Transcript:

[0:03]

This is a video or video podcast that every horse owner — or even if you own any animal — you should probably watch. This is that important, and it surrounds the issue of animal welfare.

[0:14]

Now, through my career in academia and working with horse owners around the world, animal welfare is one of these major issues that we all need to be aware of, and we all need to improve on. I think, as you’re going to hear in this video, I’m going to talk about instances where I’ve made mistakes and animals weren’t in the best of care that day — until I made a correction and realized it. I’m going to tell that story in a little bit, but starting this one off…

[1:01]

Going back to an early part of my career, I had just finished my PhD at Texas A&M, and I was hired as an assistant professor at Clemson University. I was the state equine specialist. South Carolina — a little less than 100,000 horses — and I was one of the experts there for the owners to turn to for advice and for any questions they might have. So I was young, energetic, excited to get out there, and I really enjoyed my time there. I met some wonderful people up and down the state — beautiful part of the country in the United States.

[1:40]

Well, there was one morning I was sitting in my office — and back in the day we had telephone lines. Some of you may have seen them in movies and may have never actually used a real, old telephone — but I was sitting there, and my phone rang. I was used to getting phone calls: questions about weeds or, as always, nutrition, it seemed like. This particular gentleman, I could hear, was almost weeping on the phone. I said hello, and I don’t remember his name — could have been something like Bobby — and he said, “You know, Dr. Mortson, help me. They’re taking my babies away from me.”

[2:28]

I was like, “Okay, can you just explain to me the situation? What is going on?” I was taken aback a little bit, because I was used to getting phone calls — especially about 10 or 15 years ago, going through a drought — and people were asking me, “Where can I find hay?” or “My pastures are really suffering, what can I do?” And this one just came out of nowhere.

[2:56]

I asked him to explain the situation, and he said he had three horses and he kept them in a paddock — he said pasture — and, “I’m doing my best, I feed them every day, I love them.” I took down his name and number and said, “I’ll find out what’s going on and I’ll get back to you.”

[3:22]

So I, in turn, called my friend who worked for the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, and she said, “Chris, these horses are in terrible condition — body condition score of two, maybe three, one of them.” So that’s a skeletal horse — not much condition, not much muscling, really no fat on them at all — something you don’t ever want to see. I said, “I understand, he called me.” And she said, “Yes, we’d spoken to him previously, and he said he would start feeding them more, but what he was feeding them is inadequate, and we have to confiscate his animals.”

[4:02]

And wherever you live in the world with animal welfare laws, confiscating horses is a big deal. It’s not something they take lightly — especially in the state of South Carolina in the United States.

[4:21]

What I did — and I’ll finish the story at the end of the podcast, not to leave you hanging — is I called him, and I spoke to him at great lengths, talking about how to properly care for his animals. And when I look back on that situation, it wasn’t willful negligence. He wasn’t causing the animals to suffer — he just didn’t understand that he wasn’t meeting their welfare needs. He needed some intense education, which sometimes you can’t just get online or from reading an article.

[5:01]

So that’s really the focus of this video podcast. When you think of your animals, or when you think of your horses, I really want you to think about this question — and ponder it after the video, or pause the video, or when you’re walking around your barn today, tomorrow, or whenever you go — what do you consider a life worth living for a horse?

[5:28]

That is the philosophical debate that has launched our modern animal welfare guidelines and laws around the world. So when you look at your horse, is their life worth living?

[5:54]

To go back on one of the worst examples I had — obviously, when a horse is starving or kept in really terrible conditions, no, that is not a life worth living. We need to up our welfare, and that is really the purpose of this. We’re going to talk about not just the history of animal welfare — because I think that’s important to show you how we’ve gotten to where we are today — but also, where are our standards, so that when you apply them, the horse does have a life worth living.

[6:25]

Because that’s what this “M… about Horse” podcast is about. That is what I’m about. That is my passion — since I was a young boy — to fight for animals to have lives worth living. Whether it was in veterinary medicine, whether it was my focused research to ensure horses were healthier and happier, my behavioral research to notice anything abnormal that we could fix — so again, we provide them with the best welfare.

[7:04]

It’s your moral responsibility as a horse owner to provide your animals with the best life you can give them. And I see it all the time — and I’m going to talk about some stuff today, and I don’t mean to trigger anybody or make anybody feel bad. I have interacted with thousands of horse owners, I’ve educated tens of thousands of students through online courses or in-person courses, and I can honestly tell you I think every single one I’ve ever interacted with always wants what’s best for their animal. Sometimes it’s just not understanding — like that gentleman in South Carolina — he just didn’t know. He didn’t have the life experience or the knowledge to go, “Oh wow, okay, yeah, it’s the heat of summer, there is no grass in this paddock, it was a dry lot, and the little bits of hay I was giving them was not enough.”

[7:59]

And once you can talk to him — and they had plenty of water, by the way, it wasn’t like he was trying to kill them — it was just, “Hey, you need to feed them. Hey, you need to provide them with shelter. Hey, you need to deworm them and make sure their health is optimum.” So these are the things we’re going to talk about, because it’s not only a moral imperative, it’s a legal requirement — again, depending on where you live.

[8:20]

Here in New Zealand, we have very strict welfare laws. When I lived in the United States my whole career — strict welfare laws, people just weren’t aware of them. Europe, Asia — wherever you go — there are welfare laws, and they’re becoming more and more common across all the countries in the world to ensure these animals are living a life worth living.

[8:50]

When we look at the history — and I know in these podcasts I do, I love the history, because I think it’s important to know where we’ve been and where we’re going, and especially when I talk about the history of the horse — the horse deserves everything. They are our one companion in the world that has done more for us, not just in our own evolution. I was out yesterday working with them — it doesn’t take much to get a horse to do what you ask of them. Obviously, it takes some training, but for most horses, they’re willing. They’re willing to go with us, they’re willing to walk with us. You know, they can’t see four feet in front of their face, but yesterday, petting them on the nose — they trust us, and they give everything to us.

[9:47]

So, looking at welfare through the millennia and the centuries, I think, can give you some insight into where we are today and why, today, I would argue horses have the best life they’ve ever had. If we go back in history, even 60, 70, 80 years ago, horses were still charging across the battlefields of Europe at the outbreak of World War II, World War I — just horrific, how many horses died in those conflicts. And then going back through human history — so, they deserve it.

[10:27]

But the question is, is animal welfare a modern concern? Is this something we’ve just come up with in the last few decades, or has this been something that’s been discussed for 200 years, 500 years — I dare say 2,000 years? If you go back to the earliest times — if you can imagine in your head when horses were first domesticated, so roughly 5,500 years ago in Central Asia — and your tribe or group of peoples has been able to domesticate these animals, breed them for a few generations, and you have an animal that you can ride and care for… how much welfare do you think they gave them?

[11:19]

You know, we may think, “Oh, they treated them like dirt.” But flip that on its head — these are prized possessions. It is something very special. Even today, when you’re around horses — and I think anybody that works with horses — you realize how special it is when you form that companionship, that tight bond.

[11:45]

So, we don’t have anything written 4,000 years ago on the welfare of horses or even how they kept horses. We do have archaeological evidence they were kept in some sort of paddocks or pastures, things like that. The point being, I could probably hedge my bets and say horses were probably pretty well cared for 4,000 years ago. They probably didn’t have the lifespans that we see today because our welfare is so much better — our understanding of nutrition is so much better, our understanding of their health and veterinary medicine is so much better. But 4,000 years ago, you can bet they were feeding them, they were watering them, they were ensuring they were getting exercise. Because if you didn’t take care of them, they would break down and die — or you couldn’t ride them. And what use is that? Again, a prized possession.

[12:40]

So, if we accelerate a couple thousand years — again, this long, long timeframe — let’s just go to ancient Rome. People have probably seen the movie *Gladiator* — there’s another one coming out soon, *Gladiator II*. You go into this metropolis of a million, a hustle-bustle city. Imagine you’re a merchant man or woman, right? Your family business, and you have a horse that pulls a cart from Rome to the port city of Ostia — it’s the closest port to Rome — and you are making pottery that you’re exporting to Egypt. And Egypt comes back with grain, or goods, or fabrics, or anything that you were making in Rome.

[13:36]

And that horse and that cart — you would pull it, unload your wares, maybe do some trading, then come back to Rome. How do you think they treated those animals? Your entire livelihood depends on that horse being able to pull that cart. Not everybody had horses — like, say, 150 or 200 years ago, where that was the major mode of transportation. Most everybody that had some money had some sort of horse or working animal with them.

[14:10]

So back 2,000 years ago, they cared for their horses really well. There is evidence of them treating colic and other disorders that we have today, and they were really doing their best to care for them.

[14:29]

So, when we go back and look at these ancient civilizations and their animal welfare, some of it was religious-based. Just as an example, in Egypt, they glorified cats — and I know some people watching this video love your cats. I mean, we love them. They actually mummified their cats in ancient Egypt and put them in their tombs with them, because they believed the cats would be with them in the afterlife. I mean, they treated cats really, really well — so animal welfare for cats was super high.

[15:04]

When you look specifically at horses, or their view of animals, the writings we have are from the ancient Greeks — and they do talk a lot about the importance of caring for your horses, caring for your animals. You had a moral obligation. So this is over 2,500 years ago — you had an early civilization like Greece saying, “Hey, we need to care for these animals.” And Pythagoras, 2,200 years ago, was one of the world’s first vegetarians — that was written down. I’m sure there were other places, like India and other religions, but in the written histories — especially in Western civilization — he was a vegetarian because he saw animals as spiritual beings. He thought they had souls, and that they are immortal, they get reincarnated — all these different spiritual beliefs — but also saying, and challenging the thoughts of the day, that we really need to respect these nonhuman animals.

[16:23]

They called them subhuman, but they still understood that these animals needed some sort of welfare, some sort of moral protection against just animal abuse or mistreatment. Horses, for hundreds — for thousands — of years, have been well cared for.

[16:49]

But when did it really change? When did it really become such a thing as it is today? It was in the early 1800s — and this was surprising to me when I did some of the research on this topic — with the formation of the SPCA. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in England in 1824. So 200 years ago, as I’m recording this, the SPCA was founded.

[17:31]

We see the SPCA in the United States, here in this part of the world, in Europe — and it all was due to carriage horses and the treatment of carriage horses. Some carriage drivers were abusing their animals — they weren’t feeding them properly, they weren’t watering properly, they were beating on them — and so, in England, it was organized into this organization to stop this and push legislation, and push people to treat their animals better.

[18:01]

This discussion has been going on for a couple hundred years, at least. Now, to get into animal welfare — what it means, and what it means to you — I want to do a thought experiment real quick. Again, not to trigger anybody, but I’m going to say a couple of concepts, and just — what’s your gut reaction? How do you feel about it?

[18:29]

When I say “animal rights,” how does that make you feel? Different definitions, but here’s one: animal rights advocates believe that nonhuman animals should be free to live as they wish without being used, exploited, or otherwise interfered with by humans. So, that would — if you’re a horse person — mean you can’t ride your horse. To an extreme, you shouldn’t own pets.

[19:15]

The reason I’m doing this is because the next concept I want you to think of — because they are two separate concepts, and that’s where I think some people, especially in the livestock industry or even farmers I’ve worked with and talked with about animal welfare — they get angry. I’m like, “No, you don’t understand — this isn’t an animal rights issue, this is an animal welfare issue.”

[19:39]

So, what does “animal welfare” make you feel? In a very good paper — *The Canadian Veterinary Journal*, 20 years ago, actually — “What is Animal Welfare? Common Definitions and Their Practical Consequences” — because again, we’ve been talking about this for a few decades — in the paper it said: “Thus, the most widely accepted definition of animal welfare is that it comprises the state of the animal’s body and mind, and the extent to which its nature — which its genetic traits manifest in breed and temperament — is satisfied.”

[20:19]

So, there are two separate concepts. Animal welfare is really about how we care for them. Just bear with me — we’re going to get to the standards, the gold standards, today.

[20:42]

But I want to tell you a quick story and give you a broad view of the world and animal welfare around the world. I recently took a trip to the island of Vanuatu — very, very lucky, blessed to be able to visit there. Wonderful people, beautiful country — like wow, I can’t believe I went there in the South Pacific.

[21:01]

On that trip, my partner — my wife — really wanted to ride horses on the beach. And I was very interested; I wanted to see these island horses. Again, I’ve been very lucky to travel around the world to different countries — I definitely want to see more of the world — and I’ve seen horses in some not-so-ideal conditions. Now, again, in my backyard when I was in South Carolina, when I lived in Florida, Texas, California — I’ve seen horses not in the best of condition.

[21:33]

But going to a nation that’s not as rich as, say, the United States or places like Canada and Europe and others, I was a little hesitant. I was like, I’m not going to get on the back of a horse if I think that horse is malnourished, thin, small — because I’m a big person, very tall — and not cared for. That’s my moral compass. There’s no way I would get on a horse like that.

[21:58]

I’ve been on a lot of trail horses through my career, and I’ve been able to see them and I know how they behave. They just… you know, they follow in the line, they do this day in and day out. I’m going to tell you — when I got there, these horses were in pristine condition. Not perfect, but near perfect. The equipment was a little dated — that was fine. These horses had good body cover — so, good body condition. Their hooves looked great. I watched for a while — very few horses were agitated by each other, they didn’t appear stressed. It was hot, so they were all under trees. The ride was not strenuous; it was a short 45-minute ride around the island and on the beach. At the end of it, we were able to take our horses into the water — hand-lead them into the water so they could cool off a little bit. Even though it was like bath water, it was still cooling off a little bit.

[22:54]

Then I talked to the workers there — horses are fed a grain concentrate that they could get in there, they were given free access to all the pasture they wanted, had some supplemental hay. And when we left, they said they open up the paddocks and let the horses roam on the beach, so the horses can go in the water if they want, get out. They had plenty of water. They just looked in great condition.

[23:25]

So what that said to me was, wherever you are in the world, animal welfare is a concern. And Vanuatu — and probably other Caribbean islands I’ve been to — and I’m sure many of you have seen it, where horses are loved and cared for. So that was very heartening, and I was glad to be there, and pet their animals, and be with them.

[23:47]

Now, the modern animal welfare standards and guidelines — really, in the 20th century, animal welfare becomes a science, not just a moral or philosophical discussion like the ancient Greeks or in Roman times or even in the Middle Ages. This was a time when science was propelled after World War II. I’ve talked about this in other podcasts — one of the things was evaluating stress. Anytime I see that, I get interested because that was part of my PhD work — looking at stress in mares and trying to reduce it. That’s just something we don’t want.

[24:38]

So, a little bit in the 1800s, but in the 1900s and then after World War II — 1950s, 1960s — the foundation of equitation science, or equine science, and then just animal science — our understanding of biology and how animals react with their environments — has increased greatly. And ethology, ethics, and then neuroscience was becoming more of a standard discipline.

[25:16]

This led to the development of the foundation of the Five Freedom model of animal welfare, that has morphed into — now, today in 2024 — the Five Domains. This is the bread and butter of this podcast, this video, on what you really need to understand, because you need to apply these principles for your horses.

[25:40]

The Five Freedoms was developed in the UK in the 1950s and the 60s — it was only formalized in the 1970s. But I think if we listen to what the Five Freedoms are, you could agree that, yeah, this makes sense — this makes sense for every animal that’s under human care. The Five Freedoms are: freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury, and disease; freedom to express normal behavior; and freedom from fear and distress.

[26:24]

These concepts have morphed in just the last 20–40 years. This is applied across zoos — I’ve worked with zoos around the world, many friends that work in the zoo industry. When you look at how zoos have changed in the last 20, 30, 40 years of my lifetime, a lot of this is because of their animal care. Good zoos — certified zoos, not sideshow zoos, but I’m talking about the big ones: San Diego Zoo, Cincinnati Zoo, Berlin Zoo, London Zoo, Auckland Zoo — the Five Domains is how they operate. They’re always worried about animals with that.

[27:12]

What really pushed the Five Freedoms more into the Domains — that I’m going to mention here in a second — is the recognition that animals are sentient beings. Now, that may trigger some people. They go, “What? What is a sentient being? What do you mean?” Because we can’t anthropomorphize — they’re not human, right? Even human-like primates, like chimpanzees — very intelligent; dolphins — very intelligent. But then there’s that scale, right?

[27:44]

But sentient — and just to quote — sentience is the ability to feel a range of emotions and feelings such as pleasure, pain, joy, and fear. Some animals even experience complex emotions such as grief and empathy. Animals are sentient beings, and that means their feelings matter.

[28:05]

I’m currently in New Zealand. In 2015, New Zealand recognized animals are sentient — so that is why we have some very strict animal welfare laws, and things are always changing here. I go back to — I forgot which podcast it was — but I asked my class, 10 years ago roughly, in an animal ethics class, “Do animals have feelings?” Over 50% of the students laughed — like it was some absurd comment, like, “What? No, they don’t have feelings.”

[28:43]

And it was a teaching moment for me to educate them. I gave them some examples. So, for horses — what’s a whinny? When a horse whinnies, why? Why are they whinnying? Is it just some random vocalization, or are they feeling something and they vocalize? Like, “Hey buddy way over there — you’re walking away from me” — could be stress. Or, “Hey, you’re coming towards me” — excitement. How about a nicker between a mare and a foal? I saw it yesterday — isn’t that bonding? It’s not a whinny, it’s not a scream, it’s not some random vocalization. It is a feeling of closeness and bonding between mother and child — mare and foal.

[29:36]

What happens when a horse pins their ears back? What does that mean? They’re happy? They’re angry, right? That’s an emotion — that’s emotions. So obviously, yes, of course animals have emotions. They do. Now, are they human, complex-thinking machines? No, no — not yet. I mean, we’re not even as intelligent as we can be. I guarantee you humans are going to be so different in a thousand years. But they still have thought processes, they still display fear, they still display love, they still display affection.

[30:14]

And then, when you talk about more complex animals like elephants, who mourn their dead — we know they mourn their dead. They don’t just walk across random elephant bones — they may sniff them for a while and walk off. Scientists have observed the old matriarch — because it’s a matriarchal society — has died, and the herd will divert every year and go by those bones, pick them up in their trunks, taste them, smell them, and they’ll mourn for hours, paying their respects. Then they’ll walk back off. Scientists have observed this. So yeah — sentience.

[31:01]

So that has pushed the Five Freedoms — which is a great start, compared to really no animal welfare laws before the 1970s, 60s, 50s — to now the Five Domains. And what does this mean to you as a horse owner? So, the Five Domains are: nutrition, physical environment, health, behavioral interactions, and mental state. This was created by Mellor and Reid — Drs. Mellor and Reid — here in New Zealand, back in 1994. Now, these are the recognized gold standard today of animal welfare. The mental state — that fifth one — is always overriding the previous four.

[31:49]

So I’m going to go through each one, talk about what that means to you as a horse owner, and then we’ll tie all this up. Now, I opened up this podcast talking about Jimmy down in South Carolina — downstate from me — who had some ribby, thin horses. I’ve seen it in other places.

[32:09]

So we talk about nutrition as one of the domains. This is one I’ve accidentally — not so much me, my university when I was working there — every day. And it wasn’t done purposefully, but we did violate Domain One. It was in Central California, which in the summers — anybody that lives there, has been there — it’s brutally hot. 110 degrees — that’s like 38, 39°C, maybe 40°C — and it’s a dry heat, but it’s still hot. So horses need plenty of shade.

[33:01]

But we had these — not stalls — we had these paddocks for outside mares that were off to the side. So we had a herd of mares for breeding, and then we always brought in outside mares. We had this mare and foal in, and we had those automatic waterers along the fence line — which work great when they work great. But this one didn’t. This was the older model where the horse had to learn how to push the tongue — it’s like this half-moon shape, and behind it is the tongue, and the horse had to push it to get more water. Well, this mare didn’t understand that. She flipped it up — they’re very tactile with their lips — she picked it up, lifted it to get out whatever little bit of water was left. So she had pretty much not had water all day — nursing mare, mind you.

[33:46]

I still feel horrible to this day about this. Later that evening, during feeding, we noticed she had no water. We flipped it back, you know, pushed water, and she immediately went over there and drank. But we violated freedom from thirst, or nutrition — the domain of nutrition. We were feeding her fine, but water is a critical, critical element, and that mare probably suffered a little bit that day. It’s awful. But what we did — we recognized it and we corrected it. So not only did we try to show her how to do the water, but we brought in a big container — a big tub — and filled it up with water every day so she could drink out of there as an emergency. Then we showed her how to get fresh water. It was an important lesson for me, especially early in my career, to understand that your automatic waterers — you need to check them twice a day.

[34:36]

Now, for horse owners, nutrition is the cornerstone of equine management. That is the most critical thing. I talk about it all the time — most of the research you see being produced today for equids is surrounding nutrition, because it’s really critical to their health, and it’s really critical to their ability to perform and do the things we ask them to do. And it’s important to longevity in their life. So the idea, from a welfare standpoint, is that the horses are fed properly, have free access to water, and their nutrition is optimum for them, their health, their genetics.

[35:26]

I think most of us ensure horses have enough water to drink, eat enough food, feed them enough, keep them in proper body condition. Their diets are balanced — so if they’re on a hay diet, they might need some supplements. I would say almost every horse needs some sort of supplement, because forage is deficient in something — always is. Eats a variety of foods — and in correct quantity. So we’re not feeding them once a day. I know a lot of us can only feed twice a day, but ideally — the top standard — you feed them four or five times a day, which not all people can do.

[36:05]

Now, where mental state — remember, that’s the fifth — so nutrition’s one, mental state’s over all of these. The mental state of nutrition: horses have enough water to drink to quench their thirst, they don’t suffer any hunger — unless it’s medically, you know, veterinarians will say withhold water or withhold food, especially like with colic. Always listen to your veterinarian. But in general, day-to-day operations, you want to make sure they’re freedom from hunger, they’re freedom from thirst, and they don’t suffer gastrointestinal discomfort. So we could even push it a little bit and say — how you manage them to try to reduce incidents of colic, because that’s the number one killer of horses under 20. But in general, make sure you’re feeding them properly and they have plenty of water. That covers that domain.

[37:03]

Now, environment is the next big concern for horse owners. Because yeah, we want to feed them — but now, where do we house them? These are large animals — we can’t put them in our backyards unless we own lots of land. We can’t put them in our homes — generally. Some people do. But housing for horses — so, to kind of think about it in your head, what does a horse really need to be happy? Okay — because that mental state’s important — but when you think about it in environment, what does a horse need?

[37:47]

We’re thinking about housing a horse — pasture? Sure. They live on the plains in the wild — that’s their natural state. What about in that pasture? If you’re thinking of ideal conditions — because stalling is not usually ideal for the horse. It’s ideal for us, because we want to train and compete with them, but that’s where turnout time is really critical as part of their environment. They need turnout time, or if they’re kept in paddocks, they have enough room to exercise a little bit.

[38:19]

But let’s just say pasture — ideal — what would they need out there? Obviously access to water. They have plenty of grass to eat — because that keeps them busy, right? Mental health — that mental state and environment. What about shade or shelter? Whenever I talk about this, I’ve seen horses — and everybody listening or watching this video has probably seen horses — in the heat of the day, they’re out grazing. The sun’s on their back, in the heat of Florida, in the heat of South Carolina, in the heat of Texas. I’ve seen a lot of horses just graze throughout the day.

[39:02]

But I remember one mare — whenever we brought her up for breeding and working on her and doing things — every time we ran them back to the pasture, this mare went straight for the shade. She went straight for the big shade we had, in the heat of the day in Texas in the summer, where it’s brutally hot, brutally humid — and she would just sit under there to cool off and get out of the sun. And she couldn’t sweat as well — had some anhidrosis going on — that’s a condition where horses can’t sweat so well. But her environment — she needed shade, right? So, in the heat of summer, you should provide horses with some shade. Or in the cold of winter, they should have some sort of shelter from the winds, from the cold.

[39:47]

So when you think about it — yeah, what does a horse need? But how do we again get to that mental state where it’s optimum for the animal? One of the things I talked about in the “Day in the Life of a Horse” podcast — and if you haven’t listened to that, it’s about how they spend their days, what horses should be doing all day — in there, I talked about a study out of Tunisia where it was looking at mares tightly packed in paddocks. Very, very tightly packed. It was one of the worst situations I could think of for holding horses. There was a lot of stress behaviors, not much eating, horses were fighting — it just… it was awful. Reading that study, you understood they were doing it to say, “Hey, your situation is awful. Change it, please.”

[40:38]

But that is definitely violating the second tenet of the Five Domain Model — environment. So one of the things you want to think about is, when Mellor — we go back to Mellor and Reid in these five domains — “thermally tolerable.” So again, shade or shelter if it’s hot, shelter if it’s cold. They have enough substrate — so if you’re stalled, obviously you feed them lots of hay.

[41:05]

And then that brings me to health. Health is a major responsibility for every horse owner — not just morally, but legally, depending on where you live in the world. And it can be expensive. Just yesterday, I was talking to a horse owner — Haley — she’s wonderful, just loves her horses. We were laughing, and she was showing me her babies and talking about her mares and her facility. She was talking about how her husband supports her “crazy hobby” — and I laughed, and I’m like, “I know that feeling — for me, supporting my crazy hobbies.”

[41:43]

We got talking about vet bills and veterinary medicine, and how things are changing. She said, “I lose money on my horses every year. I’m spending tons to keep them because I love them.” We were talking about a mare that had colic and how it cost her so much money — and how she altered her feeding schedule and changed her management, because she’d never had colic before. She’s had horses for 20–30 years, but she understood caring for the health of her animals was a priority.

[42:17]

I’ve met so many horse owners — you watching — it is. We just… we pay our veterinarians to care for these animals as much as we can. In my “How Much Equestrians Spend” podcast, I talk about vet care. There’s the day-to-day care — the yearly vaccines and things that you need to do — but one of the things I mention is equine insurance. Look into that, so when something catastrophic does come along, it doesn’t bankrupt you. Just a piece of advice I always give.

[42:51]

When it comes to health, animals are free from disease, free from injury — or if they do have any injuries or diseases, they are treated. They’re functional, and you’re just very careful to maintain it. They need to be dewormed — check for parasites, and if they have parasites, then you deworm them. Make sure they’re getting their vaccinations so they don’t get things like tetanus — which can be really bad. Depending on where you live in the world — rabies, especially in the United States. West Nile virus is a big one in the United States and other parts of the world. So you want to make sure you check with your veterinarian and get your horses checked. Teeth — see an equine dentist or talk to your veterinarian about that. Overall health — and obviously hoof health is a big one. Make sure you’re working with your farrier, getting those feet trimmed, or if you’re trimming them, you know how to do it properly.

[43:49]

Then again, that mental state — if you could imagine with health — just us, if we have an injury, how do we feel mentally? If we’re sick, how do we feel? We feel awful. Our mental state’s awful. So you can only imagine how the horse feels when their health isn’t optimum. That’s where that fifth domain — the mental state — comes in with health.

[44:17]

And then the final one is behavior. This is just allowing a horse to act like a horse. It’s important to understand how they do, and then it’s also important to understand how they don’t act normally. Those abnormal behaviors — and this is an upcoming podcast because it’s such a key issue — things like cribbing, stall weaving, wood chewing, pacing, aggression toward you or other horses, abnormal aggression. These are all abnormal behaviors that are probably due to their welfare.

[44:58]

We know horses pick up cribbing when they’re bored, or they start chewing wood, or they do these things because they’ve been stalled too long, or they’re upset, they’re angry, they’re trying to get that aggression out somehow. We see it in stereotypic behaviors, and we’re going to talk about those soon. That is a welfare issue when you see it, and then trying to cure it. I know cribbing is a brutally hard one — I’ve seen study after study on how to stop a horse from cribbing. I’ve dealt with a couple cribbers — it’s one of those addictions that is very tough to break. Maybe I’ll talk about that in a future podcast.

[45:37]

In the day-to-day life of a horse — not only allowing them to act like a horse, but getting that exercise, observing them day-to-day — that’s why every horse owner, or let’s say you board your horses somewhere, at least somebody is getting eyes on that animal once or twice a day. I’d say twice a day — morning and evening — at least to make sure your animal’s healthy and happy. Because things like colic, you want to pick up early so they can get treatment early.

[46:01]

Again, just yesterday, touring that facility near me with Haley — oh, her horses were just… it was so great watching her horses rub in the dirt. Flies are really bad this summer here, but they were relaxed. Relaxed with each other, foals running with moms, the foals looked bright and sprightly, moms were in great condition. They were just horses — horses acting like horses. It was beautiful to see. And that’s what you want to see. It’s the lethargic, the sad, the injured — those are the horses that are a welfare concern.

[46:47]

When a horse can’t act like a horse, or they’re in a very stressful situation, that’s where you start to see some of these stereotypies develop. Or boredom — they’re just bored. And again, that mental state.

[47:08]

So the Five Domains again — nutrition, environment, health, behavior, and the mental state. Those are the five keys in animal welfare. Those are the five keys — or the five golden rules. You can go to the Five Freedoms, because the Freedoms help guide you into the Domains, but that is where the gold standard is today.

[47:32]

If you are struggling — like Jimmy was — and you have experts around you, or your veterinarians, or people you trust to give you good advice, talk to them. If you’re looking for assistance with nutrition — that is a very hard one — I would urge you: go to madbarn.com, top right, “Analyze Diet,” click it. It’s free. Have our experts analyze your diet, get back to you, and say, “Hey, your diet looks great, you’re doing everything right,” or “Hey, you’re probably missing some stuff,” or “Hey, maybe add a little bit more hay.” Talk to the experts — that’s PhDs and veterinary nutritionists — so you’re talking to the experts in the world.

[48:22]

When it comes to environment — if you have any concerns about where you’re keeping your horse, seek help, seek advice. If you’re stalling them somewhere and things don’t look quite right to you, talk to the barn manager. Maybe ask questions, and seek some outside advice if you need to.

[48:49]

To finish this story with Jimmy — he did get his horses back, but it was a few months later. The horses went to a rescue where they were fed and able to put on some condition. The last I heard, he was able to get his horses back. It was a very difficult lesson for him, and they were monitoring him. Then I ended up moving out of state, going down to the University of Florida. But it was a moment in my career where I was faced with an ethical dilemma — where I didn’t know if… I don’t know if you should own horses. But he was very sincere, and he was in tears. The empath in me was, “Alright, let’s try to do some education.”

[49:33]

I sent him a bunch of information, sat down on the phone — never met him face to face — but sat down over the phone, talked to him, developed a feeding plan, a management plan, had a veterinarian involved, and he was able to get his animals back. Hopefully he kept up with the care that those horses deserve, because he was getting inspections every now and then.

[50:04]

It’s something I think we all can do better at every day — how can I improve my horse’s life? How can I get it to where it’s a life worth living?