Tour UF Horse Teaching Unit

By Mick Vonk
    Ron Smith, Amy Toman, and I participated in a field trip to UF Horse Teaching Unit concluding a 10-month equine remote on-line course we took. Each month’s lecture varied from feeding, pesky parasites, poison in the pasture, pasture management, manure management, horse behavior, vaccines, and colic.
    UF has two properties they use for equine studies; the 65-acre Horse Teaching Unit that we visited and the 320-acre Equine Science Unit. The Horse Training Unit is home to 30 broodmares, 4 stallions, a herd of geldings used for teaching students, and 20 to 25 yearlings; basically one foal per student in the program. It’s a hands-on program from breeding, birth of foals, maintaining, training, and riding until the horse is auctioned off as a 2- or 3-year-old. All proceeds from the auction go back into the program. The facility has several small barns located throughout the property with a large covered arena containing bleachers for viewing, an enclosed classroom and bathrooms, an attached 20 stall barn with 3 wash racks, a tack room, and farrier training area all under cover. There are also 6 rounds pens and 2 hot walkers used for training the yearlings.
    Our day started with a hands-on demonstration of fecal direct floatation testing qualitative method. Dr. Ten Broeck shared about 20% of horses harbor 80% of the parasites. Not all horses are shedders. If you can determine who in your herd are the shedders, you only have to worm them and not the entire herd. In Florida, it’s important to worm for seasonal Strongyles in November, December, January, and February. Worm for Tapeworm in March, April, May; and Bots in September and October. We don’t need to worm in June, July, or August, because it’s too hot for parasites to live. It also helps to rotate grazing on pastures every two to three weeks and pick up your manure. If you are going to drag manure, do it when you have good grass, otherwise pick when no grass.
    On our tour, we saw the HTU system for composting manure. It takes about 10 weeks for the manure to compost before they spread it. If you don’t have a tractor to turn your manure in the compost piles, you can lay the manure in rows and turn with a fork by hand. This system will take longer to compost because you lack critical mass for cooking the manure but it works nicely.
    Next, we met Joel McQuagge, an instructor at both facilities who specializes in saddle fitting, making saddles, and training horses. Joel shared that hind leg lameness can cause sore back. It is not always an ill-fitting saddle. When tacking the points of the saddle should be behind the shoulder blades, pad pulled up into the gullet and girth 4 fingers behind the elbow. Everything needs to be perfectly centered. The horse can get sore from you riding off center. The following are signs for sore back from saddle: decreased performance, dry spots, raised spots, shaved hair, soreness in loin from saddle bridging, lumps or heat lumps, white hairs, and scarring. Make sure you tack with a dry pad that is breathable. Store your saddles properly to avoid humidity of Florida.
    From there we met Dr. Carissa Wickens, who demonstrated a horse learning theory Classical Conditioning (think Pavlov dog) and Operant Conditioning (horse has to do something to get something). This was clicker training or clucking training using a target. (Think how you see dolphins and orcas trained). She demonstrated with a horse for fly spray, wormer, and vaccinations. When your horse is over reacting, try to stay and move with him the best you can while remaining safe. Once he stops moving, remove the target item (spray bottle, wormer, syringe), cluck or clicker and give him a treat. Repetition is best repeating three or four times each session. Timing is everything! This is why she likes making the cluck sound instead of using a clicker. Your voice is quicker and your hand can be free to follow immediately with the treat.
    Finally, we met Dr. Lori Warren demonstrating with numerous horses in the barn the Body Conditioning Scoring or BCS. The scoring goes from 1, very poor to 9, severely obese. You need to take all things in account when determining your horses BCS number. His age, visual, and touch. Is he a marsh mellow or firm? Can you see ribs, feel ribs or not feel them at all? Being able to determine your horses BCS will help you gauge feeding, exercise, and overall health.
    This course was well worth the investment. Knowledge is a powerful tool when caring for our equine friends. If you are interested in taking the course in 2022, please contact Caitlin Bainum by email at cbainum@ufl.edu. The course will start sometime in January.