It’s about that time of year. Days are starting to get darker sooner. In order to get all your riding, horse care and barn work done, it’s a good idea to start looking at ways to add more light to your barn. I mistakenly waited a few months before adding lights to my new barn and remember wrapping my horse’s abscessed hoof with a flashlight in my mouth.

Thrush, a disease of the hoof, loves to live in the most airless clefts of a horse’s frog and other tissue. Winter is one of thrush’s favorite times of year because it thrives in wet, dirty bedding and areas where mud, mixed with manure, can be found. Thrush has a very strong odor that comes from dead, rotting tissue. You will usually also see a dark-colored slimy substance along the edge of the frog.

The most common use of bedding for stalls is to absorb urine and make cleaning manure easier in your horse’s stalls. Shavings is the most common material used. It will absorb the urine and often help with odor control. However, be careful when you select your shavings – e.g. black walnut shavings can be dangerous to your horse.

With cooler days and the leaves getting ready to change fall colors, this seems like the perfect time for a trail ride. But it’s also the perfect time for other fall activities so finding a buddy to go on the trail with you isn’t always possible.

Many barns use muck buckets as a way to clean stalls and transport used shavings and manure to a pile for composting. But while they are sturdy, sometimes these faithful muck buckets can crack or tear or lose a handle. Before getting rid of them, consider these other uses.

While it’s only September, now is a good time to put together a list of things you want to do before winter rolls in. Here are a few ideas:

You may have heard or read in the news about Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) causing human deaths recently. EEE is a rare virus transmitted to people and horses by the bite of an infected mosquito. Eastern Equine Encephalitis has been detected recently in 22 mosquito samples and in three horses in the southern and eastern parts of the U.S.

Are you thinking of adding new boarders to your riding facility? To attract the kind of clients you really want, look at your barn as if YOU were going to be the new boarder. Actually go to the end of your driveway and approach your barn as if seeing it for the first time.

Your horse’s hock is anatomically similar to a human ankle. It consists of four joints and six bones. Two common hock problems are bog spavin and bone spavin. They sound similar, but are different because some of the hock joints are high motion (they rotate through a wide angle during locomotion) and some are low motion.

Horses That Heal is a non-profit organization associated with psychological counseling services using Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) based in Fayetteville/Fort Bragg, North Carolina, serving at-risk youth as well as active-duty military, retired and/or reserves.