An Illustrated Guide To
Grooming Your Horse

Show and Tell

Good grooming starts with good maintenance. That means feeding them right, deworming them on schedule -- and never forget the dental maintenance either. All three of these precautions work together to keep your horse looking great and feeling wonderful. Generally, when your horse is misbehaving you can almost bet it means he is in pain. Since your horse can't talk our language it is up to us to observe, by his behavior if he is having problems.

For instance you might see a horse shaking his head up and down repeatedly, you might say he's doing it obnoxiously if you're wanting him to do something; I would suspect a problem. It might be ear mites making him irritable or maybe even dental problems. Lack of dental care can cause horses pure misery, as you can well imagine. A lot of times when you are riding a horse and you notice that he tends to cock his head to one side repeatedly or rejects going in one direction I would definitely suspect dental issues.

So, Good food, and vitamins if they need them, can help your horse feel good, and that makes them look better on the trail or in the show ring. Good food means providing a balanced diet. Age is a big factor in determining what a good diet is.. An older horse requires a lot more care. It needs to be more digestible. Your feed supplier tell you which products are best for your older equines.

For greater coat shine you can feed the horse liquid vitamins. Adding corn oil to the diet creates a beautiful shine to the hair coat too.

So as their teeth change and you notice a horse eating his hay and spits it out that means he can't process that food. Sometimes you might even see him spit out grass because it is too hard for him to process. When you see that happen you can tell that food that is more easily digested will benefit that horse. If they do manage to swallow the food it might well clog up their system. That's why the rations for older horses must be changed.

Deworming will keep the gloss on the coat shining. Not only is it imperative that your horses are dewormed for outside appearance but parasites can cause internal damage that could cost your horse his life. Elfie through her years of experience believes that it is best to rotate the different types of deworming medicine.

By rotating the different KINDS of dewormer reason is so the parasites don't become immune to the product. Also it is imperative that the horse. By being a cheap skate and giving your horse LESS than the suggested dosage some of those parasites might live to become adults that are immune to that medicine. They can cause major damage to your horse's system.

Dental inspections can turn up factors that make your horse irritable that you wouldn't ordinarily see. For example, horses can grow "wolf teeth" - or canine teeth - which can also interfere with the bit. This is a small, non-functional tooth in the upper jaw that can cause your horse great irritation when the bit is in place. Sometimes these teeth will also grow in the lower jaw. Wolf teeth seem to appear most commonly in stallions and geldings. However, mares have been known to get them too. Most vets will automatically remove the wolf teeth when gelding a stallion since he is already sedated anyway. The canine tooth can be cut or shortened by filing if the length becomes to long.

Equine dentists are very good at locating any dental issues and very capable of fixing the problems so you can have a happy horse once again.

Horses can also grow hooks on some of their back teeth. Hooks are actually growth portions of a tooth. These can keep the horse from chewing properly. That can result in poor condition or poor weight gain. This growth can grow up, or to the side. Growth in either direction can lead to ulcers, which can be very painful!

Anything that hurts your horse, hurts his appearance
and his attitude.

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