partner, especially if you are new to horse ownership.

When you’ve found the right horse, remember that it’s essential to schedule a pre-purchase exam with an experienced equine veterinarian. This will ensure your horse is healthy and that you’re aware of any potential issues that might arise before you commit.

Ask an Equine Veterinarian in Fishkill, NY

If you’re thinking about purchasing a horse, we encourage you to schedule a pre-purchase examination and consultation with our veterinarians at Advanced Equine of the Hudson Valley.

Protect Your Horse with Veterinarian-Administered Vaccinations

With vaccines readily available at farm supplies stores, online pharmacies and other retailers, it’s sometimes tempting to save a few dollars by purchasing and administering them to your animals yourself.

There are hidden risks and costs associated with vaccinating animals yourself, therefore “cheaper” vaccines aren’t the value they first appear to be.

Ask your veterinarian to develop a customized vaccine program for your horse. Having your veterinarian administer vaccines is always safer, easier and a better value in the long run than doing it yourself.

Here are several good reasons why your veterinarian is the best choice for administering vaccines

Proper Handling of the Vaccine

Many vaccines require special handling and storage, for instance, protection from extremes of temperature or exposure to light to preserve its effectiveness. Rely on a licensed veterinarian to store and handle the vaccine properly—and to make sure the vaccine isn’t past its expiration date!

Safe Administration

A licensed veterinarian knows about safe administration: clean environment, an appropriate injection site and good documentation. They also know the best time of year to vaccinate and whether vaccinations would react with any medications being administered to the horse. Your veterinarian will document the vaccine’s serial number and administration date—especially important in the event of a manufacturer’s recall. This is one instance when poor documentation could put your animal in peril.

Availability for Treatment of Adverse Reactions

Any injection can result in adverse effects—mild swelling at the injection site, lethargy and a slight fever for one to two days, the immediate outbreak of hives and life-threatening anaphylaxis. If your veterinarian is administering the vaccine, he’ll know what to do to counteract a reaction—and he’ll have the medicine to do it.

When you think about the risks of doing it yourself, it only makes good sense to have a licensed professional administer vaccines.

Tips to Prevent Tendon and Ligament Injuries in Horses