Preventing colic in horses requires supplying them with fresh water, allowing plenty of exercise throughout the day and offering nutritional feed and clean hay. Prevent the occurrence of colic in a horse with helpful advice from a veterinarian in this video on caring for horses.
Hi, I'm Dr. Joanna Robson. I'm a doctor of veterinarian medicine with Inspiritus Equine Incorporated. I'd like to give you a couple tips of colic prevention. Now, a couple of the main things that prevent colic in our horses have to do with basic husbandry. Ensure that your horse has access at all times to fresh water, particularly if you live in an area that gets cold with snow or ice during the wintertime, this may mean that you need to provide either a water heater or that you need to chip ice to make sure that they have access to water. Providing bran mashes or other soupy type mixes can also help your horse to get enough fluid and water intake in cold winter months. Second has to do with exercise. One of the worst things we've done to our horses is house them in small box stalls. Horses are designed to be moving constantly. If your horse doesn't live out on pasture, then it's imperative that they get regular daily exercise to allow their guts to move correctly and stimulate their circulatory systems, also encourages them to drink water because they've been athletic and exercising and they're thirsty. Thirdly, nutrition. Another problem that we do is we overfeed our horses high concentrated grains. They're actually designed to graze throughout the day, small amounts of feed. We've now made it for our horses that they eat two meals, breakfast, dinner, sometimes a lunch if they're lucky. They work very hard and then get high potent feeds. Being cognizant of the correct type of feed for your horse can also help you with colic prevention. Access to clean, fresh hay, pelleted feeds or cubes if they need it and also ensuring that they have proper dental care so that they can chew their feed correctly which also decreases the incidents of impaction colic. So colic prevention requires access to fresh hay and water at all times, regular exercise, an avoidance of high starchy feeds, especially if your horse is not a performance horse and doesn't need that kind of feed type.
Specialty: Vetrinary Medicine
