Although no one plans to have accidents, they happen. The key to weathering them, say crisis-management experts, is planning in advance exactly what you will do if an accident occurs.

Taking Control

The idea is to be proactive rather than reactive, says Dr. Jim Hamilton of Southern Pines Equine Associates in Southern Pines, N.C. Dr. Hamilton’s practice includes Olympic-caliber horses, and he has helped North Carolina officials add information about animals to its statewide natural disaster planning program. Hamilton has also helped the state develop a continuing education unit on emergency management of animals. This program is included in the state’s annual training for emergency medical technicians and other rescue personnel.

Top athletes often use the psychological technique of “visualization” to help them mentally plan and execute a winning strategy. They close their eyes, break their task down into the smallest possible steps, then mentally watch themselves going through each of those steps. When the time comes to actually perform, they go out with confidence because, in a sense, they’ve already been there and done that. They can focus and concentrate. Surprises are less likely because they have already thought through every possible scenario.

“When people get panicky, they forget a lot of things they’ve learned,” says Dr. Hamilton. “Accept that fact and take steps to help yourself think clearly in emergency situations.” Even in accident situations where no one is physically hurt, the ability to be ingenious and resourceful can be severely hampered by anxiety. The best planning you can do, he says, is to sit down and think of every possible thing that might happen to your horse on the road. Then think about how many different ways you might face each emergency and what tools and supplies you would need. Finally, imagine yourself actually taking the necessary actions to resolve the problem.

Planning Ahead

A good first-aid kit is one of your most essential supplies. Use your veterinarian’s experience and knowledge to help you stock appropriate first-aid supplies. Discuss his or her recommendations about carrying and administering prescription drugs for things like pain relief or sedation. This can be a very personal decision for both owners and veterinarians. Be honest about your ability and comfort level. While one horse owner might feel quite confident and competent about giving a horse an injection, another might feel anxious about it under the best of circumstances. Carrying and anti-inflammatory paste to use in an emergency will not do much good if you cannot administer your horse’s paste wormer at home under less stressful conditions.

Among the medical problems you should plan for are colic, heat exhaustion, dehydration, superficial injuries, deep wounds and broken limbs If you have never taken a first-aid course, now is the time to do so. Many first-aid techniques, such as applying pressure to wounds to stop bleeding or applying ice packs to sprains, are the same for horses as they are for people. Work with your vet and consult veterinary guides to learn how to adapt standard first-aid techniques to horse anatomy if you do not know how to do that already.

One of the most common problems Dr. Hamilton sees is people who trailer their horses without adequate water supplies. They will use the excuse that they are not traveling very far, that their horses will not drink while traveling anyway or that there will be ample water at their destination. That is a primary example of poor emergency planning, he says.

Imagine that a mechanical breakdown has stranded you alongside a busy interstate highway. It is a very hot day and you have no water with you. The tow truck says he’ll be there in an hour but doesn’t actually arrive for almost 90 minutes. After assessing the situation, he says he needs to return to the service station for a part to fix your engine. Another 90 minutes go by. Your horses are now hot, thirsty and possibly becoming dehydrated. You need fresh water for them to drink to stave off colic and, as time goes on, you realize that you also need it to help cool them down.

If you trailer two horses, says Hamilton, plan to carry about 5 gallons per horse for drinking, plus another 5 to 10 gallons to cool them if the heat becomes too much. Just in case, he also likes to see about 5 gallons of water available to cleanse major wounds. That’s a total of 20 to 25 gallons of water. If you will be on the road more than three or four hours, this amount should be increased. People who plan ahead use special molded plastic containers that fit into the nose of their trailers, strap plastic gerry cans into the trailer’s wheel wells or improvise with various types of plastic coolers. Regardless of how they do it, they are prepared with enough water to meet the demands of several potential emergencies.

Another example of advance planning is finding and preparing suitable splinting materials to use in the case of a broken limb. Dr. Hamilton likes to use a splint-length of PVC pipe to stabilize and support a leg. However, he notes, these must be custom-cut to fit a particular animal. Get help from your vet to choose a pipe diameter and length suitable for each animal, then label them with the animal’s name. If you don’t want to carry a PVC splint, says Dr. Hamilton, think ahead about what supplies are on your trailer and how you could improvise with them to make a splint.

Many people now use fleece-lined shipping boots instead of standing bandages, but the well-prepared traveler should still carry a set or two of those stretchy, old-fashioned knit bandages for wrapping and holding splints or bandaging materials. Extra towels should be on hand as well, since they can be used to clean wounds or apply pressure to stop bleeding.

Step By Step

Because it can be hard to think clearly in emergencies, Dr. Hamilton advises horse owners to carry a checklist in their glove compartment to pull out and follow. Here are the steps he recommends:

1. Be calm. Assess your physical condition and that of any passengers before attending to the horses. Emergency personnel often report that their most difficult job at the scene of a trailering accident is calming a hysterical owner. Try to relax, focus and think as clearly as possible.
2. Determine if you need outside help and how to get it. Do you need to call 911 to get emergency medical attention or summon the police? Do you need to call a service station or a tow truck? Having a list of phone numbers with you in your vehicle can help you stay calm and take action decisively. A cellular phone (fully charged and with roaming capability for the areas you are traveling through) or a citizen’s band radio can make a critical time difference in a medical emergency.
3. Assess the condition of the horses and their needs. Do the horses have injuries or other immediate medical needs? Is a horse bleeding profusely? Is he breathing rapidly and shallowly, have a weak pulse or slow capillary-refill time? Gather as much specific information as possible to relay to the nearest veterinarian. The vet’s biggest challenge when a phone call comes in about a trailering accident is trying to surmise what the horse is doing and what is medically needed. The clearer the owner can be, the more accurate the veterinarian’s phone recommendations can be. If the emergency is a mechanical one, the horses’ needs may simply be for food and water while waiting for help to arrive.
4. Unload the horses only if you are in a quiet, absolutely safe area with enough personnel to manage the animals. Relaxing the animals and stabilizing any injuries is often the first goal after an accident. However, Dr. Hamilton cautions, never unload the horses along the side of a high-speed interstate highway. That is a recipe for disaster. If at all possible, pull off the highway and find a quiet area to unload. Otherwise, keep the horses in the trailer until an alternate tow vehicle or other help arrives.
5. Determine what you can do and accept what you cannot do until further help arrives. In a true emergency, your ability to affect the situation may be severely limited. For example, you may not be able to do much more with a heavily bleeding gash than to try to calm the horse while you apply steady pressure until the vet arrives.

If a horse is acting colicky, you can encourage the animal to drink until the vet arrives to fully assess the situation. Figure out what is possible and take those actions while you wait for a veterinarian or other emergency personnel to come. However, avoid overreacting and making the situation worse by trying to do more than you are equipped to handle.

Second in Command

Another critical contingency to plan for is what will happen if you are unable to act at all. If you are unconscious or removed from the scene of an accident because you are injured, who can make decisions in your absence?

Dr. Hamilton recommends that every horse owner prominently display a card in the front of their trailer, either laminated or protected in a plastic holder, that lists vital emergency information for police or other rescue personnel to follow. Besides the names of horses and your name, address and phone numbers, list the phone numbers of the barn where you board, your veterinarian and any other responsible persons.

It should be absolutely clear to police and others who the designated decision maker is in the event you are unavailable. There have been numerous instances of police officers who have been ready to shoot a horse they thought was dying, only to find, when the veterinarian arrived and administered fluids, that the horse was only exhibiting signs of shock.

Emergency Training for First Responders

In his work with emergency personnel, Dr. Hamilton has found that most of them have a basic fear of horses, which they do not like to admit until after an event is over. Many have no experience with large animals.

“The vast majority of emergency responders have no clue how to approach a horse, how to apply a halter or what a lead shank is,” he says. “Most have some concept that horses can kick. Their fear factor plays a big role.”

Post-event questionnaires also show that emergency personnel’s lack of experience with horses frustrates them in other ways, too. For example, many report arriving at the scene of trailering accidents and being unable to figure out how to safely enter a horse trailer, which doors the horses unload through, or how to work the panic snaps so commonly found on trailer ties.

One solution for that dilemma is for local horse organizations to work with their area emergency personnel to provide some familiarity with horses and horse equipment.

Thanks to two dedicated horse owners who were also volunteers, the Stevenson Volunteer Fire Department in Stevenson, Connecticut, staged a horse trailer emergency drill for several area fire companies. With local 4-H clubs supplying horses to handle, a veterinarian on hand explained how to approach and handle frightened horses. And with a donated trailer to take apart with pneumatic tools, fire and rescue personnel got hands-on experience dealing with an emergency involving horses.

As part of North Carolina’s continuing education program, emergency personnel can take 12 hours of training on horse behavior, horse first aid, horse handling and what to expect at barn fires or trailering accidents. As part of the course, trailers are available to examine, and EMTs practice catching and haltering horses in paddocks. Similar training events organized by horse owners in cooperation with their local emergency officials are an investment in emergency planning that could someday save equine lives.

An ounce of prevention can help avoid many trailering emergencies. Before leaving on even a short trip, make sure your trailer and towing vehicle are in good condition. Annual inspections should include a thorough check of the trailer’s tires, brakes, undercarriage and floor, and all hardware. Make sure your trailer’s hitch is properly maintained and that you know how to use all of its safety features. A blown tire or a ball hitch that comes unfastened as you’re traveling down the road could be the start of a major emergency.

The worst accident is the one that could have been avoided.

Further Reading
Trailer Accident Survey Yields Tips
Safe Trailering
Trailer Emergency Kit

The post Horse Trailering Emergency appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Justin turned and refused to even sniff his mash. The gelding’s behavior puzzled Laura as she watched the other horses dive in greedily. Her annoyance grew as the mash she prepared with such care got colder and colder. Laura decided to go ahead and give the other horses their evening grain but to withhold Justin’s feeding until his mash was gone. “No dessert until you eat your vegetables,” she thought.

Feeding bran mashes is an equestrian tradition that has been passed down through multiple generations. Horse owners believe they are doing something positive for their horses when they feed them bran mashes. Offering hot mashes laced with carrots, molasses or other sweets gives horse owners a particularly warm fuzzy feeling in winter. Some people can be quite dogmatic about the proper way to mix and “cook” a mash, and recipes abound to provide our equine companions with a gastronomic variety.

Evaluating the tradition of mashes in the wisdom of modern nutritional knowledge, however, may offer an explanation of why Justin turned up his nose at Laura’s lovingly prepared equine cuisine.

Why We Feed Bran

Many ingredients have found their way into livestock diets because manufacturers were searching for a profitable use for the byproducts of the milling process. In the case of bran, the process was milling wheat and the byproduct was the large reddish-brown flakes of the grain’s outer husk, which were removed before grinding the soft, inner kernel into flour.

Horses, people discovered, liked the taste of bran. And millers were more than delighted to sell bran cheaply to local farmers who fed it to their horses. There was only one problem with this turn-of-the-century feeding practice. Horses fed large amounts of bran over long periods of time developed a serious skeletal problem known as “big head.”

Bran has an extremely lopsided calcium-to-phosphorous ratio of 1-to-12. The ideal ratio of calcium to phosphorous in a horse’s diet is 1-to-1 or 1-to-2. With the ratio so badly out of balance, horses fed large quantities of bran stole calcium from their bones to achieve the right metabolic balance between the two minerals. Soft connective tissue replaced bone and created the enlarged, lumpish skulls that gave the nutritional disease its name.

Modern nutritionists eventually unlocked the secrets about mineral interactions and explained the cause of big head. Now, however, nutritional science is questioning the practice of occasional mashes for reasons that have nothing to do with mineral imbalances. Like those farmers who inadvertently overfed bran and caused big-head disease, modern horsemen may unknowingly be causing their horses distress when they feed bran sporadically as a weekly mash or as a constipation preventative just prior to traveling.

Not a Change for the Better

It is well known among veterinarians, nutritionists and experienced equestrians that a sudden change in diet causes digestive disorders in horses. At the least, the horse may experience mild intestinal discomfort that makes him cranky, anxious or sluggish. Diarrhea, excess gas, colic or laminitis are other possible consequences.

Sudden means that the change is made all at once, rather than gradually in small stages. A change in feed can be anything from switching to a new load of hay, substituting a different grain mix for one you’ve been feeding or turning a horse wintered on hay out on a lush spring pasture.

When a new feed or any other dietary change is gradually made over a period of days or even weeks, the horse’s various gut microbes, which are essential for good digestion, vitamin synthesis and overall health, have time to adjust the size of their respective populations to the shifting ratios of carbohydrates, fats, protein and fiber they must process. But when a sudden change is made, it shocks the microbe population, destroys its balance and results in the death of a proportion of these beneficial and essential microorganisms. The dying microbes are not only unable to assist in proper digestion, but they also give off toxins that can be absorbed through the intestinal walls and into the horse’s bloodstream to the detriment of the animal’s well being.

If the sudden change is a relatively small one, the horse may experience abdominal distress and discomfort, such as mild gas or diarrhea, but not life-threatening consequences, such as colic or laminitis. Researchers now suspect that is what happens when horses get a weekly or occasional bran mash. Justin may be smart enough to have connected a queasy feeling in his hind gut with the bran mash he ate just before it started. Or perhaps his gut is more sensitive to changes than those of his barn buddies. Either way, he was trying to send Laura a message.

All Brans Are Not Created Equal

Rice bran is one of the newer feedstuffs to be marketed as an equine supplement and to find its way into commercial grain mixes. Like wheat bran, rice bran is the flaked outer coating of a grain.

Rice bran is high in fiber, protein and calories. Also like wheat bran, rice bran has a significantly lopsided calcium-to-phosphorous ratio. Unlike wheat bran, however, a higher percentage of rice bran’s calories come from fats rather than carbohydrates. And that makes a big difference in how it fits into equine rations.

Rice bran contains 20 percent fat, a higher fat level than any other feedstuff commonly fed to horses, except animal or vegetable fats. A pound of rice bran contains 3.5 ounces of fat, nearly the same amount as a ½ cup of vegetable oil. That fat content also makes it a denser, heavier feed than fluffy, high-volume wheat bran. Rice bran is a coarse, buff-colored powder, while wheat bran is composed of large, flat, reddish or blonde flakes.

The combination of high fat and high fiber makes rice bran an ideal addition to the diet of hardworking performance horses. The fat provides extra energy without the hyperactivity and the risk of gastrointestinal ailments that are a risk when feeding high-starch grain diets.

Fats are metabolically efficient energy sources because they produce lower internal temperatures from digestion than carbohydrate-rich grains, and horses can easily convert the fat they digest into energy. When it comes to adding water, however, rice bran turns more to mush than mash. Because of its higher fat content and small particle size, rice bran does not absorb water like wheat bran.

If your purpose in feeding mashes has been to get more water into your horse’s digestive tract, wheat bran is more suitable.

Why Do We Do It?

If occasional bran mashes are not good for horses, why do horse owners feed them? Many firmly held beliefs about mashes are based on nothing more scientific than old horsemen’s observations as they guessed at causes and effects. Although nutritional common sense now debunks the mythology, horse owners still share it as gospel and are loathe to let go of the wisdom of ages. The reasons they give for feeding mashes include:

Myth 1. A hot bran mash warms a horse in winter. How long are you trying to warm the horse? The warming effects of the water used to make the mash may last five to 10 minutes after the horse eats it, less time that it probably took you to make the mash. A better way to warm a horse in the winter is to increase the amount of hay he eats. The heat of digestion from just 5 pounds of extra hay will raise the horse’s internal core temperature 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit for nearly four hours.

Myth 2. A bran mash is a good way to get more water into a horse in the winter. How much bran are you feeding? A typical mash only uses about a quart or two of water, more or less depending on how soupy you decide to make it. Compared to the 5 gallons or more of water the horse needs daily, that’s not a big deal.

A better way to get more water into the horse in the winter is to make sure water buckets stay thawed and water is accessible. Finding a way to warm the water to approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit in winter will keep horses drinking sufficient amounts and make the small amount in that mash insignificant. In summer, keep water palatable and free of algae or other contaminants by changing water frequently and scrubbing buckets and troughs regularly.

Myth 3. A bran mash is a good laxative to give a horse before a long trailer ride to prevent constipation. What do you mean by a laxative? By definition, a laxative is something that increases the water content of feces. Cornell University researchers studied the laxative effect of bran at various levels in the diet, with some horses being fed up to 50 percent hay and 50 percent bran. They found that there were only slight variations in water content of feces at various feeding levels, not enough to pronounce bran a laxative.

Another study compared the stools of horses fed a ration of 10 percent bran and 90 percent chopped hay to those fed 100 percent chopped hay. No difference in the water content of the feces was found. So why do horses produce watery stool when they eat a bran mash? First, high-fiber bran increases the volume of the horse’s feces. Second, since feeding bran mash only occasionally or even weekly represents a sudden change in diet as the gut microbes see it, they start to die off. That causes the diarrhea or watery stool that horse owners erroneously assume is a laxative effect.

If you are convinced bran is a must in the diet of a traveling horse or a mare about to foal, a better way to incorporate it into their rations is to gradually add a little bran to the horse’s regular rations 10 to 14 days before the event, and keep it at a constant level. Make sure the traveling horse drinks plenty of water on the journey by getting him accustomed to drinking water flavored with a hard peppermint candy or lemon drop, a powdered drink mix, a cola drink or any other tempting taste at home. As the water changes taste from place to place on the journey, adding the familiar flavoring can help keep the horse drinking sufficient water to help avoid constipation.

What Good Is Bran?

Since horses like the taste so much, bran can encourage picky eaters to clean up their feed. Bran can be fed in amounts up to 5 to 7 percent of the horse’s total daily ration without causing harm. Balance out bran’s phosphorous content by feeding it with alfalfa or other legume hays or, if feeding grass hay, by adding 2 ounces of feed-grade limestone to the horse’s daily grain ration. Dry bran tends to be fluffy, and horses blow it around with their noses. Although it is perfectly fine to feed dry bran, moistening it keeps it from irritating the horse’s respiratory tract.

Bran’s biggest claim to fame is its high fiber content. Bran’s fiber is mostly indigestible cell-wall lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose. These undigested bits are what bulk up the feces when bran is fed on a regular basis. The key word is regular. For example, if your horse eats 20 pounds of feed daily and you have decided to make bran 5 percent of his total ration, gradually add a quarter-pound of bran every three or four days until your horse is eating a pound of bran daily. Feeding bran as a regular portion of the horse’s daily diet, rather than just as an occasional mash, will keep your horse’s gut microbes happy and forestall constipation without causing diarrhea. On a program like this, Justin may be able to face his feed once again with gusto.

– Bonnie Kreitler and Ginger Rich, Ph.D.

The post Feeding Bran to Horses appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.