Aransas County Commissioners, at their regular meeting Monday, Aug. 23, heard from five residents regarding stray bullets flying across their property in the southern reaches of Aransas County, outside the
Horsetalk.co.nz Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get that easy keeper?
A new owner-friendly horse scale to identify the easy keepers from the hard keepers has been developed by researchers at the University of Delaware.
Horses with different metabolic tendencies are anecdotally referred to as “easy” or “hard” keepers. Easy keepers tend to gain weight easily while hard keepers require extra feed to maintain condition. There is also a group sometimes referred to as medium keepers.
Both easy and hard keepers carry a managerial and financial burden which can be a dissuading factor for people shopping for a horse. For some owners, it may mean separating easy keepers from other horses to keep them on tighter rations, while hard keepers may require additional food rations.
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Are your foals outside full-time with their dams? Or do you keep your breeding stock indoors with occasional pasture access? The answers to these questions might have consequences on your foal’s digestive health, even on a microscopic level.
In a new study, young foals raised as members of a free-roaming herd had a vastly more varied hindgut microbiome than those raised in stalls with regular turnout. The results suggest that even in the first six weeks of life, when foals are still mostly nursing, management affects horses’ gut microbiota, said Meredith Tavenner, MSc, of the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at the University of Delaware, in Newark.