“With strangles, about 10 percent of horses don’t fully recover from the disease and can then become persistent carriers.2 Unfortunately, persistent carrier horses don’t show the outward clinical signs that sick horses do.”

“Foals will show interest in feeds early on and, by about two months of age, their mother’s milk will no longer supply all the nutrients needed for optimum growth.” To support smooth, steady growth, suckling foals should be offered one pound of a properly-formulated foal feed per month of age per day, advises Pesta. For example, a 3-month-old would ideally be eating about three pounds of feed per day, in addition to milk and free-choice hay or pasture.

A line of horse heads down the barn aisle looks so wonderful said a friend. I agreed. It’s so much fun to visit with horses over the barn door and give them a quick scratch on the neck. Of course walking past all the horses leading a mare in heat may not be the ideal situation if you prefer a quiet life. At one barn I visited to give lessons every single warmblood in the barn lunged at me with teeth bared as I passed by. That wasn’t fun. Especially as the aisle was narrow. I’m not sure why every horse in that barn behaved that way, but it was certainly dangerous.