Action Point: Understand and treat the signs of Dust Allergies in horses
Rationalle: Ensure that the signs of a hay allergy are known early on, and that everyone on the farm knows how to deal with it. We want to be sure that the signs are recognized, and steps are known about how to help the horses out. Whether or not the hay should be watered down, or spread out, or hay cubes being fed.
Action Point: Plan to provide horses with hoof dressing, and keep an eye on cracks.
Rationale: We will educate everyone on the farm on good hoof care, and how to properly apply hoof dressing to the horses. Everyone will learn how to look for dangerous cracks. We will be creating a plan to incorporate regular hoof dressing measures into our horses health.
Action Point: Design a Quarantine paddock for new horses coming onto the property, and design a disease questionnaire that is handed out before the horse comes to the farm.
Rationalle: We have horses coming and going every summer whether it be for exercising, training or boarders.
Ruff (2011) suggests sending out a list of barn rules and expectations to the owners before the horse comes to the property. Additionally, creating a “disease questionnaire” is important because it can get some answers to some important questions. Some of these questions may be ‘Has the horse visited any shows lately’.
The isolation paddock should be safe for the horse and have enough Hay or pasture to keep the horse happy and well looked after for at least 3 weeks before they are added to any current herd on the property.
Source:
Ruff, S (2011). Creating a Horse Quarantine
https://thehorse.com/119857/creating-a-horse-quarantine/
Action Point: Create a vaccination schedule for all horses on the property, and ensure that we keep very up to date files of what everyone has been vaccinated with.
Rationale: The number one priority is the health and wellbeing of the horses on the property. Keeping files on an app such as Horse Health Tracker will ensure that the vaccinations and vet visits are up to date. Horses that are coming onto the property will also need to either have their own app with updated information – or they need to be added to ours.
These files will need to be updated constantly, and needs to be kept in a couple of places so that there is access to anyone.
Resources:
https://thehorse.com/116220/the-importance-of-vaccination/