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[RC] Fw: Good trailering advising. Source: Budweiser - Betsy O'SheaThe following was posted on the combined driving list by harnessmaker Dave McWethy. www.horseharness.com . He has given his permission to forward it to RC and CTR lists. .Subject: Good trailering advising. Source: Budweiser I happened into the annual gathering of the Friesian Horse Assn of North America, which happened to be in Washington this year. I was attracted for several reasons. One prominent one was a presentation to be given by Dallas Goble, DVM, from the Univ of Tennessee, who has been a consultant to Budweiser for 27 years, advising them on their horses. The part of the presentation that interested me was trailer stress. It was good. Dr Goble said that the Bud trailers are on the road something like 1200 trailer-days per year, and that they track a lot of data. This makes them a great source of reliable data. Bud wanted to know what would be the best guidelines for trailering, and this is what they came up with: For Day 1, they do not trailer more than 10 hours or over 500 miles. Day 2, no more than 8 hours or 300 miles. Day three, rest day. Anything over 12 hours will cause stress problems. Having trailered horses over 10,000 miles this year, I can see this would make for slow process. I need to know a reason why. What he said was that Bud could look back and see that when they switched to these guidelines, which was less than they had done earlier, their occurrence of health problems declined by 60%. I guess the disclaimer at this point, is that his data is based on Clydesdales. I don't know if that matters or if their data applies broadly. I didn't write down the list of problems from trailering stress, but the highest item was respiratory issues, which will appear 3-21 days after trailering in 12-15% of horses. The list went down through infection. Colic, founder. I might be missing something. He said even shorter trailering experiences will cause changes in white cell counts and cortisol levels. It takes the horse some time to recover from this, and meanwhile immunity is compromised. Also common was inflamed stomach mucosa (leading to ulcers?). This too takes a while for the horse to return to normal. Dr Goble says the Budweiser guideline on colic is that if the veterinarian will not arrive within 20 minutes, Banamine should be given by handlers. He affirmed what all of you know anyway, about feeding your same-old hay and same-old water, so as not to ask your horse to have to adapt to new stuff in the stomach. He advised to give the horse free access to feed and water 6 hours before trailering. If I had heard all of this before transporting my horses cross country, I might never have left home! My horses seem pretty much okay. They appear to be eating normally, no evidence of infection. I have heard a small amount of coughing, and see evidence of minor eye irritation. They were happy to get off the trailer! Hope this is useful. Camptown Dave Need help? See http://www.CarriageDriving.net/cdl/cdhelp.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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