Talk:Horse management

Someone has put AFA as a farrier's qualification for the USA. Is AFA an actual qualification in the USA, or the awarding body? Readers should be able to find out what exact qualifications they should expect a farrier to have. - Please help. Ashfan83 11:04, 26 May 2006 (UTC)Ashfan83 T-bonham 02:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Clarified that in the USA, there are no legal restrictions. AFA is just a professional organization.  It ranks farriers as Intern, Journeyman, and Certified.  This is covered on their website, which I linked to.

Also it would be helpful if someone from the USA could give a rough cost of a set of four shoes and labour in $.Ashfan83 11:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)===This page could use some rewriting!=== A whole lot of it seems to treat the horse as a pampered pet, instead of a working livestock animal. There's a lot of confusion between "must" and "should", resulting in inaccuracies. For example, the very first statement on the page is false: "A horse or pony requires a check at least once a day." Requires? -- horses can survive quite well without a daily check. I know people who have broodmare herds living out in pastures, which may only be seen once or twice a week in summertime. But they are in very good health, and many have lived to a ripe old age. If you want to say horses should be checked daily, fine (though that's opinion, and might run afoul of the NPOV restriction). What horses require is feed and water; we should start out saying that.

Also, a lot of this is written with British wording, and no indication what that means in other countries (like USA & Canada). For example:
 * what the heck is hard feed? Is that what we call grain?  If so, something like "...hard feed ('grain')..." would make this more widely understood.
 * Also in the Feed section: chaff -- what the heck is that? Could you at least specify what plant it comes from?
 * And alfalfa: "Do not feed alfalfa cubes..." -- why not? Should be specific here.  Then  "May cause choking." -- what may cause choking: alfalfa in general, alfalfa cubes, alfalfa cubes fed with grain, what?
 * the section on beet pulp and choking manages to directly contradict itself in the same sentence: "dry beet pulp may cause a horse to choke ... horses fed dry beet pulp do not choke".
 * Nothing is mentioned about corn ('maize'), which is a major source of horse feed, at least in the USA.
 * Linseed is not considered a feed in the US, but more commonly classified as a supplement, like flax, bone meal, various minerals, etc. That's probably true in the UK as well, given that it talks about feeding 1/2 cup per feeding.  So does this belong in the Feed section at all?
 * This whole section might be more understandable if divided into forage and grain, with the various examples as sub-topics under them.

I think we need to put some effort into this article. Basic info is here, but it could be much clearer. T-bonham 05:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry!
I was suffering from a cold & lack of sleep, and so was in a very bad mood when I wrote the above. Please overlook the snotty tone of that message. I think the points are still valid, but I didn't have to be so nasty about it. T-bonham 21:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Shoeing and Hoof care

I am very concerned that this area has implied that only if the horse is a youngster or not in work then it can cope without being shod. Numerous long-distance horses are currently barefoot (and probably healthier for it). This section on horse care is very outdated.

Horses can be shod or unshod. The choices of this are completly down to the owner/rider and how much care and attention they wish to spend. Zarifagain 18:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Worming
I am also very concerned that the writer of this article hasn't mentioned worm counts, that fields can be poo picked, rotated or grazed by different animals to reduce the possibilities of worms. Also that the writer hasn't explained the iprotance of worming for different types of worms during different seasons. Zarifagain 18:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Did quite a bit of re-writing on the wormer section today. Added more details, and a lot of links for each type of worm, etc.

I'm still working on a table to show the 3-4 chemical classes of wormers, the individual chemicals in each class, and example brand names. Plus I hope to show what types of worms each one kills.

But now I have to go take a shower -- all this study on worms is making me feel itchy all over!

(When it's all added, the wormer section may be too long, also. Might want to consider splitting that out into another article.)T-bonham 11:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I really liked what you did, but tweaked it a bit to try and improve flow. (And tagged one bit that I am iffy about) It's not totally too long yet.  We may want to break out a new article on something like "equine medical/veterinary  care" that could include both vaccinations and worming...or not.  I don't think the article is too unwieldy yet, especially now that the grooming section was broken out into a new article. Montanabw 05:22, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Today I replaced the old list of wormer chemicals with a table listing the 4 chemical classes, the chemicals in each one, and some sample brand names. Possible additions to this would be I have some of the info for this, but not all of it yet.
 * worms killed by this chemical
 * actual killing action
 * toxicity range

If I added this, I think the whole section would be too long and detailed. So then I would suggest moving all this to a new topic "Equine Worming" and reducing the content here to only 2 paragraph: horse parasite load/why worm, and 2 basic methods of worming. T-bonham 06:56, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I like what you've done. I don't think the article is horribly unweildy yet, though eventually we may want to create a new article titled something like "Equine Parasite Management" with redirects to search terms like "horse wormer," "horse parasites" etc... My approach (which I used on a couple other articles) is to build the section as an article within an article, and once it is big enough to stand alone, THEN create the new article rather than creating a stub.  (Eventer did this with the Horse grooming section.)  But as it sits now, it is OK here, IMHO.  Montanabw (talk) 15:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Dentist
The writer has stated that each horse must have a dental visit once a year!! This is not strictly true. They have also mentioned that horses who do not like having their teeth rasped must be sedated - again not strictly true, and this decision would be down to the EDT and owner. Zarifagain 18:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Working on it
I would suggest instead of hysterical criticism, people help improve the article by adding WELL -WRITTEN, researched, verifiable material. Montanabw 01:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I did a chunk of work on this article today. I threw out a lot of material that is better covered elsewhere, particularly on equine nutrition, which now has its own article, and I tried to skate a balance between barefoot and shod horses that won't get either side into hysterics. A lot of this article was centered on practices in the UK from the sound of things, tried to make is a little more international, but I'm in the USA, so may have just made it more US-centric. If there are Aussies or other forms of English-speakers on this board, please add additional terminology or whatever. Worms, vaccinations, and climate issues do vary a lot. There's nothing here on regional issues for Africa or India, be nice to add something. Overall hope it helped. Montanabw 04:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Some minor edits: T-bonham 08:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * fix spelling of poultice.
 * change self-adhesive bandage to self-adhering, which is a more accurate term. Self-adhesive describes something containing adhesive within itself, like Scotch tape or Post-it notes.  Self-adhering means it adheres only to itself, which is the big advantage of these vet wraps.
 * added a line about rotating wormers, which is a common practice, at least in this part of the USA.
 * fixed a double-quote/single-quote typo on 'redworm'.

Suggestions for more work
T-bonham 08:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * the section on grooming seems rather long in comparison to other sections (maybe because several of them are summaries of other main articles). It might also benefit from a picture showing examples of the main types of grooming tools mentioned.
 * the First Aid kit, with over 20 items listed, seems overwhelming at first. Sub-dividing it into sections like Diagnostic Tools/Equipment, Cleaning/Anti-Bacterial supplies, Bandages, Other might make it more comprehend-able.
 * In the Wormer section, a table cross-referencing the Active Chemicals and which Types of Parasites they are most effective against would be useful, and might also condense this section a bit. But there might be some controversy here -- people disagree on this.  And I certainly don't feel qualified to do it.


 * Some good ideas. Yes, grooming is long because the other sections refer to much longer, more involved main articles.  Grooming section isn't really long enough for its own article yet, though I suppose if people wanted to get into braiding and show grooming, it could be moved into a new article; as is, it's a "just the basics" section.  There are no images of horses being groomed in Wikipedia Commons that I could find (other than that drawing of the horses in the tie stalls, and that's not clearly about grooming).  I am thinking about going out and taking more photos of grooming tools like I did with western bits and the fences, but I have to work that into my non-wiki life.  Stay tuned.


 * I agree with the table for wormers, don't know how to make one very well (took me hours to get the one for horse markings working as well as it is, and I'm still not happy with it), but I have the reference sources on what science currently claims kills what. If you are any good at tables and want to set up the basics, I can clean up the details.  Ivermectin kills everything but tapeworms and encysted strongyles, if you want to start there.  Moxidectin is a form of Ivermectin that gets the encysted strongyles.  Praziquantel is the tapeworm medicine.  I'll have to consult reference works for the rest.


 * Didn't do much with the first aid kit, if you want to organize the material (maybe with a table? ), go for it! Montanabw 17:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've revised the First Aid Kit part, and added some items to it. T-bonham 03:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Some info on electric therapy on horses?
Does anyone have any info on the benefit of electric therapy for horses?

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