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Administrator on May 28th, 2008
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The following article is from MyHorse.com and is important info. Enjoy!
Horses with white hair and pink skin underneath, such as on a blaze or snip, are in danger of sunburn.
Sunlight has beneficial effects for horses, including the manufacture of vitamin D by the skin, relief of muscle and tendon stiffness or soreness and possibly even improved immunity.
But horses with pink-skinned areas may suffer sunburn if overexposed and could be at higher risk for equine skin cancer over the years.
Zinc-oxide cream, the white goop lifeguards use on horse’s noses, is one of the most effective sunscreens available. It’s safe for horses and helps heal any skin irritation or blistering. You can generally also use any sunscreen product on the market for people, such as those containing PABA, on your horse. However, some horses can have allergic/sensitivity reactions to these products or to fragrances in them.
Since the reactions themselves are also red and angry-looking, like a sunburn, if you respond to the reactions by putting even more sunscreen on the horse, you can end up with a severe reaction with open, oozing skin. Some sunscreen-sensitivity reactions, though, occur only after the horse has been exposed to the sun and are the result of a reaction between the sunscreen agent and the sun.
To test the horse for sensitivity, apply the product at night to a sensitive area like the back of one pastern, and check it in the morning. If there’s no redness or swelling, use the product during the day on only one pink-skinned area. If the spot with the sunscreen applied actually looks redder at the end of the day than the areas that didn’t have it, your horse is sensitive to that sunscreen. Don’t use it on him.
A particularly severe type of sun reaction is photosensitivity, where the skin becomes red, swollen, and cracks open. Crusts will develop, and loss of the skin can occur. These reactions can easily develop infections and are extremely painful. The reactions only occur in pink-skinned areas. When horses have the pink skin/white hair on their legs, photosensitivity reactions may be confused with scratches/”dew poisoning” or chigger infestations. Several drugs and plants can also cause photosensitivity.
Possible Photosensitizing Agents
The following ingredients or products can cause a photosensitivity reaction in your horse:
• Tetracycline antibiotics
• Sulfa antibiotics
• Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, especially ketoprofen
• Chlorpromazine tranquilizers
• St. John’s Wort
• Klamath weed
• Rape pasture
• Goat weed
• Spring parsley
• Alsike clover
• Buckwheat
Please take a few minutes and visit us at www.savvysportsaddle.com for a look at our Bob Marshall treeless saddles and Sensation Ride treeless saddles, as well as a wealth of other products for horse riders, horse owners, and horse lovers of all disciplines! Great equestrian products at great prices!
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Administrator on May 22nd, 2008
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Industry News
(5/22/2008)
Wall Street Detectives Inc. and Texas A&M University have teamed up to create the Equine CODIS system, which has the capability of identifying horses to an accuracy of 99.999999999999 percent and is now available. This proven low-cost tool of identification is based upon the same process as the FBI’s own CODIS crime laboratory. The CODIS system (Combined DNA Information Systems) enables crime-fighters nationally and internationally to compare DNA profiles and information electronically in an instant.
“We are on the cutting edge of technology now applied to the horse, enabling an Equine Identification Number (EIN) to track, trace and provide absolute identification,” said Raymond Sigler, President of Wall Street Detectives Inc. and developer Equine CODIS and the EDNA test. “The Horse can now have its own EIN number, [just as] all of our vehicles have a vehicle identification number, called a ‘VIN’. Ultimately I believe this testing will cause insurance premiums to fall, and will result in a distinct decline in horse theft and related fraud.”
Dr. Gus Cothran, who supervises the Equine CODIS program for Wall Street Detectives at Texas A&M recently stated, “The Equine CODIS system uses the identical technology as the FBI’s human version, testing the similar 13 genetic markers found in common with humans. The prevalent differences between the tests are CODIS uses only horse-specific markers and satellites.”
Recently, the US Department of Homeland Security approved a $5 million grant to fund a fourth year of product research and development at Texas A&M University’s National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense. Zoonotic diseases are any infectious disease communicable from animals to humans under natural conditions, but can be manufactured by man for other purposes. If an incident such as a natural or terrorist disaster occurs, horses could be easily traced, identified and tracked using Equine CODIS. Since horses don’t have fingerprints, DNA is the only absolutely accurate method for identification, as microchips, tattoos or branding can be altered, changed or manipulated easily.
For more information, visit www.equinecodis.com.
Please take a few minutes and visit us at www.savvysportsaddle.com for a look at our Bob Marshall treeless saddles and Sensation Ride treeless saddles, as well as a wealth of other products for horse riders, horse owners, and horse lovers of all disciplines! Great equestrian products at great prices!
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Administrator on May 21st, 2008
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Below is a blog from Bonnie Davis, who will be at the Western States Horse Expo in Sacramento, CA. Enjoy!
Stop by and say Howdy!
May 20, 2008
by Bonnie Davis
If you’re in the Sacramento, California, area June 6-8, be sure to stop by and say ‘howdy’!!! The Western States Horse Expo is that weekend and it will be their 10th year. And my 10th year talking about “Horsecamping.”
HorsExpo is held at the CalExpo Fair Grounds off Exposition Way and includes EVERY building, nook and nitch that can be found! It’s grown into the ‘Nation’s Finest Horse Expo’ and with over 700 vendors, acres of trailers, trucks and Expo Horse Sale — if you can’t find a horse, trailer or tack there it probably isn’t made!!
Daily at 1 p.m. I’ll be down at the Trail Symposium in the olive grove talking about camping. I’ll set up my trailer, put up highlines, build a ‘pretend’ fire (in some past years the temperature has been up in the 100’s so a ‘pretend’ fire was all one needed), set out California Certified Weed Free Feeds and in general get to talk about my favorite subject. Only problem I have is that the one hour usually isn’t enough time and I tend to be rather long winded when it comes to camping and trail riding. Start each day with how to get your horse ready to camp, what’s needed, where to go, the new environmental regulations but no matter how fast I talk, never manage to get it all in. Which is why everyday is different in content!
It’s really quite an honor for me to be there. This year’s clinicians include Chris Cox, Jonathan Field from Canada, Richard Shrake, Charles Wilhelm, Donna Snyder Smith and more…..quite a few more. (Go to website www.horsexpo.com for a complete schedule.)
I’ve meet a lot of people, made a lot of friends at HorsExpo. Have folks come up to me and say “I was at your first presentation!” Never thought that first year I’d be there for 9 more years!! How time flies when you’re having fun.
But the best part of being at HorsExpo or at any of the expos I go to is when people come up to me at the ‘camp’ or in Two Horse vendor booth and tell me, “I went camping for the first time. It was great. Wish I would have started years ago!” Other folks tell me, “You’re right. I don’t have to give up trail riding and camping just because I’m getting older” or “had a knee or hip replaced!” Those are the folks who will carry on the camping tradition and riding trails long after I’ve passed through that ‘gate’ and found my long gone trail horses — Sig, Bud, Flint, Sam.
So be sure to stop by and talk. If you’d like some Expo Bucks which are good for a $2 discount off daily or three-day tickets, send me your name and address and will send you a few. For you and your friends. You can e-mail me at horsecamping@comcast.net or call (510) 657-5239. Only requirement — you gotta stop and say ‘howdy’.
Stay safe…….
Bonnie
Please take a few minutes and visit us at www.savvysportsaddle.com for a look at our Bob Marshall treeless saddles and Sensation Ride treeless saddles, as well as a wealth of other products for horse riders, horse owners, and horse lovers of all disciplines! Great equestrian products at great prices!
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Administrator on May 15th, 2008
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Trail Ride & Dance to Benefit St. Jude Children’s Hospital
Outback Ranch Inc. of Houston, Minn. will be holding its 6th annual trail ride and dance benefiting St. Jude Children’s Hospital on June 13 & 14, 2008. Friday night, recording artist Heidi Newfield will be the headliner, with Geoff Landon & the Wolfpack opening at 7:30 p.m. There are a limited amount of tickets available for Friday night from $25-$30.
Saturday’s trail ride and walk-a-thon begin at 10 a.m. At 1 p.m., there will be a calf scramble and sawdust pile with prizes for the kids. Mike McAbe & Tim and the Floppy Cowboys will play in the beer and food tent Saturday. The afternoon and evening band lineup includes The Cheap Charlie Band, The Back Home Boys and Geoff Landon & the Wolfpack. There will be a $10 cover charge for Saturday’s entertainment, with all proceeds going to St. Jude.
Please take a few minutes and visit us at www.savvysportsaddle.com for a look at our Bob Marshall treeless saddles and Sensation Ride treeless saddles, as well as a wealth of other products for horse riders, horse owners, and horse lovers of all disciplines! Great equestrian products at great prices!
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Administrator on May 2nd, 2008
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Kentucky Equine Summit Reveals Findings
Industry News
(5/1/2008)
The first ever International Equine Summit was held this past week at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Lexington, Ky. The meetings drew speakers from every facet of the equine industry, attendees from a dozen states as well as several international participants.
The two-day event offered discussion on three different topic tracks. The new face of the American horse owner was revealed during the opening segment, “The Equine Economy in the 21st Century.”
Participants in the Summit found that the face of the average horse owner in the United States has changed in recent years, and that face now belongs to a middle-aged married woman, who likely has dogs, cats and children as well. That trend was identified by using tools such as demographics, data-mining, and marketing research.
Numerous other themes emerged from the Equine Economy sessions, which featured 15 speakers on four different panels. One recurring concern was that the equine industry is extremely fragmented, with very little communication or sharing of resources between groups, and a poor past performance record by all aspects of the industry of reaching out to and educating novices.
At the same time, no matter how diverse the groups, they all share the need to grow their segment of the industry, and face the same challenges of how to create new customers while cultivating the ones they already have.
“In terms of growth, a lot of times we think taller, bigger, better,” said John Long, CEO of the United State Equestrian Federation. “Another level we have to consider is horizontal. We have to learn to connect all the silos in the business. We have no central voice, and we don’t even have the ability to talk to each other. We share the same interests and concerns, but there’s no vehicle to connect us.”
The horse, in all its disciplines and uses, elicits an emotional response from both horsemen and those who admire it from afar. The challenge of channeling that response into an action, such as learning to ride, purchasing a horse, or attending the races, is something all speakers agreed was an issue that had to continue to be addressed.
Embracing the latest technology, to extend the reach of the equine industry, is in use by most of the panelists. John Volk, senior consultant with Brakke Consulting in Chicago, said his company’s marketing survey gave his clients more information than they’d ever had before.
“Our Equine Megamarket Study was designed for commercial planning for our clients,” he said. “We found that horse owners are more involved in their vocation than just about any other group. They read equine publications, they use the web, and they are impulse buyers. We’ve found that horsemanship defines horse owners. It’s very much a lifestyle.”
Tim Capps of the University of Louisville moderated the sessions and summed it up well. “The equine industry is still new to marketing, and technology is changing the horse world,” he said. “We’re trying to connect with our customers, and connect customers with the horse. We have to reshape our mindset—we’re all marketers and ambassadors—we all have to reach out.”
Topics of other sessions included The Wellbeing of the Competitive Horse and The Emerging Science of Horse Breeding. The Summit was sponsored by the University of Louisville’s Equine Industry Program in cooperation with the University of Kentucky’s Equine Initiative.
Please take a few minutes and visit us at www.savvysportsaddle.com for a look at our Bob Marshall treeless saddles and Sensation Ride treeless saddles, as well as a wealth of other products for horse riders, horse owners, and horse lovers of all disciplines! Great equestrian products at great prices!