Probiotics have been appearing in basic feeds and all sorts of supplements for about a quarter of a century now.  Supporting normal intestinal function is something everyone can get behind, but how are the organisms chosen? Does it matter?

“While there is no hard evidence on the rate of mental illness in animals, it’s reasonable to conclude that statistically it’s the same as in humans – that is, one in five suffer from a mental health condition. Given the number of pets that end up in shelters because of a behavior-related problem, one in five is certainly a reasonable, possibly conservative statistic.”

New research has found that horses have similar learning progress and remember a task just as well, when they are trained every three days, as when they are trained daily. Horse riders and trainers may decide how often to train their horses based on a gut feeling of how they believe the horse is responding when asked to perform a specific task.

The Equine Disease Communication Center (EDCC) reports 152 cases of WNV thus far in 2018, with almost all diagnosed during the months of August and September. Most confirmed cases occurred in horses which were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination history.

A full-sized horse requires at least one ounce (two level tablespoons or 30 ml) of salt each day for maintenance – this much provides 12 grams of sodium. Heat, humidity, and exercise increase the horse’s need. There are several ways to accomplish this:

Most of us have experienced that moment when our horse turns around in his stall and we see that his beautifully groomed and carefully hand combed tail, that we have been nurturing all show season, has become a tangled mess. The skirt hairs are missing, or scrunched into a new backcomb style.

The big problem with tendon injuries is that they repair leaving scar tissue, which is less elastic than the normal collagen found in healthy tendons. This leaves them prone to further damage. By injecting plasmid DNA into the torn ligaments and tendons, the researchers were able to see that blood vessels developed within the tissue and the tissue grew back without leaving scar tissue behind.