Mad Barn Academy

Looking for ways to prevent boredom in your horse? Enrichment activities for your horse don’t need to cost a lot and can be easy to set up.

Many horse owners are aware of the basic components of animal welfare. You know to provide nutrition, water, shelter, safety, and medical help when needed. But a component of animal welfare that often gets missed with horses is the need to express normal and species-appropriate behaviours.

It can be difficult to provide a natural lifestyle for domesticated horses that meets their social and behavioural needs.

Fortunately, we can counteract deficits of the domestic environment by offering our horses enrichment (often referred to as environmental enrichment) that provides an outlet for their natural behaviours.

Here we review 9 DIY enrichment activities for horses!

Read more: https://madbarn.com/horse-enrichment-activities/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

Hot hooves, a sawhorse stance, severe lameness; these are all signs of laminitis – one of the most dreaded equine conditions for good reason. In severe instances, laminitis can lead to euthanasia of the horse.

Laminitis occurs when there is separation in the laminae of the hoof — where the hoof wall is connected to the coffin bone. It can occur in one or multiple hooves at the same time.

The separation can lead to permanent structural changes in the foot and lasting lameness. It can sometimes result in severe coffin bone rotation and the coffin bone may even puncture the sole of the hoof.

Researchers have learned that laminitis does not strike out of nowhere. Instead, there are often early warning signs and a prolonged subclinical phase before full-blown laminitis appears. 

If you can learn to recognize these early signs in your horse, then the chances of identifying and hopefully reversing the condition before it becomes severe are much improved.

Read more:  https://madbarn.com/signs-of-laminitis-in-horses/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

A hyperactive horse is commonly referred to as a “hot” horse. You may know the feeling of dealing with a hot horse all too well: it can feel like your horse is going to explode at any moment.

Hot horse behaviour is associated with changes in stress hormones. Cortisol is a stress hormones that has a cascading effect on the horse’s body. Chronically elevated cortisol levels in horses are associated with ulcers, colic, and impaired immune function. 

Hyperactive behaviour can manifest as:

This unwelcome behaviour is dangerous to both horse and owner, creating fear and tension. In some cases, an owner might choose to sell their horse if the behaviour becomes too much for them to handle.

Luckily, there are strategies that can be implemented to help manage hot horses. The first step is to ensure your horse has a well-balanced diet with the right amounts of energy, vitamins, and minerals.

Wondering why your horse is displaying hyperactive behaviour? It may just be your horse’s personality: hot-blooded breeds such as Thoroughbreds and Arabs are known to be more reactive than others.

In this podcast we review the top nine reasons your horse is acting "hot"

Read more:  https://madbarn.com/why-horse-is-hot/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

Routine equine dentistry is an often overlooked aspect of preventative care that can significantly impact your horse’s welfare and performance.

Horses have specialized teeth adapted to continuous grazing. Unlike human teeth, horse teeth erupt throughout their life and can become imbalanced if they are not worn down evenly.

Domestic horses may have diets and eating patterns that prevent them from wearing down their teeth naturally. Uneven wear can cause significant discomfort, especially for performance horses wearing bits and bridles during exercise.

Unfortunately, many horses aren’t getting the dental care they need. Postmortem studies frequently report undiagnosed dental disorders in horses. 

This podcast will discuss why dentistry is critical to horse health care. We will also review everything horse owners need to know about routine dental exams and teeth floating.

Read more: https://madbarn.com/horse-teeth-floating/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

Adding fats and oils to your horse’s diet is a great way to increase calorie supply without relying on grains and high-NSC feeds.

Fats can be added to the diets of underweight horses as weight gain supplements. Oils also provide cool energy to support exercise performance, weight maintenance and gut health.

High-fat feeds are typically made with rice bran, ground flax, or vegetable fat. Oils such as canola, soybean, flax, or camelina oil are also popular options for horses.

All oils and pure fats provide the same amount of caloric energy per gram. However, not all oils are equal in terms of how they influence processes in the body.

When deciding which fat supplement to add to your horse’s diet, equine nutritionists also care about the fatty acid composition of the feed. As this podcast will discuss why certain fat sources have advantages over others.

Read more: https://madbarn.com/fat-supplements-for-horses/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

Straw or chaff is a high-fibre low-sugar forage that is ideal for horses that are overweight or insulin-resistant. Straw adds bulk to your horse’s diet without contributing significant calories or protein.

Research shows that adding straw to a forage ration can increase time spent grazing and the expression of natural foraging behaviours. [1] This can improve wellness and prevent boredom without adding excess energy to the diet. 

While straw is not widely used as horse feed in North America, chaff or chopped straw is commonly fed in the United Kingdom. Mixing straw with other forages is recommended to avoid health concerns that are associated with feeding a straw-only ration.

Here, we discuss the benefits, risks and considerations of adding straw to your horse's diet.

Read more: https://madbarn.com/feeding-straw-to-horses/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

Unexplained weight loss in your horse is a cause for concern for any horse owner but is often straightforward to diagnose and address.

If your horse is losing body condition, it could indicate an undiagnosed health problem or it may be time to consider changes to your horse’s feeding and management.

Older horses and horses affected by chronic disease are more prone to weight loss than healthy horses.  Weight loss may also indicate a gut health issue, dental problem or concern with your horse’s social grouping.

Horses also lose weight when exposed to extreme weather or when fed a diet that does not provide sufficient dietary energy to match their needs.

In this podcast, we will review some of the top reasons why your horse may be losing weight and suggest management strategies to support healthy weight maintenance. We will also discuss how to feed a horse to promote weight gain.

Read more: https://madbarn.com/weight-loss-in-horses/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

One in ten horses is affected by laminitis each year. This painful condition involves inflammation of the hoof laminae, leading to varying degrees of lameness. 

Although laminitis affects the hooves, the condition is often initiated by dietary and metabolic factors. Laminitis can also result from infection or excessive mechanical stresses on the hooves.

Many horses recover completely, but others have lasting damage and are not able to resume their previous level of work.

Once a horse experiences laminitis the risk of reoccurrence increases, and proper management is critical to support recovery and maintain a sound horse.

All breeds and ages of horses are susceptible to laminitis, but some horses have a higher risk due to genetic factors. There are also common lifestyle factors that contribute to the development of this condition. 

This podcast will review the top 17 risk factors for laminitis in horses and discuss how to address these risk factors and prevent laminitis in your horse.

Read more: https://madbarn.com/laminitis-risk-factors-for-horses/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

If your horse is an easy keeper, sometimes it can seem like they get fat off of air.

Some equine breeds are known for being more metabolically efficient than others. They require less digestible energy (calories) to maintain an ideal body condition than other horses. This means they can easily become overweight.

Research shows that up to 40% of horses and ponies are overweight. [21] This can have long-term negative consequences for equine health and well-being, leading to inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, and a higher risk of laminitis.

But there are a number of effective strategies that you can use to help your easy keeper lose weight and maintain a healthy body condition. These strategies include forage selection, pasture management, soaking hay, and choosing low-calorie vitamin and mineral supplements.

This podcast will discuss how to best feed your easy keeper and how to track their body condition score over time.

Read more: /https://madbarn.com/feeding-easy-keeper-horse/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.

Equine stereotypic behaviours are repetitive behaviours involving a constant sequence of movements that have no obvious or apparent function. 

Examples of common stereotypies include cribbing, wind-sucking, weaving, stall walking and head shaking. Sometimes referred to as stall vices, these behaviours are estimated to affect 10-20% of domesticated horses.

These abnormal behaviours may emerge as a response to stress, confinement, isolation or other sources of discomfort for your horse. While the exact cause of stereotypies is not well understood, they appear to be coping mechanisms or expressions of frustration.

Correctly diagnosing abnormal equine behaviour and understanding what it means is an important skill for every horse owner. In the past, it was not uncommon to dismiss behavioural abnormalities due to a lack of understanding. Only recently has stereotypic behaviour received significant attention from the scientific community.

Once you have identified a stereotypic behaviour in your horse, you can take steps to address the root cause of the behaviour. Improving your horse’s overall welfare through care, feeding and management practices is the best way to prevent stereotypies from occurring

Here we discuss eight of the most common stereotypic behaviours in horses.

Read more: ⁠https://madbarn.com/stereotypic-behaviour-in-horses/
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Mad Barn Academy is dedicated to supporting horse owners and equine practitioners through research, training and education. Visit us at https://madbarn.com for more resources, videos and articles.