Sugar in Grass?? Sweet!

Have I mentioned how much I love this time of year?  Although the weather has been a bit dreary, I took full advantage of one the few nice days we’ve had and went apple picking with my good friend Magic.  The apple orchard is one of my favorite places to be; red delicious snacks above me and lush green grass below!  Speaking of grass, have you noticed how quickly it’s been growing lately? All the precipitation and cooler weather provide the perfect conditions for rapid pasture growth.  But as much as I love grass, I know that you can have too much of a good thing.

You may be surprised to hear that grasses contain large amounts of…sugar!  It’s no wonder why horses love it so much!  But just like humans, an excess of sugar could cause problems for horses.  Grass accumulates sugar and starch throughout the day and uses it for growth overnight, unless there is a freeze.

Consuming high sugar grass can cause a metabolic disorder called laminitis or founder in some horses, especially old guys like me, and also “easy keepers”; the chubby ponies and horses that get fat just thinking about grass.  Although it is not necessarily a bad thing, you should be careful not to use this term with a mare….I once told Christi she was an “easy keeper” and nearly got kicked in the noggin!  

If a horse is an easy keeper or has had laminitis before, limiting sugar intake by grazing it early in the morning before the grasses accumulate sugar (provided there was no overnight freeze) or by using a grazing muzzle throughout the day can hinder the development of metabolic disease.  This is especially important in the spring and fall, when sugar content is at its greatest.  My friends at the Equine Science Center are experts on this type of stuff!  For more information on metabolic disease, check out their Fact Sheet - Metabolic Problems in the Horse: Sorting out the Diagnosis.

 

Well I’m off to lunch…all this talking about grass and sugar is making me hungry! 

Until next time friends,

Lord Nelson

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Boy that rainstorm we had was quite a doozy!  Forget about it raining “cats and dogs”, more like “horses and ponies”!  I hope everyone stayed safe, and for those of you who lost power: now you know what living like a horse is like…it’s not so bad!  Who needs electricity anyway?  The flooding from the storm was something I can sympathize with however; my field was wet and muddy for days.  And because my pasture was littered with puddles, I developed a little skin problem called “scratches”.

You may ask “Scratches?  I think my cat has that!”  Scratches is not a condition itself, but rather a description of a condition that causes skin on the bulbs of the heel and the folds of skin in the pastern area to become red, inflamed, and cracked, often looking like scratch marks.  It’s also called pastern dermatitis, dew poisoning, greasy heel, or mud fever to give you a better idea of what I’m dealing with.  Muddy or wet conditions contribute to a horse developing scratches because the constant moisture not only irritates the delicate skin found at the back of the pasterns and hooves, but provides the perfect conditions for bacterial and fungal infections. 

The first step in treating scratches is to get the horse out of the moist environment.  In my case, my caretaker has been using a homemade remedy to treat my scratches; a mixture of furacin ointment with baby diaper rash cream (zinc oxide).  It may seem funny to treat with diaper rash cream, but the zinc oxide keeps the moisture out to promote healing and the bacterial action of the furacin works on the infection, so it’s the perfect combination!

Have you ever used a home remedy to treat an ailment?  Don’t be afraid to share in the comment section below, or on the Equine Science Center’s Facebook page (esc.rutgers.edu/fb)!

Stay dry friends!

Lord Nelson