Jec interviews Dr. Stacie Boswell, a vet and author based in Montana. Stacie wrote The Ultimate Guide for Horses in Need, a book about the care, training, and rehabilitation for rescues, adoptions, and horses in transition.

Here, Jec and Stacie discuss horse stress:

How does stress manifest in horses? How can we help them?

As you might imagine, I have two cents on this. Most stress for horses is caused by us humans. How we handle them and how we keep them directly impacts their physical and mental well-being – or, as Dr. Boswell describes it, emotional and physiological state.

Fresh off the brilliant keynote address by Dr. Sheryl King at the Best Horse Practices Summit in Lexington, we know that keeping horses on grain, in stalls, and away from a group setting all put horses at risk for colic. The Three F’s are what I keep in mind: Freedom, Friends, and Forage.

All the supplements in the world won’t help a horse as much as turnout with other horses.

Jec makes reference to EHV1, that acronym stands for Equine Herpesvirus, an extremely common virus among horses which most of the time has little or no serious impact on horses. When it flares up, however, it can cause respiratory, neurologic, and other harmful effects. 

One more thing: Thank you, thank you for all the feedback on our last episode. It was overwhelming, gratifying, and heartwarming to hear your messages of support and to learn about your journeys and how you’re working through them.

Our title sponsor is Lucerne Farms, producers of quality forage feeds.  And Lucerne is this fantastic company in northern Maine. And forage is chopped, packaged hay. After hay and grass, it’s pretty much the best alternative. Way wiser than grain. Check them out at Lucerne Farms.com or at your local feed story.

We welcome back Redmond Equine and Pharm Aloe to our sponsorship family. Coincidentally, both Redmond and Pharm Aloe offer products related to reducing stress-related complications in horses. 

We thank Kate’s Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continued support. Did you know? All ya gotta do is comment or suggest a podcast topic or send us a training question here and you’ll be automatically qualified for our monthly Patagonia WorkWear giveaway.

Don’t forget to check out the great selection of books at Cayuse Communications and on Jec’s store page. 

Thanks for listening, y’all!