Click on a
title to jump to that section
Topics on This Page
Topics on Their Own Pages
(See Table of Contents on the Left)
 Del Camino has extensive experience caring for
senior (age 15 and up) horses. One of the rewards of operating a
large riding academy was being able to offer well-trained horses the
opportunity to retire from strenuous competition or other work, cease
frequent travel, but continue to have plenty of appropriate exercise,
social interaction, and affection. Coupled with careful nutrition, farriery, and veterinary care, this environment enabled horses of many
breeds trained in various disciplines to age gracefully and enjoy their
golden years.
Nearly 4 Million
Pleasure Horses in the U.S.A.
Today's American equine
population includes an historically high
percentage of seniors. We can attribute this to many factors, but it
is a trend that has created a growing demand for attention by feed
manufacturers, veterinarians, equine dentists, farriers, barn managers,
trainers, horse retirement facilities, and all the other service providers.
When the small farmer represented the bulk of
rural America, and rural America represented the majority of the U.S.
population, retirement for the occasional aged horse meant, quite
literally, "turning him out to pasture" for the day, instead of
working the fields or pulling the
 loaded wagon into town. The cavalry
mount, artillery horse, barge or city drayage horse rarely became
"aged." But then, life expectancy for people was much
shorter due to hard work, disease, lack of dental care, warfare, accidents,
and childbirth. For the racehorse, and the infirm due to accident,
the local county abattoir was a mercy. The small businessman who ran
it was a member of the local community. He handled many different
animals. His methods were humane, because everyone in the county
would know if they were not. In a society built by immigrants
escaping poverty elsewhere on earth, nothing went to waste. The
tanner, the candle maker, the soap maker, the rope maker, and myriad other craftsmen
depended upon him. In America, there is no tradition of eating
horsemeat, as there is in other countries. While the butcher came to the
abattoir for other animals, not so the noble horse. Still, it was a
culture of usefulness at every stage of life, fulfilled with dignity and
husbanded with respect. A horse that was suffering from illness or
injury simply did not receive antibiotics, stem-cell grafts,
hyurlonic acid injections, to get through the rough patch and heal.
Diseases that used to bring him down are nearly eradicated by regular
vaccinations and treatments Better nutrition and dental care prolongs
every bodily system.
 As the baby boomers look
forward to decades of "senior" living, so, too, do our horses. Today's pony doesn't teach
a generation to ride, but two, or even three generations. [Ponies
represent only 3% of the horses aged 15-19 are ponies, but 30% of the horses
aged 30 and up.] An adult couple begin
riding as their teenagers empty the nest, and are still caring for their
horses two decades later. The horses have replaced the children for
many never married and divorced adults, just as dogs and cats do.
Except for one teensy, weensy,
problem. A horse doesn't fit in your "senior living"
apartment. A horse doesn't fit in your car. A horse has big
feed requirements. You can't take him to the groomer, the groomer has
to come to him.
The aging people learn to wear
hearing aids, and eyeglasses. They learn to wear support stockings
and dentures. They drink Ensure and take Senior Multi-vitamins and MSM
and glucosamine and chondroitin and baby aspirin. They learn to use a
cane, buy a special contour support mattress and gel inserts for their
shoes and rub creams on their achy joints. They are active and enjoy
working much longer than their grandparents. Grandma loves to do her
volunteer work, even if she has to give up her knitting and uses audio books
instead of reading. If they are horsepeople, when they can no longer
ride, they learn to drive.
And so it is with our senior
citizen horses. They are loved and valued family members. They are useful
well into their twilight years, because we didn't wear them out or break
them in their youth or their prime.
Deserving, beautiful, if only
in the eyes of the owner who has shared so many trails with them, our
senior horses look to us. It is our job to maintain their quality of
life. It is our job to learn what is, and is not, an acceptable
quality of life. Lastly, it is our job to ensure they do not suffer
when that quality cannot be maintained.
One of the missions of Del
Camino is to help horse owners find timely information that guides them
through this journey. We want to keep our seniors as fit, as active,
as contented as possible, as long as possible. It can be done.
We dedicate our work to a few
of many beloved Del Camino horses: Freckles, who left us at age 43,
Miss Cricket, who delighted children until age 38, Captain Oliver
"Ollie" who fought Cushing's until age 32, and Brandy's Prince,
and Smokey, both of whom had Cushing's which caused laminitis at age 26.
Thank you for having graced our
lives, and taught so many people the joy of horsemanship.
Please read the overviews of the topics before
clicking on links. We can't possibly list every reference available
on the internet, and we do not accept any compensation for a listing.
None of these listings were solicited.
The descriptive paragraphs at the start of a section are there because we
believe they are important.
This site is meant to distill information from a variety of sources, as
well as our own experience, before sending you off on your own
quest.
We update this section of our website fairly
often, so we recommend you return regularly. Why not add this page to
your browser's Favorites list? Doing so does not cause us to send you
junk mail.
 |
Large sections acquire their
own page, to keep it easy to read.
|
|
As we find a broken link, we
remove it if we cannot easily repair it.
|
|
Visitors are encouraged to
join discussions in the forum
to share their knowledge or experiences. There are no reviews on
this page.
|
|
Topics progress from those
for people caring for their senior horse, to those wishing to place their
senior horse in a new job, and finally, how to prepare for and make
arrangements to euthanize a horse to prevent suffering.
|
Del Camino
does not endorse, approve, guarantee, warranty, or otherwise recommend any
product, service, vendor, book,
article, website, webzine, magazine linked on this page
"Train your horse to load calmly and to accept the
trailer as non-threatening. The best defense against injury and illness is
good training.
Make sure your horse trailer is safe. Once a horse
has been trained to trust you and the trailer, don't let it down. "
Source: Neva Kittrell Scheve,
author of Hawkins Guide: Horse Trailering on the Road, The Complete Guide to
Buying, Maintaining, and Servicing a Horse Trailer and co-author of Hawkins
Guide: Equine Emergencies on the Road, and Dr. James Hamilton, DVM, a
member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, American Association
of Equine Practitioners, American Academy of Veterinary Disaster Medicine,
and past member of the United States Pony Club’s National Safety Committee.
In 1998, work done to help the state veterinary association (NCVMA) organize
a disaster plan earned Jim the “Veterinarian of the Year” award.
Our seniors may be transported to trail heads,
horse shows, veterinary clinics, rodeos, play days, upon sale to a new home,
or to auction. While horse professionals may be extremely well-versed
in the best practices for horse transport, unless frequently engaged in
short and long journeys they might need some brushing up on the facts,
rather than the myths, of equine travel.
Likewise, many amateur owners depend on their
barn manager or trainer to handle all transport, and do not own a trailer,
indeed, may never have loaded or unloaded a horse for transport.
Even experienced owners should review safe
procedures if you have not moved the family senior horse by trailer in a
decade, and will need to use a different style than the horse remembers,
such as a step-up rather than a ramp. Just in case you are out of
practice, or have forgotten how to balance the load of one horse in a two
horse trailer, we offer some handy reminders.
NEW! For
peace of mind on the road, get connected to a roadside assistance service
that is trained in safe and effective Large Animal Rescue and experienced at
every imaginable kind of horse trailer maintenance or on road breakdown. US
Rider Equestrian Motor Plan Roadside Assistance provides a network of technically qualified and properly equipped members that are able to respond to a sudden need.
The National Agriculture Safety Database offers
an excellent short checklist on Trailering Horses compiled by Rutgers
University Cooperative Extension Service. Here it is as an Adobe
Acrobat file (PDF).
Horse Trailer Maintenance and Trailering Safety
If you are sending your horse across several
states to a retirement farm, it is worthwhile to offer some updated
information here, and point you to other resources, so that his health
certificate, and possibly Coggins are up to date, and he travels comfortably
for such a long trip.
TIP: Nutritional supplementation
with Vitamin C and Vitamin E can help minimize the likelihood of "Shipping
Fever, " according to the research results obtained by Dr. Sharon Ralston,
Director of the Young Horse Teaching and Research Program at Rutgers
University. Here is her formula, based on several years of study
shipping PMU foals for a 50 hour journey: In an oral dose syringe,
mixed with applesauce put 5 grams of Vitamin C, (ground). Feed this
twice per day for five days. Once per day add 800 iu Vitamin E, (bite
the tip off of a capsule and squeeze into the applesauce mixture).
Both the Vitamin C and E may be purchased at a grocery store, and we use a
coffee grinder to smash the Vitamin C. This will serve both to prevent
"shipping fever"/stress induced illness, and may also serve as a treat, as
many of the horses love the applesauce."
To choose the best style and size of trailer for
comfortably and safely transporting one or more aged horses, and answer
questions like whether or not to bed the floor with straw or shavings, here
is an excellent short article from the Equispirit trailer company.
They also have a comprehensive book for sale,
and other excellent information, such as handling emergencies on the road,
choosing the right trailer from your horse's point of view, and hitching and
towing tips.
Here's the link to their website: Equispirit - Two, three and four horse trailers. Built by the
experts who wrote the book on safe horse trailering.
Outside of the U.S., please note that there are new laws regulating horse
transport in the U.K. and E.U. Henceforth, your drivers and handlers
need to be certified competent for the job for any trip over 40 miles. Specifically:
T he
EU Council Regulation on the protection of animals during transport and
related
operations came into
force on 5 January 2007. The Regulation applies to all those who transport
animals as part of a business or trade. The Regulation sets out the
general conditions for the transport of all vertebrate species, and
outlines the specific provisions for the transport of farm animals and
horses. The requirements also vary according to the length of journey. The
documentation required for journeys under 65km, over 65km and up to eight
hours, and over eight hours are discussed. From 5 January 2008 drivers and
attendants transporting farm animals and horses on journeys over 65km will
also require a certificate of competence issued by an independent
assessor.
All
those involved in the transport of animals, and related operations, need
to be familiar with the requirements of the new Regulation.
These new regulations are designed to do more
than comply with Animal Welfare laws. They are designed to ensure that
animal agriculture is efficient, internationally competitive, and
profitable, by minimizing damage to meat by stressors during the transport
and processing. (Yes, the more the animal is stressed from the time it
leaves its home farm, until after slaughter, the more damage to muscle that
will become meat. So imagine the physical effect of stress on your buddy.) They are designed to
ensure safety during transport for drivers, handlers, and other vehicles
sharing the road or loading and unloading areas. They are designed to
enable emergency response and pandemic response teams to locate the vehicle
promptly in the event of an accident or disease outbreak, by requiring GPS
tracking. The certificate of competence required of drivers and
attendants covers the rules for the vehicle appropriate to the species, the
rules for ventilation, balance, non-crowding, non-fighting, acceptable
temperature control, feed, water, and rest, also identifying whether or not
an animal is fit to travel, what to do if an animal escapes, panics, or
becomes injured or unfit en route, and how to load, unload, and move the
animals in the least stressful, safest manner for both animals and people.
Transporting your horse by long haul overland,
air or sea, veterinarians worldwide agree that fit, healthy horses must be
rested and given the opportunity to drink and urinate every 4 hours, and to
eat if they are not supplied with a hay net during the ride. This is a
driving distance of approximately 240 miles.
Evaluate the necessity of the trip, and the
quality of all the handling from start to finish, planning even more rest
stops for your senior horse, and very gentle starts, stops, and turns, to
help him balance with stiff joints. Horses do develop arthritis in
their necks, so when you stop, you may need to untie him so he can drop his
head to relax completely.
TIP: Worley's Hauling of Corbin,
Kentucky specializes in transporting "special needs" horses. Visit
them at http://worley.homestead.com
Performance horses are commonly transported hundreds of miles and expected
to compete at an elite level very soon after arrival. The physical toll of
transport is often seen as a loss in body weight, dehydration and a
predisposition to conditions such as tying-up and colic. A collaborative
study between researchers in the USA and Germany has demonstrated that the
loss of body weight is likely to be caused by factors associated with
transport.To investigate the
effects of transport on body weight, six horses ranging from 2 to 16 years
were randomly assigned to one of four transport conditions: 240km, 480km,
720km and no transport. It was found that all four groups, including the
control group lost weight over the treatment period and that the weight
loss increased significantly as the transport distance increased. The body
weight of the horses did not return to the pretransport levels the morning
after they were transported.
The authors conclude that a lack of
feed and water may be the most influential factors on the body weight of
horses during transport. It is therefore essential that horses are given
frequent rest and feed breaks during long journeys, to ensure they arrive
at there destination in peak physical condition.
Most of the foreign-bred horses imported as
pleasure and sport horses sold to amateurs in the U.S.A. could have stayed
in Europe and the owner could have purchased a beautifully bred and trained
American Sport Horse.
A prime example of the risks posed to the entire American horse population by unnecessary "prestige" importation is the problems in 2007 with importing German horses
that died in Florida of a disease not normally found in America . Recent similar problems with a
disease outbreak completely halted the import and export of horses in
Australia for several months in 2007.
It is significant that internationally acclaimed
show jumping, dressage, and eventing competitors from the U.S. and the E.U.
will be "sitting out" the Hong Kong Olympics, due to the extreme stresses
that will be endured by horses traveling to and from Hong Kong, and the
facilities offered. If we can't provide the best for the finest equine
athletes in the world that are accustomed not just to travel, but to long
distance travel, just how good can the everyday experience be for horses
shipped once in a lifetime from Germany to California by air, and then on to
inland states?
The Del Camino Products and Services catalog offers some horse
products of interest to owners of senior horses.
The AAEP has issued updated
vaccination guidelines as of January 2008.
UC Davis School of Veterinary
Medicine Center for Equine Health
Technical Large Animal Emergency
Rescue
Horse Welfare Statistics
Equinezone Horse Supply
Equine Now
|
