Teeth
Check Time
One
of the few things horses and humans have in common is the need for
annual check up with the dentist.
In
days gone by the farrier also practiced horse dentistry so it was
easy to slot in a quick check of the teeth when he visited on a regular
basis. But now horse dentistry is much more specialized and requires
a little more skill than being able to wield a rasp to knock off the
sharp edges. Therefore, we need to make a special effort to book the
dentist for a yearly check up and do the necessary preparation before
he arrives.
“Preparation
– what preparation?” most people would say – thinking it’s the dentists
job to educate your horse to have his mouth
handled. Unfortunately, this approach has led to a lot of dentists
having to resort to tranquilizers so they can do the job without injury
and trauma to themselves and the horse.
Then you end up with a horse who increasingly fears the dentists
visit.
It
need not be this way if you are prepared to spend a few minutes a
day or even a couple of times a week, desensitizing your horse to
things around and in his or her mouth.
Just
having a stranger wanting to prod and poke in the most sensitive part
of their body is fear causing enough for a horse, so by getting them
used to mouth handling, you are going to have a calmer, more accepting
horse which your dentist will love.
To
start with, you should be able to rub your horse’s nose and lips with
your fingers without him shying away – use approach and retreat and
gentle rhythmic pressure while gently holding the halter so you can
follow his movement if he pulls away. Keep the rubbing going until
your horse is showing signs of acceptance then immediately leave him
alone for a minute.
As
your horse accepts your hand and fingers in and around the lips, start
with rubbing the gums (which some horses love) and then the tongue,
remembering to stop when there are signs of acceptance (not pulling
away, relaxing the head, licking).
Once
they are comfortable with you rubbing the tongue on the side where
there is a gap in the teeth, work towards acceptance of your fingers
in the mouth on top of the tongue, entering where the gap is. Then
see if you can gently hold the tongue for a second before releasing
it, being careful not to pull it as you can break a very fragile bone
connected to the back of the tongue, rendering it useless.
When your horse accepts you gently holding the tongue for a second
or two, you can then work on acceptance of simulated dentists tools
in the mouth. The rubber handle on a training stick or crop is a good
thing to start with as its soft with rounded edges. You might even
get them to like it by smearing it with molasses or apple sauce.
Acceptance
of a worming tube will also help and I’ve heard from a student that
cleaning the teeth with a toothbrush is something her ponies really
seem to enjoy.
Remember
to allow the horse to check out anything you want to put in his mouth
first, and even use it to groom him with so you are not being too
direct line about getting it straight in the mouth.
The
process may be quite fast for some young horses who are very mouthy
anyway and love holding onto and chewing things so its good to introduce
them to different objects and being able to gently rub their teeth
with them.
For
older horses who have maybe had a bad experience or who are naturally
more wary and protective of their mouth, you will need to take it
slowly and use some incentives like molasses or apple sauce.
Start
with it on your finger then move onto other objects as they gain confidence
which may have previously been shattered by rough handling or no preparation.
Choosing
a dentist who has the right approach (slow and gentle) is also important
for future confidence so ask around experienced horse people for recommendations.
We
need to realize that mouth handling should be a part of our grooming
routine, just like cleaning out the hooves to check on growth and
for anything caught in the hoof.
It
gives you the opportunity to notice anything out of the ordinary such
as an abscess, grass seeds lodged in the gums or other problems.
Some
horses even need regular cleaning of tartar build up around the edges
of some teeth on a regular basis which is something the dentist can
show you how to do quite easily.
And
the other big benefit is the trust it builds in the relationship with
your horse so don’t delay, use the winter months when less riding
time is available to develop your horsemanship in other ways just
as beneficial for you and your horse.

Regular teeth
checks can help you notice problems like this offset jaw which may
need special treatment.
THE
HEALING POWER OF HONEY on Severe Wounds
by Cynthia Cooper
I'm always looking for natural
alternatives when it comes to treating horses and I believe they can
work well in conjunction with modern medicine.
A while ago now, I had a yearling filly (Ruby) badly injured from
wire cuts. She had severed the flexor (front) tendons on her off fore
and near hind, and had stripped an 8" section of flesh to the
bone on the front of her off hind.
Both
back legs had severed tendons and even after 10 days the bone showed
through and proud flesh was rapidly developing following conventional
treatment.
After
initially stitching the worst cut, I had the tendons operated on so
they would have some hope of repairing.
A week after the operation I had her home as a full time patient requiring
her bandages changed every couple of days, confinement and a diet
to help her heal.
Initially, I followed the vet's advice and used the antiseptic lotion
and 'green grease' provided for under the bandages.
It only took about 5 days
for the flesh to cover the exposed bone and at that point I started
my alternative treatments.
I cleaned the wounds with Calendula tea and then applied pure Tasmanian
bush honey.
I can't recall where I'd heard of using honey, but I was amazed at
what I discovered.
Usually, leg wounds develop a lot of proud flesh which can become
a real problem if not controlled.
Traditional methods include using things like 'Yellow Lotion",
copper sulphate solution and very firm bandaging.
Or simply allowing it to grow then having it surgically removed.
What I found was that the honey seemed to naturally control the growth
of the flesh so that it didn't develop more than necessary.
Upon further research,
I found that Honey has long been known for its special anti bacterial
qualities and ability to heal.
It has been used since Egyptian times and is currently making a comeback
in human treatment of long standing wounds.
Apparently there are is even a certain type of honey from Queensland
known for its exceptional healing ability.
The one thing that is
important I discovered, is to use only pure, un-processed honey.
Heat treating honey (as they do for longer shelf life) seems to ruin
its anti -bacterial qualities.
Back to the treatment of Ruby - as I lived only a 15 minute float
trip from the beach I decided to use the sea to cleanse her wounds.
It became a great educational experience with regular float trips,
learning to go in the sea (no waves) and to lead from another horse.
The only disaster I had, was once when riding Manny with Ruby in tow
- he must have stepped on something that moved for all of a sudden
he shot forward and I got dumped over the back, landing with a big
splash under Ruby's nose!
This scared her enough to want out of there so she started to head
out to sea! Luckily she responded to my calls and came straight back.

After
treatment with honey and salt water, they were much improved.
After a month of bandaging,
there was enough healthy flesh reducing the size of the wounds, to
leave them open to the air.
I continued to apply honey twice daily as she often licked it off!
Even though it was summer, I didn't have any problems with the honey
attracting wasps.
As you can see from the photos, the healing was clean and the scarring
minimal considering the original size of the wounds.

A
few months later the scars are almost healed and proud flesh reduced.

Now
her legs are healed and sound even though there is still some unsightly
scars.
Fortunately she didn't
suffer any loss of movement and the tendons repaired effectively.
I have since heard of several cases (and experienced myself) where
honey was used straight onto smaller cuts and they healed very nicely.
For more information search on "honey + for + healing" which
gives you hundreds of web sites to choose from.

Ruby
recovered from her horrific leg wounds with the aid of honey.
Another
Example with a less severe leg wound
Arabian foal's foreleg wound day 2 (left), then
one week after being bandaged with honey (right).
The would has healed beautifully after 1 month
of using Manuka honey. With time the scare became barely visible.
Heel wound healed
with honey
Honey treatment started 2 days after initial treatment
with hydrogen peroxide to flush it clean twice daily as this was a very
deep wound.
3 days of cleansing with salt solution then honey
treatment. I applied it with a syringe to get into the deep wound.
1 month later - the wound has healed nicely from the inside.
Completely healed - just a scar which has reduced even more with time.
To
read another case study showing healing of proud flesh with honey click
here.
MUD FEVER/GREASY HEEL TREATMENT TIPS
by Cynthia Cooper
Mud Fever or greasy heal affects the lower limbs of our equine friends
and may cause pain and swelling that is
accompanied with crusty scabs of varying sizes. In serious cases the horse
may become lame and the whole leg seriously swollen and infected.
WHAT CAUSES IT?
Mud fever was thought to be caused by a bacteria that thrives in warm,
moist conditions. However, My experience (over many years of adjusting
my horse's diet and living conditions) has shown me that it usually happens
when a horse has inadequate minerals in their diet (especially copper
and zinc), and when there are toxins/high levels of sugars in the grass
that cause an inflammatory reaction in the legs.
Moisture and sun sensitivity then make this a painful condition that takes
commitment and dietary changes to overcome quickly.
TIPS
ON TREATING MUD FEVER:
1. Remove the horse from the pasture to an area where there is little
grass and feed free choice low-sugar grass hay in a slowfeeder haynet.
Feed extra copper/zinc available in a balanced formula (available from
www.balancedequine.com.au).
2. To help remove the scabs cover them with vaseline and use cling film
uner a vetwrap bandage to wrap the affected area overnight. This allows
the scabs ot eb removed easily.
3. Apply an ointment such as a mix of Filtabac and vaseline or Filtabac
and Derisal (cow udder ointment). The Filtabac helps with keeping the
sun off.
4. If condition is acute, i,e., legs very swollen, horse very lame/sore,
a steroidal cream or antibiotics may be needed to start with. If unsure
about your horse's condition, call your vet.
5. Continue daily treatment with ointment and additional scab removal
if needed until under control (usually about a week).
6. Protecting your horse from mud, and flies while treating mud fever
or rain scald will be of great benefit to the recovery process.
7. A 3 days course of Arnica/Ignatia/Hypericum from your Homeopathy
First Aid kit would be a good idea!
JACKO'S
STORY
by Paul & Karen Lockwood
We were first introduced to Pat Coleby’s book "Natural Horse
Care" by a neighbour back in about ’96. We thought it sounded
pretty good & started to base our supplemental feeding on her ideas.
The ponies we had did just fine on this feed with the grazing they had
& the addition of hay in winter.
Then we got Jacko, a severely undernourished 3 year old first cross
quarter horse. 
So we started
the task of putting some weight on him, wow could he eat. It didn’t
seem to matter how much we fed him, he didn’t put on weight. After
six months he started to get greasy heal on 1 of his 3 white feet so
we treated it topically with iodine which at first appeared to work.
Then the greasy heal started to appear on his 2 other white legs as
well, treatment with iodine did not seem to work at all, the scabs started
to grow in size & number & spreading up his white socks. Mud
Fever? Over the following 6 months we tried every topical remedy that
anyone told us about, Vaseline, White Healer, engine oil & Quit
itch (iodine). They all seemed to do something at first, then the mud
fever would come back even worse.
What a nightmare,
he started to become lame with the condition. Then we remembered Pat
Coleby had remedies in her book! Jacko was copper deficient! The answer
was on our shelf all the time - why hadn’t we used it? A copper
sulfate wash for his legs and feed him copper sulfate to address his
deficiency. Oh that's right we looked at the packet of copper sulfate
at the hardware store, saw the poison label, did the human thing &
asked around about copper sulfate & feeding it to horses & came
to the conclusion that it might kill him. He should be getting enough
copper from the seaweed. Wrong.
Well we
didn’t seem to have any other choice & to make matters worse
1 of our other horses started to get greasy heal, so we purchased the
copper sulfate & just washed their legs with it. Hmm! Didn’t
seem to be doing much after a week or so, looked like we had to feed
the copper sulfate. Jacko was the guinea pig, we started with a ¼
teaspoon daily in his feed. He didn’t seem to mind it at all &
so increased it to ½ teaspoon. Within 1 week the mud fever had
started to recede, yippee!!! After 2 weeks it had halved & 1 month
later completely cleared. In the meantime we decided to feed ¼
teaspoon copper sulfate to the other horse, he didn’t like it
at all.
What now?
He would not eat a feed with copper sulfate in it till we reduced the
amount to 2 tiny grains!! That's not enough. We then doubled the amount
on a daily basis until we reached a ¼ teaspoon. After a week
or so of the ¼ teaspoon his greasy heal had gone. So not only
did it not kill them, it cured them. Phew!! Over the next year or so
Jacko changed color from washed out orange to a shiny copper chestnut.
We became
more aware of what Pat Coleby was saying in her book. We even wrote
to her to tell her the story. She wrote back suggesting her new version
of the book would be interesting reading. We purchased that & another
of her books Natural Farming & Land Care. Both well worth getting,
the amounts of copper sulfate & sulfur had been increased from the
early version. When we increased the sulfur to 1 tablespoon for Jacko
he started to absorb his feed properly & finally started to put
on weight to the stage where we reduced his feed to less than half what
we had previously fed. We also had a soil test done which confirmed
our pasture was in fact low in Calcium, magnesium, sulfur, copper, zinc
& boron. Surprise, surprise!!
We have
top dressed our paddocks as recommended by the soil lab over the past
2 ½ years and decided that we could stop the feed supplementing
of minerals as we had them available in an ad lib form, as described
in Pat Coleby’s books, as well as ad lib seaweed and ad lib rock
salt.
After 2 weeks, in January this year, of not supplementing their feed
the greasy heal returned, 2 years after we thought we would never see
it again, even though we had observed them using the ad lib minerals,
& seaweed, they did not take enough. We returned to supplementing
on a daily basis, 1 tablespoon Dolomite, 1 tablespoon powdered sulfur,
½ teaspoon copper sulfate for Jacko (¼ for Spike) &
1 teaspoon of seaweed meal as our maintenance ration, they still take
more from the ad lib options as well. The Greasy heal cleared in 2 weeks.
Looks like our horses need copper more than we think?
We thoroughly recommend you at least read one of these books before
using the information, to get a better understanding of the importance
of minerals in your horses diet and the soil your feed is grown on,
so that you can tailor your supplement to suit your individual horses
needs. You will also find in both these books a list of common conditions
& which mineral deficiency is the underlying cause.
Stringhalt
is a common seasonal condition.
In Australia,
stringhalt is commonly seen in summer and autumn as drought stressed
pastures are overtaken with weeds such as false Dandelion (also known
as Catsear or Flatweed) and Capeweed. Toxins from these weeds affect
the nervous system resulting in an exagerated high stepping action in
one or both hind legs.
In mild cases the symptoms show when the horse is asked to back-up or
if there is a change of terrain, cold weather or if the horse becomes
nervous or excited.
Horses with stringhalt can walk, canter and gallop but have trouble
trotting properly.
If your horse is supected as having stringhalt there are several things
you can do:
-
Remove
the horse immediately from the pasture
-
Give
them rescue remedy
-
Feed magnesium in
the form of a chelated magensium supplement such as Alleviate or
Placide - 1 teaspoon spoon twice daily for a week then high grade
magnesium (available from FRST.com.au) which can also be added to
the feed or mineral mix you are using.
-
Feed
good quality pasture hay ad lib. (If you are feeding an insulin
resistant horse who is prone to laminitis, soak the hay for a couple
of hours before feeding).
-
Add
the herbs Valerian and Mugwort to the feed to help repair nerve
signals.
-
Feed
a good general mineral supplement such as Equilibrium.
Horses
left un-treated for this condition will suffer from muscle wastage and
may never completely recover. Most cases resolve once the horse is removed
from the pasture in a period of 2 weeks to 2 years, depending on the
severity of the stringhalt.
Prevention is better - check
your pastures for the offending weeds and if you have them, remove your
horse before it shows symptoms and feed it on grass hay and supplementary
feed according to use and condition.
Teeth Troubles and a Positive Outcome
by Vanessa McDonald
I have owned Missy now for five years. The sad truth is that during
those five years I have not got her teeth done. It was not meant to
be neglect! I thought I was doing her a favour, protecting her from
the stress of a dentist visit. Missy was given to me as an unstarted
eight year old Arab that had been rescued from starvation and bad handling,
to a woman who thought with good intensions to send her to a breaker,
she was sent back worse and her experience with being mouthed had resulted
in a comment that she was unsafe and tried to kill them.
Shortly after I was given Missy I met Cynthia and she introduced me
to natural horsemanship. I was able to form a relationship with this
beautiful sensitive mare. Yet her scars remained and I just accepted
her as she was. I had my gelding’s teeth done but still was too
scared to do Missy, because of the stress it would cause her. Then a
few weeks ago I noticed swelling down her jaw, I was horrified at the
pain that Missy was in.
I
called the vet and arranged for him to do her teeth. Recently I had
discovered Clicker training through Natural horse world and was using
the technique to get Missy to worm easier, I was having great results
and in a conversation with Cynthia she recommended desensitizing Missy
in readiness for the dentist using clicker training. Over the week I
was able to place the handle of a plastic hoof pick all over her teeth
without her being upset. I also did target training, which is getting
the horse to respond to a manmade object, like a wooden handle with
a ball taped to it, so the horse can focus on the target. All this helped
in her preparation for the vet.
Photo: The lump in
the side of the jaw alerted Vanessa to her horse's teeth troubles.
The Vet arrived and sedated her and began the procedure as well as a
pregnancy test. She was amazing as she coped with all the rasping without
hardly any resistance. I have watched horses being sedated and still
fighting the whole procedure. I can say that having formed a trusting
relationship with the help of many great natural horsemanship techniques
and love as well as desensitising her in readiness for the experience
has made the whole experience stress free for both of us.. The great
feeling is that evening when I walked out to check on them they all
came trotting up and I was able to rub and kiss Missy’s face and
she stood there loving every moment of it.
I realise the commitment in looking after a horse’s health. When
I first got her she would fall over when I touched her legs, yet over
time I was able to bare foot trim her and now she stands with no halter
or rope as I trim her sitting down.
I guess I also think teeth fall into the category “what you can’t
see won’t hurt you.” I have learnt my lesson in thinking
that I was being kind. I was actually being neglectful. What I love
about this journey of natural horsemanship, is that there is a huge
tool box of knowledge waiting and when we need a solution we just rummage
around and find a tool to help us, it may not be the first one but I
have learnt that eventually an answer will come. And I thank Cynthia
Cooper for all her wonderful articles and now I am just waiting for
her book!
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All articles are authored
by Cynthia Cooper (unless otherwise stated) and may be reprinted with
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