ACVB, ACAW, professor of veterinary medicine at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, also in College Station.īecause horses are healthier (physically and mentally) when kept outdoors, the ideal situation would be a pasture or other outdoor enclosure where the newcomer can be housed apart from other horses, yet where he is not kept in solitary confinement. “It’s also not unusual for new horses to try to escape by jumping or crawling under fences,” adds Bonnie Beaver, BS, DVM, MS, DSc (hon), Dipl. “While a barbed wire fence is obviously dangerous, any fence can be unsafe if it is in poor repair or not of adequate height,” says Williams. Be sure to take the horse’s safety into consideration when choosing materials and location. If your stall or pasture is equipped with an automatic watering system the horse is unaccustomed to, it might be necessary to provide water in a clean bucket or tub until the horse learns where to get a drink.īefore you bring your new horse home, one of the first concerns you’ll need to address is where to house him. Nonetheless, help your new horse settle in by ensuring he always has access to a source of fresh and clean water, and monitor him for signs of dehydration just in case. The average horse drinks at least seven gallons, if not more, of his body weight in water each day. Horses are often fussy about drinking unfamiliar water, but they usually won’t go to the point of becoming dehydrated (which can result in impaction colic).
Research has shown that sudden changes in feed can lead to problems such as colic. Likewise, if the horse is used to eating legume hays such as alfalfa rather than the timothy you already have on hand, be sure to purchase a few bales of alfalfa to mix in with his new forage. That’s fine, but make the switch gradually. If the horses you already have on the farm are on a completely different type of feed, you might want to eventually change your new horse over to what your current residents are eating. “Make sure to have a bag or two of this feed on hand when your new horse arrives,” says Jennifer Williams, MS, PhD, co-founder and president of Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society, in College Station, Texas. Also, find out what brands, types, and amounts of feeds (i.e., pellets, grains, or sweet feed) the horse has been eating. Talk to the previous owner and find out how much hay and/or pasture turnout the horse has been getting on a daily basis. While you don’t want to introduce a new horse that might be harboring an infectious disease to the horse(s) you already have, you likewise want to make sure that the newcomer is well-protected against any infectious organisms that his new environment might contain. Also, be sure that all horses involved have been on an appropriate internal parasite control program.Īnother thing to consider: what your new horse will eat. Like people, horses are much more susceptible to infectious diseases when under stress. Forthman, PhD, of Animal Harmony LLC, a pet and horse behavior consulting service near Atlanta, Georgia. “Be sure that all horses are up to date on vaccinations and are current with negative Coggins test,” says certified applied animal behaviorist Debra L.
Before He Arrivesīefore bringing a new horse home, there are several things you must consider.
#MY NEW HORSE HOW TO#
In this article, we’ll discuss how to help your new horse settle in to his new surroundings and help him make friends. Had it been up to him, odds are he would have chosen to stay right where he was: a place he was accustomed to, and where he already felt secure among established herdmates. Any move that you have made, you probably did so voluntarily.
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