adjustments to their nutrition, habitat, and health care as they get older in order to preserve their wellbeing as they approach their golden years.
With funding from Boehringer Ingelheim, Equine Guelph is providing a two-week online short course on caring for elderly horses to assist horse owners in managing the aging process in their animals.
Dr. Bettina Bobsien, the course’s instructor and a veterinarian from Vancouver Island, has collaborated on numerous animal welfare projects with Humane Canada and the BCSPCA. She serves as the Equestrian Canada Health and Welfare Committee chair, the CVMA Animal Welfare Committee chair, and the Canadian Veterinary Journal’s veterinary ethics editor.
Old age is not a sickness, according to Bobsien, and it should never be a justification for allowing health problems to persist when there are therapeutic alternatives that can enhance quality of life.
Horses may need unique adjustments to their nutrition, habitat, and health care as they get older in order to preserve their wellbeing as they approach their golden years. Participants in the course will gain knowledge about nutrition, fitness, lameness, and lameness thermoregulation. All of these subjects have undergone significant scientific advancements in the past century, but senior horse nutrition in particular.
Thoughts of breeding the following fantastic generation of offspring are frequently entertained after horses retire from their riding or competitive careers. Because of this, a unit of the course will cover often asked topics like Is it too late? Are they too old? Will I have to do action to increase my fertility?
An end-of-life plan has an inevitable chapter. Only one out of every eight horses, according to recent research from Advancing Equine Scientific Excellence (AESE), perish naturally. Creating a plan, however challenging, can help horse owners make an informed choice when the time comes and prevent adding to pain. A senior horse owner should prioritize assessing quality of life, and having a plan will make a very difficult decision slightly easier when the time comes.
