Cranky behavior can be associated with mares.  Pinning of ears, bucking, and kicking at stall walls can be a source of frustration and can interfere with the performance and enjoyment of your horse.

Veterinarians and horse owners often wonder if a horse has an ulcer when they see a horse with chronic low-grade colics, a horse that becomes girthy, develops a poor appetite, has a poor attitude towards training, a dull hair coat, decreased performance, or becomes a stall kicker, among other issues.  Now a stall side test that can give you results in about 10 minutes costing only $54 is available (price may vary through the years).

With summer upon us, competitions and horse adventures are in full swing.  As many of you experienced it can get hot.  VERY HOT during these outings and at home.  One way to maximize your horse's performance and attitude is to help them keep cool by setting up a fan and misting systems.   Such a system can help cool your horse's stall environment and make them much more comfortable during the days that often approach or exceed triple digits here in California.  

Summer Sores are sores often red or red and yellow that look like open sores that won't heal.  They are often quite itchy to the horse.  As the name implies summer time is the time they are most commonly seen but lately I have been seeing them more often and much longer into the fall until we get a good freeze. 

Enteroliths are large, hard as a rock, concretions of minerals which develop in the large intestine of  a horse.  They form when minerals come out of solution.  The principal mineral is magnesium ammonium phosphate.   The minerals congregate around some hard objet called the nidus.  The nidus can be a nail, a pin, or a coin, but most commonly is a small stone.