ADOPTION PENDING!!

Belle is a 21 year old Palomino Mustang mare.  She has been used as our trail horse for years and now it’s time to retire her to a good beginner home.  She has ridden children all her life and is an easy keeper, stands, loads, bathes and has excellent hooves.  No need for shoes.  She has never had shoes on, and certainly doesn’t need them. No need for a bit!  She rides in an Indian Bosal, but will take the bit nicely.  She has been in shows and won ribbons!  She rides in the mountains, through streams, up rocky trails and never gives up. She has many more good years go go!  No vices. Easy to catch!

Belle is a wonderful trail horse or just a wonderful horse to ride around the farm on. She’s Beginner friendly and loves children.  The only thing Belle cannot tolerate is round bales of hay.  The dust makes her cough…she’ll need to be fed with square bales of grass hay.

If you think you can give Belle a great home, please fill out the adoption application on the right hand side of the page.  MAHR will call you as soon as we get your application!

Belle’s adoption price is $650  

Bonnie was injured by barbed wire, severely on her lower right hind.  She had been neglected for over a week before Mustang Alley was called to help.  We have her on antibiotics and we wash her wound 3 times a day to keep it circulating & clean.  Dr. Alex Dulaney will be preforming surgery when the deepest part fills in.

This is why we don’t allow barbed wire when we adopt out rescue horses.  She’s not even 3 years old, yet.  This could have been avoided.  Keep checking back on her progress.

her wound after 2 weeks

They held a bake sale to raise much needed funds for our rescue.

Thank you Megan & Tractor Supply of Johnson City!  Please shop for all your horse needs at Tractor Supply Company of Johnson City to show you support their kindness to MAHR!

When you come to Mustang Alley, Ashley will show you how to have fun while volunteering here at the rescue.

Ashley is also our Trail Guide, so when you book rides with the stables, you’ll have the peace of mind that an experienced Trail Guide will take very good care of you and make sure you have a wonderful & fun experience!

Thank you, Ashley, for everything you’ve done for our rescue horses!!

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2. Feed a low starch, low sugar diet: Nutritionally triggered laminitis can be due to excessive starch in the diet, or a high intake of fructan from grass. These simple sugars are highly fermentable in the hind gut of the horse and can cause high acid levels.

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3. Feed a probiotic and prebiotic: Feed a balancer that contains both a prebiotic and a probiotic. This is a simple, yet very effective way of maintaining good gut health and aiding the digestion of starch and fructan.

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4. Avoid fructans: The level of fructan in grass can vary with the changing seasons. The spring and autumn growing seasons are when fructan is at its highest level. With our winters becoming milder and our summers becoming wetter, the growing season has become extended. Because of this, it is important to observe grass growth. Not only should you monitor the field that your horse is grazing, you should keep an eye on surrounding fields that are not grazed to get an idea of how fast the grass is growing and therefore how much your horse is eating.

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5. Graze your horse at the safest periods during the growing season: Turn out late at night and bring in before mid-morning as this is when fructan levels tend to be at their lowest. Do not turn out on a frosty morning because as the temperature increases so will the fructan content of the grass. Long mature grass can also contain high levels of fructan so graze your horses on shorter grass. Turn out on managed pasture but do not turn out on to recently cut grass as fructans are stored in the stem.

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6. Never starve your horse or pony to maintain their weight and always feed adequate fibre: Starving your horse can cause digestive upsets and lead to problems such as colic. To reduce sugar intake, feed good quality but low grade hay and fibre. You can soak hay to further reduce its fructan and calorie content.

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7. Avoid vitamin and mineral deficiencies: Make sure that your horse receives the optimum levels of vitamins and minerals on a daily basis to maintain health and well-being. Feeding a restricted diet can help to maintain your horse’s weight and reduce sugar and cereal intake. However, it is important to remember that by restricting the diet you will also reduce the intake of essential vitamins and minerals. Supplement your horses with a good quality balancer to ensure they receive the correct levels of vitamins and minerals.

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8. Contact your vet and farrier: If you suspect your pony has laminitis contact to your vet immediately. Your vet can prescribe pain killers to make them more comfortable and can reduce the severity of the case if contacted promptly. Your farrier’s expertise will help promote the quickest possible recovery. Remember not only natives are susceptible to laminitis. Laminitis can occur in any breed of horse or pony.

Apache

This is why MAHR does NOT allow barbed wire when adopting out our horses.  Barbed wire is for cows…not horses!   We will keep you updated on her progress.

Fantastic trail horse!  Up to date on all shots.  Won’t you give Magic a forever home?

His adoption fee is $700.

On July 24th, 2010, Leslie adopted Sky and took him to his forever home!

Thank you, Leslie, for giving Sky a second chance at life!

Thank you Connie!!!!

A match made in Heaven!

Mike Branch will be doing a benefit clinic for Mustang Alley Horse Rescue, Inc. on November 6th & 7th, 2010 and  November 7th, also.

Mike will take 5 problem horses per day.

To bring your horse into the clinic and have Mike work with him/her, the price is $100 per day.

Auditing- $25 per day

Call 423-552-5988 and get your reservations in now!

Mike’s motto:

Leadership through trust, partnership through leadership; trust, partnership, and leadership through; love, understanding, and communication

Since adopting my first Mustang I have been intrigued by their sensitive emotion, and feel, their mental and physical nature as well as a spiritual side that they will expose to you once you have earned their trust.

I am dedicated to the education of the public on the American Mustang, their trainability, and their need to survive and thrive in today’s culture. I would like to help you achieve your horsemanship goals, no matter what they may be, through working with, and learning through the wild horse.

I believe if I can help you learn to communicate to this “wild” horse you will be able to communicate to your more domesticated horse. Your basic skills will be tested and sharpened, your horsemanship raised to a much higher level.

Dedicated to educating the public on the trainability of the

“Wild American Mustang”

Mike Branch has traveled extensively with the Bureau of Land Management, where he selects wild mustangs from the herds brought in for adoption and demonstrates the gentling process. Many times Mike has had wild mustangs saddled and on their backs in only one to two hours.

Through several mustang clinics that Mike has held over the past year, he has seen the great benefits of working with a wild Mustang for the “average” horse owner. This has lead to the opening of the “Wild Mustang School”, located near Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.

Accomplishments

• Nominated for Bureau of Land Management’s volunteer of the year in 2008, and 2009
• Represented the Bureau of Land Management with two wild mustangs at the “Great Southern Stampede”, Hattiesburg, MS last August 2008
• Established Wild Mustang School, in Tennessee where students are able to learn how to gentle a wild mustang and assist in colt starts.
• Certified Trainer for Mustang Heritage Foundation
  
• Founding Member of the American Association of Natural Horsemen
• Runner up in “Round Up” in Brandon MB, with Mel Hyland and Bruce Logan April 2008
• Represented for the “Friends of the Dartmoor Hill Pony” at Devon County Show in Exeter, England
• Received formal introduction to members of the Royal Family in England

Travel

Mike Branch travels throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe conducting clinics ranging from basic “Natural Horsemanship” to ”Colt starting” clinics. He also gives round pen and equine communication demonstrations, in addition to gentling mustangs at BLM adoptions.

Be sure to watch Mike’s “calendar” to see where he will be next!!

Some of his venues have included, Clinton, TN; Keenansville, NC; Mobile, AL; Tupelo, MS; Archdale, NC;

Columbia, SC; Decatur, AL; Bowling Green, KY; Hattiesburg, MS; Ashville, NC; Murfreesboro, TN;

Lexington, VA; Knoxville, TN, Exeter, England; Dulverton, England; New Castle, England; Bristol, England

and many others.

Here Mike is featured on BBC talk show at “Devon County Show” in Exeter, England.

Visit his website at:   http://www.mikebranchhorsemanship.com

by: University of Guelph
July 08 2010, Article # 16625

A hot humid day. One rider. One horse. Both are exercising at a moderate level. Who is more likely to overheat?

It might surprise you to know that your horse gets hotter, much faster than you and is more susceptible to the negative effects of heat stress.

Michael Lindinger, PhD, MSc, an animal and exercise physiologist at the University of Guelph, explains: “It only takes 17 minutes of moderate intensity exercise in hot, humid weather to raise a horse’s temperature to dangerous levels. That’s three to 10 times faster than in humans. Horses feel the heat much worse than we do.”

And the effects can be serious. If a horse’s body temperature shoots up from the normal 37 to 38°C to 41°C (98.6 – 105.8°F), temperatures within working muscles may be as high as 43°C (109.4°F), a temperature at which proteins in muscle begin to denature (cook). Horses suffering excessive heat stress may experience hypotension, colic, and renal failure.

Lindinger, a faculty member in the Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, became interested in the effects of heat on horses when he was a lead researcher on the Canadian research team that contributed information on the response of the horse to heat and humidity for the Atlanta Summer Olympics. He recently presented a workshop on the topic at Equine Guelph’s outdoor Equine Expo held June 4 at U.G.’s Arkell Research Station.

Horses are more susceptible to heat for several reasons, explains Lindinger. First, they are larger and have a higher percentage of active muscle than people do during exercise. When muscles are being used, they produce a lot of heat.

Horses also rely to a significant extent on sweating to cool them off. They can sweat 15 to 20 litres per hour in cool, dry conditions and up to 30 litres per hour in hot, humid conditions, but only 25-30% of the sweat produced is effective in cooling the horse by evaporation.

“Because so much more sweat is produced than can be evaporated, the rest just drips off the horse’s body,” says Lindinger. “By comparison, up to 50% of the sweat people produce is evaporated from our bodies during exercise and helps to cool us.”

The salts in horse sweat are also four times as concentrated as in human sweat. Lindinger refers to a photograph of an area where endurance horses had been standing while their sweaty bodies were repeatedly scraped and cooled with water. As the liquids evaporated from the ground, the soil surface was left white because of the salt in the horses’ sweat.

“Those salts have to be replaced,” he adds. “Just giving the horse water will not rehydrate a dehydrated horse. When horses drink plain water, it dilutes their body fluids, and their bodies respond by trying to get rid of more water and more electrolytes.”

Horses also pant to dissipate heat, but Lindinger says this is only effective if the air is at least five degrees cooler than the horse’s body temperature.

His tips for protecting horses from the harmful effects of summer heat begin with teaching your horse to drink an electrolyte solution (water with the right proportion of salts dissolved in it) to replace sweat losses. “Start with a small amount in the water, allowing the horse to get used to the taste, and gradually increase it over days and weeks until you have reached the manufacturer’s recommendation.” Keeping your horse properly hydrated is the most important step in protecting it against the harmful effects of heat, he says.

If you’re preparing for a competition, Lindinger recommends trying to acclimatize your horse to the heat by spending four hours daily, at least five days a week for three weeks, in hot conditions. For best results, exercise the horse for an hour during the second hour of each of those days.

“Many riders will train their horses in the mornings or evenings, when it’s cool, then go to a competition held during the hottest part of the day. You need to get horses used to being ridden in the heat and allow them to develop the full spectrum of beneficial adaptations that come with heat acclimation.” Lindinger says that horses who have been through a process of heat acclimation will lose more heat through sweating and respiration and will be better able to stay hydrated because they are more likely to drink.

When your horse is hot, look for shade and breezes to help cool it down, but never use a blanket or “cooler” on a horse that is sweating, he adds, suggesting the best way to cool a horse quickly is to rinse the horse’s body repeatedly with cold water and scrape off the excess water.

“You can cool the horse two degrees in 10 minutes this way: pour on the water, scrape it off, pour on more, and just keep repeating it,” says Lindinger. “The scraping part is important because otherwise the water will be trapped in the horse’s hair and will quickly warm up. By scraping and pouring on fresh, cold water you keep the cooling process going.”

Just as equestrians pack a canteen of water, some sunscreen and a hat with a brim for summer riding adventures, Lindinger says they should also equip themselves with the tools needed to protect their horses from the heat and humidity. If you prepare your horse in advance and have a plan to cool him down if he becomes overheated, he says, even the hot, muggy days of summer can be great riding fun.

–Teresa Pitman, University of Guelph

Poncho

Poncho came into MAHR on July 8th, 2010 by way of surrender.  The owner was physically unable to take care of of him any longer.

He is a registered 12 year old,  stocky Quarterhorse with great reining & cutting bloodlines and is approximately 15.2 .  He’s a great ride, great trail horse, goes anywhere and doesn’t spook!   Loads and stands for trimming wonderfully.

Adoption price is $800

From the first few minutes of life until about 48 hours, the temperature, pulse, and respiration rates (TPR) of a foal change rapidly.

“Any newborn foal should be examined by a veterinarian within the first 24 to 48 hours of life because there are so many variations of normal and so many potentially serious abnormalities that a layperson might not pick up on,” says Jeremy Campfield, DVM, of Pacific Crest Equine in Exeter, Calif. “It’s just not feasible for someone who only has one or two foals every year to be trained to know that stuff.”

The first neonatal exam should include a blood draw for a complete blood count and assessment of IgG level (which shows if the foal absorbed colostrum and associated antibodies).

A foal’s temperature fluctuates from about 99.5-102ºF. His heart rate initially should be 70-80 beats/minute, and there will be a stepwise increase over the first 12 hours of life to about 150 beats/minute. Over the next 24 to 48 hours, it will drop down and settle at 90-120 beats/minute.

Respiration will be pretty high at first, at 60-80 breaths/minute within the first 30 minutes of life; then it will decrease to 30-40 breaths/minute at rest.

“The first time an owner sees a newborn foal during the first few minutes of life, they often think that the foal is struggling to breathe,” says Brian Fitzgerald, DVM, of F9 Equine Clinic in Columbus, Texas. “Neonatal foals have an increased respiratory rate and a visible chest excursion (inhaling and exhaling) as they breathe in and out. This often appears more dramatic because the ribs are prominent in most neonates. It looks like they are struggling, but it’s pretty normal.

“If the owner is concerned, they can check the foal’s gum color,” he adds, noting that pink is normal. If they appear blue (a sign of decreased oxygen reaching the bloodstream), then the foal should be positioned on its chest, (not on its side), oxygen should be given if available, and a veterinarian should be called.”

If the foal gums are bluish, it should be considered an emergency. While the owner is waiting for the veterinarian to arrive, he or she should place the foal in sternal recumbency (upright with front legs extended out under the head) to allow both lungs to expand more easily and improve oxygen intake. Any horse lying on its side is going to experience decreased expansion of the lung on the “down” side, which veterinarians refer to as the “dependent” lung. So in essence, that dependent lung is not functioning at full capacity and not doing what it is supposed to do, which is transfer oxygen from the air into the bloodstream.

Foals tend to be awkward as they adjust to their first hours outside the womb, and they can startle and twitch at first for no apparent reason. They also appear pretty uncoordinated, but generally all these things are normal and resolve quickly.

“Those newborns are going to sleep a lot,” says Campfield. “Their normal routine is to nurse, walk around the stall for a little while, and they crash out, then repeat. For the first few days it is just a lot of eating and sleeping.”

But after the first few days, foals should be pretty alert and active.

“The No. 1 thing that owners should be concerned about is when the foal is depressed,” notes Joe Bertone, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM, professor of equine medicine at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif.

Horses used to be animals of prey. “The best way to look at it is consider who is most likely to be on the dinner plate, and that is the foal,” adds Bertone. “When they are around mom in a controlled environment, they will sleep. But genetically, their makeup is such that when they are awake, if there is any noise, they are really alert. They are usually pretty awake, alive, and nursing.”

A common problem in newborns is colic. Foals tend to show pretty clear signs when they are in discomfort (lying down and rolling violently). You should call your veterinarian immediately if your foal is showing any signs of colic.

“If they are sleepy, depressed, and not nursing, you need to call a veterinarian right away,” Bertone says. “Usually by the time the temperature, respiration, and heart rate are abnormal, things are going bad in a foal.”

The time to pull out the thermometer and stethoscope to check your horse’s temperature, pulse (heart rate), and respiration (TPR) for the first time is not when he’s looking a little puny and you and the veterinarian are on the phone trying to decide whether it’s an emergency. Instead, these baseline measurements should be part of a horse’s routine care. The reason: normal ranges of basic health parameters vary among horses, so you need to know what is normal for your horse to discern when it’s abnormal.

“With the economy the way it is, people don’t want the veterinarian to come out to the farm unless he or she has to come out,” says Jeremy Campfield, DVM, of Pacific Crest Equine in Exeter, Calif. “But it is difficult to interpret what the owner is seeing over the phone. Even though it is clear to you, ‘My horse is lying down; it hasn’t been eating,’ to me as a veterinarian that can mean a lot of different things.

“Having the TPR can help us determine whether we need to come out right now because this is an emergency, or whether we can schedule an appointment for tomorrow,” says Campfield.

Checking the TPR should be part of every owner’s basic assessment of their horse’s overall physical condition, no matter his state of health. Joe Bertone, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM, professor of equine medicine at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif., notes. “You need to collect these data regularly when the horse is happy and healthy, and if you want to know what your horse’s ‘normal’ is, you need to have a record of routine temperatures and heart and respiratory rates.”

The temperature range for most healthy adult horses is 99-101ºF, but external factors, such as illness and extreme hot or cold ambient temperatures, can affect that reading. Mares might have a slightly elevated temperature for a few hours when they are ovulating.

“In a horse that appears normal, a low temperature is often just a bad reading (thermometer wasn’t left in long enough or inserted far enough in rectum),” says Brian Fitzgerald, DVM, of F9 Equine Clinic in Columbus, Texas. “An elevated temperature is usually more concerning. A horse with a temperature over 102ºF or 102.5ºF warrants a closer look, but even factors like the weather and the horse’s activity level can influence the temperature reading.”

The pulse of a healthy adult horse at rest should be 28-44 beats/minute, and the respiration rate should be 10-24 breaths/minute. But all of these can change in a flash, veterinarians say.

“Horses were prey animals. Because of that, they evolved mechanisms to escape predators,” says Bertone. “Their heart rate can be in the teens at full rest … can double when you enter the barn, triple when you enter the stall, and quadruple when you touch them with a stethoscope, especially when you’re a stranger. Horses begin to sweat in preparation for exercise before body temperature goes up. This is nearly unique to horses in veterinary species.”

Excitement level drastically influences measurements, especially heart rate. “The heart rate of a horse in a strange environment or one that is not used to having a stethoscope placed on its chest can jump to 80-100 beats/minute just because of nervousness or anxiety,” Fitzgerald says.

“Even if the horse is comfortable with the owner taking its heart rate with a stethoscope, if there is something that spooks the horse, its heart rate might increase rapidly for no apparent reason,” he adds. “If you get an abnormally elevated reading, wait a few minutes and try to eliminate any distractions, then take it again.”

He adds, “Depending on level of fitness, its working heart rate could have a wide range.” A fit horse will return to its resting range faster than an unfit horse, and recovery depends on the type of exercise.

The endurance horse should be below 70 beats per minute within five to 10 minutes after stopping, according to Campfield.

“Because their heart rates are up in the high 100s, (racing) Thoroughbreds are going to take a good 20- to 30-minute cool-out before they are going to return to normal,” says Campfield. “And they are much like humans. The more fit they are, the more quickly they are going to recover. It’s funny to watch them come off the track. Some look like they are dying and others walk off the track looking around and ready to do it again.”

It’s important to help your horse cool down after a workout. Researchers performing a study on recovery after exercising divided horses into three groups: one group simply stopped exercising and had no cool-down; a second group cooled down with a slow trot, and the third cooled down with a fast trot. Those cooled down with a fast trot had quicker recoveries. Their temperatures, heart rates, respiratory rates, and blood lactate levels (levels of lactic acid, an indicator of the animal’s overall metabolic or acid/base status) decreased faster following the workout than those of the others, according to Fitzgerald.

One way to gauge whether an exercise is too much for your horse is to check his heart rate 10 minutes after you stop the activity, he suggests. “At 10 minutes after you stop, if its heart rate is still 80 to 100 beats per minute, that was probably a pretty challenging workout for that horse. It should be around 60 or less in 10 minutes.

Research shows that as a horse’s level of fitness or condition improves, he can do the same work at a lower heart rate.

Fitness is important for horses of all ages, even older horses, vets say, and the TPR for an older exercising horse will not differ much from a younger adult horse. “In terms of TPR, they are no different than another adult horse,” says Bertone, who au-thored the book Equine Geriatric Medicine and Surgery.

However, older horses often have lower resting heart rates than their younger counterparts, simply because they might not be as nervous when having their heart rate taken; this has nothing to do with fitness or athletic ability, and everything to do with being comfortable with the surroundings. “An easy theory to explain this is that older horses are more used to life,” Bertone says. “In general, if you have a horse older than 18, if it has been handled all its life, it loves its owners and it’s just looking for the next bucket of feed, it’s more comfortable with human behavior, and it knows there are no mountain lions around the corner. What changes is the brain and how older horses perceive the world around them. They are more comfortable with that world.”

But they need a longer warm-up and cool-down period to protect their joints, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. “An older horse is going to have some difficulties because of wear-and-tear injuries,” Bertone says. “Bring them along really slowly. You need to spend a lot of time working that horse into a routine.”

The optimum working heart rate of a horse is subjective. Fitzgerald explains, “The take-home message for owners if they choose to measure their horses’ TPR during and/or after exercise–and it wouldn’t be a bad idea–is they need to look at trends with their horse. Just taking his heart rate after a period of exercise one time is not going to give the owner much information. But if it is the same horse and you exercise the same way, and you take the heart rate each time, that might give you some information as to the horse’s level of fitness.”

Performing the Basics

Owners should have some basic equipment on the farm to assess these parameters, including a stethoscope and an equine thermometer, and they should have a clock or watch with a second hand available.

Campfield suggests owners ask the horse’s vet or veterinary technician how to perform these assessments correctly.

Lubricate the tip of the equine thermometer, move the horse’s tail out of the way, and insert the thermometer into the rectum while angling it slightly toward the ground. Leave it in for about three minutes for an accurate reading. Some people prefer digital thermometers because of the reduced risk for breakage and escape of mercury vapors and because the time for reading is less. But many vets prefer the accuracy of a glass thermometer, to which some people tie a brightly colored string around the end and clip it to the tail so they don’t have to hold it in place, and so it can be found if the horse defecates and it gets dropped in the stall. Remember to clean the thermometer before putting it away.

The best way to get the heart rate is with a stethoscope. On the horse’s left side, push the stethoscope right under the triceps, up under the elbow, directly on the ribs.

“If they haven’t listened to their horse’s chest before, it is kind of a slower lub-dub sound, and I think some people will double count those and end up with a heart rate of 78 when the horse’s heart rate is actually 36 or so,” Campfield describes. “Ask your veterinarian to show you how to do it.”

You also can detect the horse’s pulse in a couple of different arteries on the face, with the preferred location being the artery that runs beneath the bony ventral (front) portion of the mandible, just in front of the large masseter muscle. Your vet can help you find the pulse if you’re having trouble. Use your forefinger and press against the artery firmly enough that you can feel his pulse. Count the beats you feel for 15 seconds, then multiply the number of beats you counted by four to give you the horse’s heart rate.

Determine respiration rate by watching the rise and fall of the chest or the flare of the nostrils. Watch for one minute, counting each breath (one breath includes an inhale and an exhale).

It is also a good idea to listen to the horse’s gut sounds to assess gastrointestinal wellness, says Campfield. Place the stethoscope just behind the last rib. In this case, the absence of noise is a sign of worry. “Listening to gut sounds is another overall measure that helps in the big picture. If you don’t hear any sounds at all, that might be something seriously abnormal.” Once again, be familiar with your horse’s “norm” for gut sounds when he’s healthy, so that you have a baseline for comparison.

If you look at your horse’s gums, they should be a healthy pink color and they should be fairly moist. To detect capillary refill time, press on the gums with an index finger until the spot you’re pressing turns white, then remove your finger and count how long it takes the blanched area to become pink again. This should happen in less than three seconds in a normal horse. Again, be familiar with your horse’s normal gum color when he’s healthy. The capillary refill time indicates the amount/pressure of blood circulating to the body’s extremities. Factors that influence perfusion include cardiac output, blood pressure, hydration status, and metabolic status. A quick capillary refill time is desirable; owners should mostly be trying to detect a prolonged capillary refill time (anything more than three seconds), and leave it up to the veterinarian to interpret why it is prolonged. Examples of conditions that could cause prolonged capillary refill time include congestive heart failure and severe dehydration.

There are two ways to check for dehydration, but neither is as accurate as when the vet orders blood tests. Look at the gums; if they are dry, tacky and pale, the horse is probably dehydrated.

You can also assess hydration status using the pinch test. “Pinch a fold of skin over the neck or loose skin above the eye,” says Fitzgerald. “You are testing elasticity. As the horse gets dehydrated, its skin will lose elasticity. In a normal, hydrated horse, the skin will go back to normal pretty quickly after you pinch a fold. A dehydrated horse will take longer. It’s a pretty subjective measurement, though, and you need to pinch a lot of horses–especially your horse– before you know what is normal.”

A severely dehydrated horse’s heart rate is increased and his eyes appear sunken.

Take-Home Message

Knowing the basic health parameters of your healthy horse is important so that you’ll be able to better describe problems if and when they arise. If you have questions about any of these techniques, ask your vet to demonstrate.

Thank you Robin!!

If you’d like to donate, please contact Kathy Grant at 423-552-5988 or email mahr@mustangalley.org

Your tax deductible donation can help save many lives!

LET US MAKE YOUR DAY A SPECIAL DAY EVERYONE WILL REMEMBER!

Call 423-552-5988 for more information or email mahr@mustangalley.org

We saw lots of smiles!!!

Let Mustang Alley provide the main entertainment for your next outdoor event!

Call 423-552-5988 or email mahr@mustangalley.org  for pricing and more information.

ALL PROCEEDS TO GO MUSTANG ALLEY HORSE RESCUE, INC

We rehabilitate and train the rescue horses that come into Mustang Alley Horse Rescue, Inc, to become good, sociable, calm horses for the enjoyment and love for their new adoptive homes.  Please think about adopting a rescue horse….they deserve a second chance at life!

Even little Cowboys like to ride, too!

If you’d like to schedule a family or company event, call Kathy Grant at 423-552-5988 or email mahr@mustangalley.org

ALL PROCEEDS GO TO OUR RESCUE PROGRAM.

Maria, showing Eeyore the start of a new beginning!

Thank you, Maria…for giving Eeyore a loving, forever home!