This message is from: "David McWethy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I happened into the annual gathering of the Friesian Horse Assn of North
America, which happened to be in Washington this year.
I was attracted for several reasons. One prominent one was a presentation
to be given by Dallas Goble, DVM, from the Univ of Tennessee, who has been a
consultant to Budweiser for 27 years, advising them on their horses. The
part of the presentation that interested me was trailer stress. It was
good.
Dr Goble said that the Bud trailers are on the road something like 1200
trailer-days per year, and that they track a lot of data. This makes them a
great source of reliable data. Bud wanted to know what would be the best
guidelines for trailering, and this is what they came up with:
For Day 1, they do not trailer more than 10 hours or over 500 miles.
Day 2, no more than 8 hours or 300 miles.
Day three, rest day.
Anything over 12 hours will cause stress problems.
Having trailered horses over 10,000 miles this year, I can see this would
make for slow process. I need to know a reason why. What he said was that
Bud could look back and see that when they switched to these guidelines,
which was less than they had done earlier, their occurrence of health
problems declined by 60%.
I guess the disclaimer at this point, is that his data is based on
Clydesdales. I don't know if that matters or if their data applies broadly.
I didn't write down the list of problems from trailering stress, but the
highest item was respiratory issues, which will appear 3-21 days after
trailering in 12-15% of horses. The list went down through infection.
Colic, founder. I might be missing something.
He said even shorter trailering experiences will cause changes in white cell
counts and cortisol levels. It takes the horse some time to recover from
this, and meanwhile immunity is compromised. Also common was inflamed
stomach mucosa (leading to ulcers?). This too takes a while for the horse
to return to normal.
Dr Goble says the Budweiser guideline on colic is that if the veterinarian
will not arrive within 20 minutes, Banamine should be given by handlers.
He affirmed what all of you know anyway, about feeding your same-old hay and
same-old water, so as not to ask your horse to have to adapt to new stuff in
the stomach. He advised to give the horse free access to feed and water 6
hours before trailering.
If I had heard all of this before transporting my horses cross country, I
might never have left home! My horses seem pretty much okay. They appear
to be eating normally, no evidence of infection. I have heard a small
amount of coughing, and see evidence of minor eye irritation. They were
happy to get off the trailer!
Hope this is useful.
Camptown Dave
