In This Chapter
- Exploring health problems in older horses
- Keeping your senior horse happy and active
- Discovering the best way to retire your horse
In this chapter, we tell you how
to keep your senior looking and feeling good well into old age. You discover
some of the common health problems seen in older horses, and we give you
pointers on feeding and exercising your old faithful. We also give you pointers
on how to know when it’s time for your buddy to retire.
Knowing How Old Is Old
It used to be that horses didn’t
live much into their 20s. But these days, it’s not uncommon to see a horse in
his early- to mid-30s still doing light work and enjoying life despite a few
aches and pains.
Just as with people, every horse
is an individual, and some age better than others. Technically, a horse is
considered a senior when he hits about the age of 15. Many horses work well
past this age, and for some horses, 15 finds them in their prime.
Remember
The way a horse is cared for early in his life does seem to play a significant role in how well he navigates his senior years. So take the advice in the rest of this book to heart!
Handling Common Health Issues in Your Senior Horse
When horses age, their bodies
begin to slowly give out. They start developing problems much like senior
humans do. That doesn’t mean that they still can’t be productive, however. You
just need to understand the difficulties that come with equine old age so that
you can help manage them.
Vision problems
As horses age, their eyes undergo
changes. Your senior horse may not see as well as she did in her younger days.
As the lenses of your horse’s
eyes age, the tissue fibers become more densely compacted, leading to something
called nuclear sclerosis. Most people know this condition as cataracts (see
Chapter Tackling
Common Ailments for details). The retina also undergoes aging, and between the two
issues, your horse’s vision declines.
One of the first changes that
you’ll probably notice about your horse’s eyesight is her loss of night vision.
Light can’t get through the cloudy lens to get to her aging retina. Some loss
of peripheral vision is common too.
Warning!
The result of this vision loss is that your horse may be much more prone to spook at stuff she didn’t spook at before. For this reason, some older horses suddenly act as though they’re 2 years old even though they’re going on 20! (Chapter Connecting Your Horse’s Behavior to Health has more information about spooking.)
You can continue to ride your
senior horse with these vision changes. Just be aware that she may not see that
well, especially at night. (Have your vet examine your horse’s eyes if she acts
particularly spooky at night.) Let your horse know when you’re near her by
talking to her as you approach.
Even if your senior horse’s
vision seems normal, keep a close watch on her eyes. As her immunity weakens
with age, she’s more susceptible to eye disease. If you see any kind of change
in your horse’s eyes, such as opacity, inflammation, squinting, or increased
tearing, contact your veterinarian.
Tip
If you have a horse with serious vision loss, and your veterinarian has addressed all treatable causes, don’t make sudden changes to your horse’s environment. Horses who are sight impaired develop almost a sense of “radar” and do very well in familiar surroundings.
Tooth problems
Old horses can be plagued by
tooth problems. That’s because they can literally wear down their teeth with
years of chewing fibrous material.
Dental care is hugely important
as your horse ages. Some horses live long enough to outlive their teeth!
One problem more common in older
horses than younger ones is periodontal disease. Infection in the gum
progresses until the tooth is lost or must be extracted. This isn’t good
because your senior horse needs all the teeth she can get. Tooth loss can
compromise chewing and affect the wear of remaining teeth. (Figure 17-1 shows
the worn teeth of a 20-year-old horse.)
Warning!
Watch your horse for signs of tooth trouble. These include:
- Dropping food while eating
- Salivating excessively while eating
- Bouts of colic (see Chapter Tackling Common Ailments)
- Eating very slowly
- Unexplained weight loss
- Coarse-looking manure (Chapter Sizing Up a Healthy Horse describes the appearance of normal manure)
- Fussing while wearing a bit
- Reluctance to have face or muzzle touched
Figure 17-1: Worn teeth are
common in older horses. (Bob Langrish)
If you see any of these symptoms
in your horse, call your veterinarian right away. If the vet confirms a tooth
problem that can’t be corrected with dental care, be sure to adjust your
senior’s diet, as we explain later in this chapter.
Arthritis
Finding a senior horse who
doesn’t have some level of arthritis is hard to do. After a while, the joints
start to give out and stiffen.
Although some horses have very
bad arthritis — so bad that they can barely walk — others have just a mild
case. If your older horse seems stiff when you first take her out of her stall
in the morning, and then she loosens up after a bit of exercise, she probably
has arthritis. Or, if she has persistent lameness on one or more legs and your
vet has ruled out laminitis and navicular or another type of lameness,
arthritis is the likely cause.
Remember
Here are some steps that you can take to manage your horse’s arthritis:
- Give her room. The more space an arthritic horse has to live in, the better her arthritis will be. A pasture is the best environment for an arthritic horse because she’s more likely to move around. (See Chapter Getting Up to Speed on Routine Care for more about pastures.)
- Provide daily exercise. If your horse lives in a stall, it’s imperative that you take her for at least a 30-minute daily walk around the barn to get her joints moving. Talk to your vet about how much and what kind of riding you should be doing with your horse; hard riding will make her arthritis worse. (We discuss exercising a senior in detail later in this chapter; flip to Chapter Exercising for Health for general exercise information.)
- Warm up slowly. When you exercise your arthritic horse, start slowly. She’ll be stiff at first and will need more time to loosen up than she did when she was younger. Allow at least 10 minutes of warm-up time before a workout.
- Give joint supplements. Talk to your veterinarian about putting your horse on daily joint supplements containing glucosamine, chondroitin, and MSM. (Chapter Special Considerations for Your Horse’s Diet has the full scoop on supplements.)
Tip
If your horse’s arthritis gets worse despite these guidelines, consult with your vet about putting your horse on medication to help her feel more comfortable. We discuss arthritis and other soundness issues in more detail in Chapter Tackling Common Ailments.
An inability to keep weight on
Senior horses sometimes get
pretty thin in their old age. Sometimes, they can’t digest their food as well
as they did in their younger days, resulting in getting less nutrition and less
weight on their bones. Or their thinness could be the result of another
problem. Whatever the cause, you can take steps to manage the weight loss.
Remember
If your older horse is losing weight, follow these steps to help her:
- Contact your veterinarian. First, you need to make sure that your horse isn’t suffering from a serious illness or condition. Have your vet examine her.
- Check her teeth. Older horses are more susceptible to tooth problems, which can keep them from properly chewing their food. Poorly chewed food doesn’t digest well, leaving your horse with a void in her nutrition. (We talk about tooth problems earlier in this chapter.)
- Change her diet. If your older horse is eating grass hay and can’t seem to keep weight on, you may need to add a legume hay to her diet, or perhaps a concentrated senior feed. (See the later section “Feeding Your Senior Horse” for more information.)
A loss of muscle
As horses age, their muscles
start to lose some elasticity and tone, especially if they aren’t being worked
very much. Coauthor Audrey first got her horse, Red Playboy, when he was 18.
This senior horse had a bad case of being out of shape, and his loss of muscle
had caused his back to sag and his belly muscles to hang down, causing him to
develop back pain. (Figure 17-2 shows a horse with a loss of muscle.) Audrey
got him back into shape by providing him with regular exercise every day; she
gradually increased his exercise over a period of time to lessen the stress on
his body.
Remember
The best way to keep an older horse from losing muscle is to keep her busy. Even a light workload goes a long way toward keeping those muscles in shape. Walking up hills is good for your horse, as is backing up and trotting in a straight line. (Avoid trotting in circles because it can put undo stress on her legs.) See the later section “Making Sure Your Senior Horse Stays Active” for more information.
Figure 17-2: Senior horses
often experience muscle loss because of inactivity. (Bob Langrish)
Feeding Your Senior Horse
Older horses often need to be on
a special diet, for a number of different reasons. These include:
- Worn teeth. Old horses sometimes have teeth that are so worn that they have trouble chewing (see the earlier section “Tooth problems” for information). These horses should be on feed that’s easy for them to swallow without having to chew much. These can include some types of complete senior feeds, or hay cubes or pellets that have been soaked in water.
- Protein intolerance. Senior horses can’t metabolize protein as well as their younger counterparts. Diets high in protein (such as all alfalfa diets) result in excessive urination and very wet stalls. Switching to a mostly grass hay diet can help with this issue.
- Weight issues. Some senior horses have trouble maintaining their weight (as we explain earlier in this chapter). These horses should be fed hay cubes or a complete senior diet in addition to hay to help them keep some meat on their bones.
Remember
Before you make any changes to your senior horse’s diet, talk to your veterinarian. He or she can guide you toward the best food for your horse in his golden years. Flip to Chapter Your Hungry Horse: Feeding Fundamentals for the skinny on feeding fundamentals.
Making Sure Your Senior Horse Stays Active
Some people make the mistake of
thinking that an older horse should be left alone to spend her remaining days
in peace and quiet. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Older horses —
especially those who have worked throughout their lives — often do poorly when
put out to pasture to live a quiet life of retirement.
Just like people, horses need to
feel needed, and having a regular job to do — even if it’s for just half an
hour a day — gives an old horse a reason to keep living. Plus, the exercise is
good for those old joints, tendons, and muscles, as long as it isn’t too
strenuous.
You can give your senior horse
exercise in a few different ways, as we explain in the following sections. (We
start with the most strenuous activity first.) Chapter Exercising
for Health has general
information on exercising your horse.
Riding
If your senior horse is
relatively sound, you can keep riding her for as long as your veterinarian says
it’s okay. Many horses well into their teens and 20s are ridden frequently,
taken out on the trail (see Figure 17-3), or even shown and competed. (In fact,
coauthor Audrey’s senior gelding, Red, entered his first parade at the age of
19.) As long as your senior horse is healthy, you can keep riding her.
Remember
That said, remember that older horses take longer to warm up than young horses, so they need time to limber up. Give your horse at least 10 minutes of walking before you start to trot or canter.
Warning!
When riding a senior horse on the trail, be aware that a lot of hill work may not be good for her legs. Going up and down a lot of hills can be tough on the joints, tendons, and muscles, and may shorten the amount of time that your horse stays sound into her senior years. Working in small circles isn’t great for old horses either. Lots of walking straight on flat ground is the best exercise for seniors.
Figure 17-3: Healthy, older
horses can still be used for light trail riding.
Hand-walking
Some older horses can no longer
be ridden, but that doesn’t mean that they need to spend the rest of their
lives stuck in a pasture or stall. Hand-walking a senior horse can do wonders
for her body and her mind.
Even half an hour a day of
hand-walking helps your senior feel like she has a job to do. It provides her
with much needed attention and helps solidify your bond. It also loosens her
joints, muscles, and tendons and gives her something to look forward to each
day.
Tip
Before you hand-walk your old buddy, be sure to clean out her feet and groom her (see Chapter Getting Up to Speed on Routine Care for details). Senior horses thrive on attention, and some people believe that horses live longer when they’re regularly fussed over by their favorite human.
Turning out
Healthy, sound senior horses
benefit from regular turnout. If your senior is kept in a stall or small
paddock, she needs to be turned out regularly so that she can stretch her legs.
Because of her age, however, you need to handle her turnout carefully.
Remember
Hand-walk your horse for 10 minutes before turning her out to make sure that her joints, tendons, and muscles are loose. You don’t want her tearing around the turnout without a warm-up because she may hurt herself. Don’t chase her around the turnout, either. Let her do what she feels like doing in there. Even if it’s just standing in a corner looking at the scenery, give her the option of doing what she feels up to.
Retiring Your Senior Horse
As we explain earlier in this
chapter, senior horses can work well into their 20s, and sometimes into their
30s. Coauthor Audrey once knew a lesson horse who carried little kids around
until he was 32 years old. He was working the day before he passed away from
natural causes.
Don’t be too quick to retire your
senior horse just because he’s up there in age. Before you do it, take a close
look at him to make sure that he’s really in need of retirement.
Judging your horse’s condition
Remember
The most important aspect to determining whether your senior needs to be retired is his condition. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is my horse serviceably sound?
- Can my horse still be ridden?
- If he has a health issue, can it be managed so that he can still work?
- What is his attitude about work? Is he still willing to perform when asked?
If you answer yes to these
questions, retirement may be premature for your senior horse.
Tip
If you aren’t sure whether your senior horse needs to quit working altogether, ask your veterinarian for advice. He or she can evaluate your horse and give you an expert opinion on the subject.
Tapering off work
Warning!
If your older horse definitely needs to be retired — and you verified this with your veterinarian — it’s important that you slowly taper off your horse’s work instead of just stopping it cold turkey. A sudden, complete halting of work will be a shock to your horse, both mentally and physically. If he’s physically fit and you suddenly cease all exercise, he will become pent up and unhappy. He will also miss his daily routine and may ultimately become depressed and lethargic.
Instead, slow your horse’s
workload gradually. If you were riding him for an hour a day, cut down to
riding an hour a day just a few days a week. Then, eventually ride him only 30
minutes for those few days a week. Get down to one day until you eventually
stop riding him altogether, and replace the riding with hand-walking (which we
discuss earlier in this chapter). Do this over a period of several weeks to
help him get used to his new life of leisure.
Putting your horse out to pasture
If your horse is definitely in
need of retirement, and you have the means to put him out to pasture for the
remainder of his days, remember that you still need to take care of your horse.
You can’t just put him out in a field and forget about him. He still needs
daily care.
Tip
Your older horse needs company too. Don’t put him in a pasture by himself. Get him a buddy so that he’s not lonely. (But keep an eye out to make sure that the buddy isn’t bullying him, or vice versa!) You can provide him with a buddy by boarding him at a pasture with other horses, boarding a friend’s horse in your pasture, or getting another horse (senior or otherwise) as a companion.
Before you place your horse in a
pasture, make certain that the pasture is safe and can provide for your horse’s
nutritional needs (see Chapters Your
Hungry Horse: Feeding Fundamentals and Growing
Your Own Food for details on this). Your horse may
need additional forage, instead of just living on pasture grass alone. Talk to
your veterinarian for advice on what to feed him.
Although your senior horse is out in a pasture and not working, don’t forget his feet! Horses in the wild don’t need their feet trimmed because they travel for so many hours a day on such rough terrain that they wear their feet down naturally. A horse in a pasture is a whole different situation.
Remember
Your retired horse requires the same foot care as he did before. As an older horse, his feet may grow more slowly, but they’re also more prone to cracking and brittleness. Talk to your veterinarian about pulling your horse’s shoes (if his feet are shod), and consider having his feet trimmed regularly by an experienced barefoot trimmer. (See Chapter Getting Up to Speed on Routine Care for the basics of hoof care.)
Keep a close watch on his feet,
too. Clean them daily, especially if the pasture becomes muddy, because this is
when a fungal infection of the frog called thrush can rear its ugly head.
(Chapter Tackling
Common Ailments has general information on fungal infections.)
Observe your pasture pet every
day, too, and watch how he walks. Note any pain or changes in his gait, and
call your vet if something doesn’t look right.
Keep an eye on other aspects of
your senior horse’s health, as well. For example:
- Give him treats every day, and watch how he chews to make sure that he’s not experiencing difficulty. (See the earlier section “Tooth problems” for details.)
- Take him out of the pasture and groom him. Give him the once-over while you brush him, and apply insect repellant during bug season.
With regular attention, your retired horse will learn to love being out to pasture and enjoying his golden years.
by Audrey Pavia with Kate Gentry-Running,DVM,CVA
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