Managing Nutrition for Safe Growth in Young Horses - For any horse owner, the birth of a foal is always an eagerly awaited event. That baby, the product of the carefully planned mating of two superior parents, can elicit a range of emotions for the owner, including excitement and awe, but often anxiety and worry as well. One of the concerns the owner of a newborn foal may have involves the risk of the foal developing developmental orthopedic disease (DOD), which is a name applied to a group of conditions that can affect the growing foal, including physitis, acquired angular limb deformities, flexural deformities, cervical vertebral malformations, acquired vertebral deformities, and finally, osteochondrosis (OC).

The morning grass is glittering with light. Moisture drops in crystals from bushes and trembles in the trees. The air is still and cool. After an early lesson, I invite my dressage coach in for coffee and pull my riding boots. He removes his shoes and stands looking out the window. “Are those both stallions?” he asks.

Close Call - I staggered up to the house at 5:30 in the morning, kicking myself for being stupid. How could I have been so cocky as to breed horses for 20 years and not learn how to milk a mare properly? If the newborn colt didn’t get colostrum soon, I’d be rushing for the first ferry to get him and his mother to a vet clinic in the valley. But how was I going to load him into a trailer with Lucky, when she was terrified of him? My eyelids kept closing as I set the alarm for 7am and fell onto the bed, nursing the slim hope that when I woke I could find some local help. Ninety-five percent of foals are born safely, standing

Every spring, mare owners get excited about choosing a stallion for their mare, but many decisions need to be made before selecting the stud and breeding the mare. “Breeding is not for the faint of heart,” says Lisa Longtin. She owns Merrington Warmbloods in Kindersley, Saskatchewan and has been breeding warmblood horses for the dressage and hunter rings for 25 years. “When things go well, it’s great. But there are so many things that can go wrong.”