Horses have an extraordinarily large digestive system — compared to humans they have more than double the length if you were to place them side-by-side, start to finish! This long path for food digestion is packed with twists and turns (and the inability to vomit), so it’s easy to see how digestive upsets can occur in our equine partners. Below is a quick overview to give you a better understanding of how we can feed to our horses’ needs while keeping in mind how they evolved.

The Horse Habit located at Kemble, Ontario, was established 29 years ago by Ellen O’Reilly, with the mission “To bring quality equipment to the horse and their human.”

Regenerative medicine covers a suite of different technologies that enhance the horse’s natural healing process and help them heal faster. Equine veterinarians have been using regenerative medicine for the past decade to treat joint disease and soft tissue injuries; however, it’s new to many horse owners and only equine veterinarians specializing in sports medicine tend to offer the technologies.

Equine botulism occurs when horses are exposed to botulinum neurotoxin, an incredibly powerful toxin produced by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. The most common way a horse becomes exposed to this toxin is by eating feed that has been contaminated with bacterial spores and subsequently having conditions that allowed for growth of those bacteria and release of the toxin. Clostridium botulinum spores can be found in soil almost anywhere, making contamination with these spores extremely common. High risk feeds for equine botulism include haylage, silage, and round bales. Any feed, however, can become contaminated and reports of equine botulism caused by square bales, pelleted feeds, sweet feeds, and even pasture clippings have been received.