News and veterinarian-approved articles on
equine health care from The Horse magazine.

• Weird Horse News

  Horses Doing Good ... In Their Own Way
  Two different stories of two different horses doing good in their own equine way. One saved an actor and the other saved a fawn.

• Horses and the Law

  Medication Follies
  Trainers who cheat should be punished, but where do you draw the line? Is it fair to discipline a trainer for a positive drug test when there is general agreement that he was not directly involved? Or to suspend a trainer based on veterinary records when there are no positive drug test results?

• Horse Sense (and Sensibility)

  On Horse Sitting and Manure Surprises
  Manure happens ... and sometimes it presents surprises. Editor-in-Chief Stephanie L. Church discovered a common parasite while caring for horses and discusses with a parasitologist what the finding means.

• Smart Horse Keeping

  Creating a Sacrifice Area for Horses
  Probably the most important aspect of managing pastures is the time when you take your horses off your pasture.

• Old Horses: Better With Age

  Sacred Senior Schoolmasters
  Not every senior horse is a schoolmaster, and not every schoolmaster is a senior horse. But in many cases seniors and schoolmasters are one in the same. I recently learned firsthand that these horses are worth their weights in gold.

• Across the Fence

  Regenerative Therapies for Horses
  A researcher provides her perspective on the current status of the use of regenerative medicine to treat tendon and ligament injuries in horses.

• Horse 911: What's Your Emergency?

  A Firefighter’s Perspective on Horses
  What firefighters want you to know about horses.

Q:My 27-year-old pony has been having seizures off and on for two years now. I have noticed that when her protein levels have been increased with feeding, especially in the springtime when the new grass appears, the seizures appear more frequently. Is it possible that the high protein levels could cause a seizure, or is it just coincidence and there might be something else going on?

A:It is understandable that you are concerned about your pony's recurrent seizures, and your veterinarian is justified in communicating the risk of potentially serious trauma that she could sustain during a seizure. So yes, there is certainly your pony's quality of life to consider. There are a few conditions that could be causing your pony's seizures, but they are unlikely to be related to the protein in her feed. The more likely possible causes ... Read more...

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