Resident Horses Stall – My Virtual Equine Farm

Biosecurity Action Point – Hand Sanitizers

Action Point: Add hand sanitizers to barn aisles every five horses alternating on different sides of the aisle and at all entrances with explanatory short sign.

Rationale: Hand hygiene is considered essential to infectious disease control in human medicine, and in veterinary medicine (Scheftel et al. 2010). Since going to the washroom between horses is inefficient, I think that having hand sanitizers easily accessible with clear explanations as to how they are a simple way that can reduce biosecurity risk, will encourage people to use them more.

Source: Scheftel, J.M., Elchos, B.L., Cherry, B., et al. (2010). Compendium of veterinary standard precautions for zoonotic disease prevention in veterinary personnel: National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians Veterinary Infection Control Committee 2010. J Am Vet Med Assoc., 237:1403–1422 Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21155680

This is the sign that we would be using for our Hand Sanitizer stations in the barn

Introduction to Pasture Mates

Action Point: Observe personalities of horses and create groups based on these. Learn the personalities of new horses and place them in proper fields based on these traits.

Rationale: Developing the perfect Equine Group for turnout will ensure a healthy hierarchy. We don’t want boarders horses getting beaten up. Some interesting ideas were found in the equus magazine. They suggested created gender specific fields. This will ensure that there isn’t any group hostility to outsiders, and no gelding fighting over heightened mare hormones (Rogers, 2006). We can turn the new horse into an adjoining paddock so that his new mates will have the chance to meet for a couple days before joining the group. This will ensure that they get their initial greetings out, without hurting one another (Rogers, 2006).

Resource:
Rogers, A (2006) Introducing a New Horse to the Herd.
https://equusmagazine.com/behavior/newhorse_032006-8162

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