Horse Hoof Care

Healthy hooves are vital to your horse's overall health. Taking care of your horse's hooves is not just for the farrier - you need to regularly and frequently care for your horse's hooves to help keep them healthy.

Tip: What is the easiest and single most important thing you can do to care for your horse's hooves?...

Pick out your horse's feet! It's pretty basic and doesn't require a lot of time.


Pick out your horse's hooves. Picking out your horse's hooves does not take long and keeping them cleaned out will help you to stay ahead of any common hoof problems. When picking out hooves, check the condition of your horse's shoes and for thrush. Pick out your horse's hooves:

• before each ride
• when you bring your horse in at night
• before turning out to pasture

Visit Front Range Frenzy for more on hoof care...

Horse Posters and Art Prints

AllPosters

AllPosters is outstanding and they carry the widest selection and the most beautiful horse art prints that can be found anywhere. If AllPosters does not have it, then it probably does not exist.

So What Does It Mean to Float a Horse's Teeth?

I'm sure you've heard this a time or two (if you haven't, sooner or later you will from another horse owner or from your vet), and if you're like me, you imagined for the longest time what this could possibly mean and wondered what it involved.

To float a horse's teeth certainly sounds funny, too. Floating means to smooth or contour your horse's teeth with a file (called a "float"). Unlike your own teeth, your horse's teeth keep growing. At times, your horse's teeth may develop sharp edges, making it difficult for her to chew food, hold a bit, or simply have pain and discomfort inside her mouth.

Learn more about your horse and floating teeth...

Rain Rot

Equine rain rot is a common skin infection that can afflict horses. The fungal infection does not progress further than the skin or cause abscesses like other infections.

Rain rot requires the absence of oxygen to live and spread. When a horse catches rain rot he will develop a series of crusty scabs and/or matted/raised tufts of hair and when pulled off, will exhibit pink skin with some pus. Rain rot is contagious and is generally transmitted by shared horse tack (such as blankets), mutual rubbing posts such as a fence, etc.

For more information on rain rot, visit Front Range Frenzy.

Internal Parasites of the Horse

Internal parasites are a significant threat to the health of horses and can cause irreparable internal damage. Parasites are small organisms living a portion of their life cycle inside the horse. The parasites live in internal organs, body cavities, and tissues and feed on the host animal. There are more than 150 internal parasites, and the nature and extent of damage varies with the type of parasite.

Though there are many types of internal parasites that may infect a horse, only a few commonly cause significant health problems. The primary class of internal parasites causing health problems for horses is nematodes such as large and small strongyles, ascarids, and tapeworms. Lesser significant internal parasites, such as pinworms and botfly larvae, are also considered when implementing a parasite control program.

Learn more about the internal parasites of the horse at Front Range Frenzy.