Can horses eat bread?

After all, bread is, well, made of grains and oats, which horses eat. So, is it fine to feed your horse a slice of bread?

Yes...if you're being reasonable about it. Bread is rather rich (for a horse) and can make them put on weight if you feed them too much - especially if they're already having insulin resistance problems. (In fact, some people feed "poor keepers" bread because it IS so good at putting weight on them). Some horses don't like it, though.

Can horses eat milk?

Adult horses, like most other animals (Caucasian humans are a rare exception), are not normally lactose tolerant (this goes for cats too - please don't give your cat the classic saucer of milk. They will regret it...and so will you).

Adult horses can get diarrhea if given milk or milk powder.

Foals, of course, drink their milk - ideally straight from the source. Hand raised foals are generally taught to drink from a bowl or bucket right away - easier in horses than other animals and less of a pain than bottle feeding. Cow's milk, though, is not very good for foals - it's got too much fat in it and can give the foal diarrhea. Goat's milk is better (assuming mare's milk isn't available). In fact some people have actually managed to convince a goat to nurse a foal, giving the goat a platform to stand from.

Commercial foal milk replacers are available in modern eras.

Can horses eat meat?

Horses can and will take meat if offered it, even though they wouldn't eat it in the wild. As far as we can tell an occasional bite of hamburger won't hurt a horse.

However, they aren't evolved to digest it and it's likely that at best it won't give them any nutrition, at worst it might make them uncomfortable. (Horses don't have gut bacteria to break down meat protein, so it's certainly not going to do them any good).

Personally, I don't recommend giving your horse a bite out of your ham sandwich. He'd rather have an apple or a carrot, after all.

When do horses teeth?

I mentioned teething in the last post. So, do horses teeth? At what age?

Foals are born with no teeth at all. Their incisors appear within a week, and the full set of baby teeth is present by the time the animal's six months old (the order is central incisors, intermediate incisors, premolars and then corner incisors).

The young horse sheds these baby teeth in the same order they arrive, starting when he's about 2 1/2 years old. A horse is not through teething until four and a half or so (I had a horse who was five and still hadn't got his full corner incisors in). The baby teeth are pushed out by the permanent teeth (occasionally, baby teeth don't shed properly and a dentist needs to remove them).

So, foals under six months are teething and so are adolescent horses between 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 years old. As horses of that age are often ridden, teething issues have to be watched. And, like any other animal, a teething horse appreciates something to chew on.

Why do foals chew tails?

Because...sometimes they do (Occasionally the habit is seen in older horses).

Truth is, we aren't actually sure. It might be teething related, it might be play, in some cases it might indicate a nutritional deficiency (this should always be considered if it's an older horse).

It's easy to identify which foal is the culprit - it'll be the one who's tail hasn't been chewed (they can't reach their own). The usual "treatment" is to regularly wash everyone's tails with a bad tasting shampoo - that usually stops the behavior in its tracks. (If that doesn't work, some people use hot peppers, but you have to be careful to keep that away from the sensitive under-tail areas).

How can you tell if a mare is pregnant?

The answer is not easily. If you ask most experienced horse people, you'll find almost everyone has woken up to one more horse than they thought they had.

You can't always tell just by looking at her belly. Maiden mares (first pregnancy) often don't actually drop their belly that much - most cases of surprise foals involve maidens. A well conformed mare will already have a slight drop. In any case, mares don't "show" pregnancy until about the eighth month. Mares that have been bred a lot often don't "get their figure back," especially if they're older.

In general, you can't tell if a mare is pregnant until she's within a couple of months of giving birth.

The signs to look for are:

A slightly distended belly.

Visible movement in the belly - sometimes if the foal shifts you can see it. And it's also possible to feel the foal kicking if you rest a hand on the mare's belly.

Two to four weeks before the mare is due her udder will increase in size. One week before, the teats will increase in size and start to look waxy.

A pregnant mare may also lose endurance and tire more easily. She can get cranky in the last couple of weeks - probably tired of carrying around that extra foal weight - and many mares refuse to have their belly groomed or touched. Colic like symptoms in a mare who otherwise eats, drinks, defecates and urinates normally can be a sign she's about to go into labor - and can sometimes be the first sign you get. Also, there's a testosterone peak about 90 days into pregnancy which can cause a mare to act "studdy" and try to mount other mares. (This is sometimes mistaken for heat behavior). The sex of the foal doesn't seem to affect this.

But it can be really hard to tell - as most horsemen will verify.

What is contagious equine metritis?

Okay, this one is very NSFW - because contagious equine metritis is an equine venereal disease.

It's transmitted sexually (including by on farm artificial insemination, where workers may touch both animals with their hands or instruments).

Stallions can carry CEM without any symptoms - sometimes for years. In mares, the disease causes inflammation of the uterus and discharge from the vulva. Some mares may be asymptomatic and carry the bacteria for, well, months.

Mares are made temporarily infertile by the disease, although if they're already pregnant it rarely causes miscarriage. Unfortunately, it can take months for a mare to recover, and there's no good treatment for the uterine inflammation. On top of that, only mares show testable antibiotics.

External cleaning of the genitals with detergent and antibiotic ointment for several days is, however, effective at removing the bacteria from the outside (and is obviously the treatment for carrier stallions).

The disease exists in modern Europe but not in the United States (except for occasional outbreaks associated with imported stock).