Urban Horses

Horses living in the city, who would have ever thought? Where would they graze? What would you do with the manure? Where would you ride? Well, confining horses to a barn, paddock, or small acreage within the city limits has become an everyday occurrence. Caring for them in an altered environment is best accomplished with the help of your veterinarian. Understanding the horse's natural instinct and trying to best suit it is the goal.

I will give you a few pointers on making an urban horse feel more at home.

First, the horse's health is paramount. Remember that they are grazing animals, and this grazing keeps their digestive systems running smoothly. Their natural instinct is to graze 14-18 hours a day. If there is no pasture available, then we must give them the roughage to keep their digestive tracts in healthy working condition, let alone keep them in good weight. And it is important to provide enough roughage for your horses for their mental status as well as weight.

Also, when they graze, they do not stand still very long. Their very nature is to graze and walk, so even if you have a small grass paddock (one acre or less) for your horse, the grass will soon be gone. Not from grazing, but from walking and grazing.

If you have small acreage, soil sampling and fertilizing will help keep the pasture in grass rather than weeds. Irrigation might be needed as well. Your local agriculture extension agency can help you with pasture management. Also, limiting your horse's time on pasture will keep grass growing and prevent over-grazing.

If your hay is lacking in nutrients, grain supplementation is necessary. You should check with your veterinarian on your horses' particular nutritional requirements depending on their activity level.

Parasite control is a challenge in an urban environment, because horses constantly graze where manure is left. Therefore, a daily to weekly removal of manure in your paddocks or small acreage is necessary and should be treated no differently than a stall. A more aggressive de-worming program might be required. Again, check with your veterinarian for details.

Disposal of manure is another problem. Piling it up behind the barn will not only draw complaints from neighbors on the smell, but it will draw flies and other pests. These pests can cause more harm by carrying disease or aggravating your horse. Usually the best way of disposing manure is not by spreading it over your paddock, but by bagging it and putting it out with the trash.

Exercising the horse is another problem. If you do not have an arena or riding area, you might have to trailer your horse to a nearby park or stable for exercise. Daily or weekly lessons will help your horse stay healthy and keep him active. Some horses need a "job"--daily work is necessary to keep them occupied.

A few other items must be mentioned, such as water availability, fencing, and weather protection. A clean water supply is necessary for a healthy horse. That might mean you have to scrub out your troughs and buckets daily or weekly. Confining horses is not natural to them; therefore, a safe fence is recommended. Barbed wire does not work well with horses, and rounded corners in your paddocks or pastures allow the lowest horse in the pecking order an escape route. Finally, some sort of weather protection is needed, such as a lean-to, barn, or even a good line of trees on the side of the pasture from which your weather most often comes.

Understanding the basic habits of the horse can help you provide a pleasant environment for you, your horse, and your neighbors.

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Animal rights, owner responsibility, health and welfare, and all the attendant issues occupy more and more of our time and energy these days as we horse owners struggle to find a place in our busy lives for what once was a routine part of life in a long-ago society. Now, a few generations removed from our agrarian roots, we are bombarded, it seems, with ethical and political questions unasked generations ago. Do horses have rights? Do we have responsibilities to them? Can we "use" animals for recreation now that our world doesn't move on horseback? Who decides the standards of care? Who says we can't keep a horse in a suburb? Why can't we let the mustangs run free?

Individually, once we own a horse (assuming that one can), what is our responsibility beyond his immediate health and care? Is it "for life," or only as long as we are interested? And what do we do if he's lame and isn't going to get better? And how old is too old?

As a life-long horse owner and a career veterinarian, I'd have answered each of these questions differently at different times of my life. It used to be that auctions were a real part of "Americana," a place where a rural kid with no money could pick up a good, young, clean-legged prospect for less than a week's pay, put some training on him, then bring him back six months later and make a few bucks for his efforts. Now, it's a battleground for the killer buyers and the hustlers who try to make a few quick bucks and move along. Free running mustangs are starving even as we speak due to over-population and over-grazing in areas that are in the midst of "100-year droughts." They are the victims in many cases of well-meaning legislation, poorly implemented and stifled in many cases by "advocates" stuck in 19th Century visions of unfenced prairies and unpopulated spaces that are no longer "wide open."

So, responsible horse ownership can mean many things to many people. The only answer is, of course, education and concern. Educate yourself about the animal you love and provide for his health and welfare. There are many opportunities presented daily (you're reading this, aren't you?). Then educate yourself about the issues--first local ones, like zoning and standards of care for your climate and locale--then tackle the bigger ones we've already mentioned. Horses the world over need advocates, whether they're carrying bananas, tourists, or eventers. And they need commitment. Since the auctions have changed, make sure your once-useful pet doesn't go there. There are retirement ranches springing up all over the country, but only a few are regulated, and standards of care are variable.

Speak out once you've found your voice. No single one of us can save the world, but a lot of us, acting locally, can be a strong force for good. Be a resource for legislators who are farther removed from the farm than you are. Good intentions don't always lead to good, effective laws. Be aware that noble-sounding titles that promise to protect animals often do just the opposite.

All of the recent "anti-slaughter" propositions found that once subjected to good scientific scrutiny, the real abuser in the horse slaughter trail was most often the owner who put a sick or dying animal into the chain, not the much-maligned buyer or shipper.

Take the time to educate yourself, then pass it along. And when your horses, as mine, greet you in the morning with that soft nicker and anxious "feed me" look, take a minute and realize how lucky you are to be able to have that moment to know--when all the rest of the world is going crazy--that no matter what, he's there for you. Be there for him.

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