Ep. 094: Vital Signs in Horses - How to Know When Something’s Wrong

Episode Notes

When something’s wrong with your horse, how quickly would you catch it?

On this episode, co-hosts Dr. Tania Cubitt and Katy Starr break down the vital signs of a healthy horse and how understanding your horse’s “normal” can help you recognize subtle changes before they become serious (or expensive) problems.

They cover:

• What’s considered normal for a horse’s temperature, pulse, and respiration
• How travel, exercise, stress, and seasonal changes can affect vital signs
• What signs suggest your horse might be in distress, even if they “look fine”
• Why being proactive with horse care helps you avoid costly emergencies

Don’t wait for a health scare to start paying attention. Learn how to stay one step ahead and become your horse’s strongest advocate!

🎧 Listen now on the Beyond the Barn podcast, to take a smarter, more proactive approach to horse care.

Have a topic idea or feedback to share? We want to connect with you! Email podcast@standlee.com

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*Views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Standlee Premium Products, LLC.*

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Nutritional Resources – 

~7:32 – “Can You Identify Normal Horse Vital Signs?” blog post with helpful infographic

~23:14 – “Ep. 065: What Can Happen If Horses Don’t Drink Enough Water” podcast episode

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Read full episode transcript

Katy Starr (00:01):

Hi, I'm Katy.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (00:02):

And I'm Dr. Cubitt. We're going Beyond the Barn. Come join us on this journey as we bust equine and livestock nutrition myths, and interview some of the most intriguing experts in the country.

 

Katy Starr (00:15):

We'll go behind the scenes of how premium Western quality forage is grown and brought to your favorite farm and ranch retail store. We're so glad you're here. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Barn. Dr. Cubitt, thanks for being with me here today.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (00:33):

Thanks for having me back.

 

Katy Starr (00:34):

Today we're going to have a really, hopefully helpful discussion for listeners about something that you talk about all the time, normal versus abnormal, kind of knowing what is normal for your horse so when something goes wrong, you can kind of easily and quickly identify when something is wrong, knowing kind of when to get in touch with your veterinarian and things like that. So, I think today will be a really valuable conversation for listeners.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (01:04):

Absolutely. Yeah, it's just guidelines to start with so that you can understand horses are just like people and we're all different in our heart rate and our temperature. And if you know what is normal then if it's outside of that, you know, to call your vet. So, yeah, I think this will be a good starting point for people.

 

Katy Starr (01:24):

Excellent. And just as a reminder to listeners, any of the topics we cover on the Beyond the Barn podcast are more generalized and not specific to any individual horse or any individual situation. So, be sure to always work with your veterinarian and nutritionist before making any drastic changes to your feed program. Or you can reach out to talk directly with Dr. Cubitt or Dr. Duren on any specifics you'd like to know. To get us started, why is it so important for horse owners to know what is normal for their horse?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (02:00):

Oh, I think this is, it's really important and we say it all the time in all of our podcast, understanding what is normal for your horse is really critical because every horse is slightly different. So, you can go on the internet and you can find guides. And today we'll talk about a lot of the guides that, you know, much horses will fit within this range for temperature or respiration. But some horses are just outside of that. And so, you don't want to be calling your vet when a certain respiration rate, for example, might be absolutely normal for your horse. I know myself, I have very low blood pressure, so every time I go to give blood, they're all like, oh, your blood pressure's really low, that's just normal for me. If somebody else's was that low, it might be cause for concern. So, I think what is normal gives you a guide for when do I need to call the vet because the last thing you want to do is call the vet when everything is already like max bad, you want to be able to say, this is not normal for my horse.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (03:03):

I want to at least give them a call and say, should I be concerned? Then I'm on their radar, like they aren't just at our beck and call. They might have five other calls, and they know in the back of their mind, oh, I've got this one that might not be quite normal, but we're just monitoring so that they're not just getting that, oh my gosh, it's a disaster, come now. So, I think that it helps us be a little bit more proactive when things might not be going right versus being reactive, oh, it's a disaster and I've got to try and fix this. We never want to be in that situation. There's times you can't avoid that, but hopefully by giving the information today, we can help people be a little bit more proactive about their horse care.

 

Katy Starr (03:46):

Right. I think those are some really excellent points. So, let's kind of walk through some of the standard ranges for healthy horse vital signs. Like you said, today's conversation is more like a guide. We should always be working with our veterinarian to kind of work through some of these things, but this can at least get everyone started on getting that normal figured out for their horse. So, let's just work through some of them. Talk to us about temperature.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (04:16):

Yeah, so I'll say it again that we're not veterinarians and this is definitely a conversation that you want to have with your veterinarian, and they can also help you take these baseline measurements and develop that kind of stall card. But things like temperature and pulse, respiration rate, dehydration, gut sounds, capillary refill, which kind of gives you a bit of a dehydration value. These are the variables that we want to measure when we're looking at what is normal versus abnormal. So, you mentioned temperature, we'll start with temperature. Rectal temperature is the best, most accurate way to measure temperature. I don't recommend that you take temperature once your horse has been standing in the sun all day. Of course that's going to be elevated, but if you want to have a really good overall value for it, then maybe you take the temperature in the morning, you take the temperature when your horse has been standing out in the sun all day, and then you take the temperature at night and you can just even visualize the changes between those three time points.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (05:31):

And as you can see, that this is why all of these numbers we'll give you today are just a guide. It's because the environmental conditions at that time can completely change the value. So, temperature, we say normal temperature is between 99.5 and 101.3. And like I said, taking a rectal temperature is the most accurate. But there are things like the external temperature, has your horse been standing out in the sun all day? Have they been exercising? Have they been on a trailer? All of those things will change the temperature of the horse. So, kind of doing a little science project yourself. And for all of these values as well, we would say don't just do it on one day at one time point. If you want to get a a good idea, do it over five days. Have a little notebook on the front of your horse's stall.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (06:26):

This week we're going to measure temperature and, and three times a day for five days we're going to measure temperature and then we're going to see trends and come up with kind of an average temperature for my horse. And that is the average temperature for your horse. If you exercise your horse a lot and maybe your horse struggles a little bit with recovery, you might want to take your horse's temperature after exercise after a heavy exercise bout as well so that you know what their post-exercise temperature is. And then you might want to see how long does it take your horse to normally recover from that temperature. The general rule is within 90 minutes your horse's temperature should be back to pre-exercise temperature. Well, maybe it takes your horse 60 minutes and if it took your horse 90 minutes and something's wrong. Right? So, that's why this conversation is so important and why it's so important to know what is normal for your horse.

 

Katy Starr (07:21):

Yep. Yep. That's excellent. And then how about for heart rate or pulse?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (07:27):

Okay, so normal pulse and we have an excellent infographic on this that we can share. We can email to you if you write into to Katy. So, if it looks like I'm reading, I am, because we've really kind of written out exactly how to do it and what the values are. But again, I also recommend you can read everything, but having a veterinarian or having someone show you how to do it is also very practical. But normal pulse is about 38 to 40 beats per minute. You can do it under the horse's jaw or down by the foot on the back of the pastern. Now I will say that if your horse is a little overweight and maybe could be on the edge of having some laminitic condition in the foot, that the pulse might be elevated in the hoof and you might get a different value in the hoof versus in the in the neck because it just might be a little bit. So, again, it'd be, it's probably very useful when you're first starting to do this, take the pulse under the jaw and on the back of the fetlock I should say. You can do it for 30 seconds or for a minute, but you really want it beats per minute.

 

Katy Starr (08:41):

Excellent. Okay. And how about for respiration?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (08:46):

Respiration rate? So, how many times are they breathing in and out? It's about 8 to 15 breaths per minute in an unexercised horse that's not in the heat, right? You add heat. And we know one of the ways a horse is not very effective at dissipating heat by panting, but if they're breathing heavily, it's very hot outside. But it is a way that they can get rid of heat. So, when it's normal, in the stall or in the shade conditions and they haven't been heavily exercised, we're looking in about 8 to 15 breaths per minute. And you're actually going to look at your horse's nostrils or rib cage, you can see, or you can see their ribs go in and out and in and out. So, one inhale and one exhale is a single breath. So, that's one breath. It's not one, two. Okay. So, one breath is one, inhale and exhale. That one can be a little harder to measure. So, maybe that's one you really want to ask your veterinarian about because when they're not kind of under stress now, you can't see me breathing right now, but if I have just exercised or run a marathon, you'll see me breathing.

 

Katy Starr (10:00):

Hear it, see it...

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (10:02):

You can hear it. So, it's a little harder when they're at rest and not stressed to, to measure respiration. 

 

Katy Starr (10:08):

Right. Okay. Excellent. And then how about for dehydration?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (10:14):

Dehydration? That one's actually pretty easy. You can do a couple of things. We can look at capillary refill time, that will give you a measure of dehydration. But the other one is to pinch skin on their neck. So, there's kind of a triangle in the neck, front of the shoulder, up the neck and then, and you pinch the skin into a tent, you pull it up into a tent and you let it snap back and how fast it snaps back, how much moisture is under the skin, and allowing it to snap back quickly. It can give you a guide of whether they're dehydrated or not. So, it should return back in place within about one or two seconds. If it takes more than two seconds, one, two to snap back, like it slowly just kind of melts back, you know, your horse is probably a little dehydrated.

 

Katy Starr (11:04):

And then go ahead and you mentioned it, but speak to capillary refill time as well since that's kind of related.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (11:10):

So, the capillary refill time, again, another way that you can look at the amount of water or hydration status in, because if, if there's not a lot of moisture or water in the blood, then it's going to be more thick and viscous and it's going to move slower. So, you actually curl up the top lip of the horse and you use your thumb and you press it onto, above their teeth, onto the gum line and you press it. And when you take it away, you'll see that it, there's a white imprint where you've pushed all of the blood out of that area and you want to see how fast it comes back. And again, it should return to the color it was before, within one or two seconds. And if it takes longer than that, that it means the blood is thicker and slower to move, then okay, maybe we've got some slight dehydration going on.

 

Katy Starr (11:59):

Great. Okay. And then how about normal gut sound? I don't know if that's one that we usually think about.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (12:08):

We don't think about that often we think about we, we use that term when we think about, oh, is there no gut sounds because oh, does he have colic? Has he got an impaction? Is everything stopped? But here's the deal, if you only try to listen to what it sounds like when it's something's gone wrong, you don't know what you should be listening for. It's much easier with a stethoscope. If you have a stethoscope and you can kind of put it behind the rib cage in front of the flank and you're going to be looking, you're going to be trying to hear for gurgling, kind of dripping, tinkling - fluid moving sounds, is really what it is. And if you hear nothing that's bad news and you need to call your vet, but in the heat of the moment when you are freaking out and you're trying to put your ear up to your horse's side and they're moving around and you're, oh, I don't think I can hear anything, that's not the time that you want to practice listening to what it should sound like.

 

Katy Starr (13:08):

Yeah, yeah. That's a great point. Okay. No, those, those are excellent. Are there any other tips in regards to some of those horse vital signs that we just kind of walked through that you can think of that we need to add in or mention?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (13:25):

No, no. I just think that it's good. Maybe when you do your spring shots or whatever you're, you're doing a routine evaluation with your veterinarian that you have them help you go through all of these and you set a baseline and then you have that on your stall card and you know how to do it. You've seen how to do it. And then you can say, okay, you know, my horse usually drinks this much. He usually has this temperature, he usually has that, under these conditions. Right. It's very important that when you say normal temperature or post-exercise temperature, that we, we realize that okay, it's, it's not hot outside. It's not standing outside that if you say my horse's normal temperature is say 99.5. And then he came in and he was standing out in the sun and it was blazing hot and he'd been out there all day and, and you're like, oh, his temperature's a hundred. Oh my god, it's no, give him time to cool down, be in that normal condition, maybe wait 30 minutes, take the temperature again. So, so I think it's knowing the conditions that you took those normal ranges. 

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (14:33):

Knowing if there's an environmental factor that might've changed it. And if you take that away, is it back to normal, calling your veterinarian and saying it's slightly abnormal. I'm just letting you know, what do you think we should do? Should I watch every 30 minutes or oh my gosh, my horse is normally 99 and now he's 102 and I've done nothing with him. I haven't exercised him and I just came out to the stall this morning. Yeah, call them up. Yeah. because I know that's abnormal.

 

Katy Starr (15:05):

I think owning, I mean owning horses really any kind of livestock, you really get good at the skill of observation.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (15:14):

Absolutely. And it becomes difficult when you're in a boarding situation and you don't see your horse all the time and you're relying on other people. And that's why having normal, your horse's normal signs on the door so they can know is important. So, that if somebody else walks past and thinks, oh, that looks a bit weird. But then they read that and they're like, oh no, that's very normal for him to dunk his hay or to lay down all the time or whatever. So, we've talked about these general vital signs, but if your horse never lays down, you might note that - doesn't really like to lay down. And then if somebody walks past and he's been laying down for three hours, oh that's not normal for this horse. Other horses, they lay down all the time. And so, loves to lay down, then somebody walks past and thinks this horse has been laying down for six hours. That's, that's very normal for this horse. So, there are other just random things that you as the owner know that might be abnormal to other horses. But you put that down too, it's not really a vital sign, but it's your horse's sign.

 

Katy Starr (16:19):

You know what, talking about boarding horses, I think about, there was a certain point where my girls were in daycare and I would remember as a mom I would have, especially a young mom, like of young kids, right. I would have my list of she does this, this, if she gets upset, she likes this. You know what I mean? So, it's like the same thing.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (16:36):

It is. Yeah.

 

Katy Starr (16:38):

Okay. That's interesting. Another thing that you have mentioned before too, I mean you've talked a little bit today about making some of these measurements or temperature right. In a variety of scenarios. But another thing that you have mentioned is making sure not to take some of these vital measurements on a nervous horse.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (16:55):

Yes, because nerves, when you raise cortisol, everybody sweats when they get nervous, you know, it can raise temperature a little bit. Certainly, can raise pulse and respiration rate. So, you certainly wouldn't want to be, but here's another deal that might be you want to have your baseline and then when my horseis a bit nervous because when you go to show, to show, I know one of our questions later on is how does changing the environment like trailer him or taking him to a show, some horses are really nervous when they go to a show and their respiration will just be a little bit more elevated. Elevated that it's abnormal. No, it's normal for them in that kind of a little bit of elevated stress state. So, again, knowing what's normal in certain situations can also be very helpful to a veterinarian.

 

Katy Starr (17:46):

Right. And I think, again, hitting home on that, working with your veterinarian, if you're working with them, they'll be able to help you determine, this seems like it's outside of the range because like my next kind of question is like what happens if a horse owner is kind of working to establish what is “normal” for their individual horse? But what if they're normal is kind of outside of these textbook ranges that you just gave. So, that way if they work with their veterinarian, they can establish that and be like, hey, this is actually nothing to be too concerned about.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (18:18):

On this horse. Mm-Hmm

 

Katy Starr (18:20):

Yep. For this specific horse.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (18:21):

But it's also why, you know, we, we, I know that we want to get a lot of information online, we try to do our own research, but this is one of those cases where you've got to be really cautious because what is normal for, you can't go onto a little chat site and say, oh my horse's temperature is X. Should I be concerned? Well, you're going to get 50,000 different responses back. Some might say, oh my gosh, call your vet immediately your horse is dying. And another one might say, oh that's absolutely normal for my horse. And you just don't know unless you've done the baseline measurements, whether that is normal for your horse. And so, when it comes to a medical concern, I really, really do recommend that people don't ask the internet or these chat groups because there's just so many different variables that really only your veterinarian can help you in that situation.

 

Katy Starr (19:10):

100%. Yeah. What would you say are maybe some signs of consuming forage and feed grazing, etc, and how do we determine maybe what's abnormal for those kind of situations?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (19:25):

I think mainly we know how much a horse usually eats in a day. They usually clean up their hay. We can say usually if horses are going out, this is one thing I always say, watch this - turnout time. Whatever meal you give the horse prior to turnout, most horses are going to be less interested in that meal than when they come back in from turnout and they're more calm and they'll eat that meal. So, if your horse is leaving a little bit of hay, because he knows he is going to get turned out, maybe that's not a big deal. But if he leaves the same quantity of hay at night, when he is standing in a stall, he is got nothing else to do. That's of a concern. So, again, it's context of the time of the day and what's happening next. What are they anticipating? Oh, usually he eats all his grain that I give him, but he's not now that, that's like, so again, that's a little bit difficult if you are not at the barn feeding your horse all the time. But yeah, just generally being quite consistent knowing that they pretty much clean up all their food and then all of a sudden they're not that that's a telltale sign that something's going on. Horses usually like to eat their food. And then when they don't, it's usually a problem.

 

Katy Starr (20:41):

Yes. And what would you say maybe are some normal signs of chewing behavior that could be abnormal?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (20:48):

Yeah, I mean, chewing behavior, horses by nature don't drop food out of their mouth. If they are dropping food or you see little wads of food or balled up food on the ground, then usually that's an indication that something's going on in their mouth that is not right. Poor dentition, missing teeth, spiky teeth, wave mouth. And there's a whole slew of different things that might be going on that might say, be an indicator that I need to get a dentist to have a look at the horse's mouth because horses should not be dropping food.

 

Katy Starr (21:22):

Right. And then this could be a big range and it obviously can be different for different scenarios, but how much water would you say a horse might typically consume daily? And then how can this change with exercise, heat, cold, travel, things like that?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (21:43):

5 to 15 gallons. So, already it's a pretty wide range just for normal right. Heat, humidity, travel, competition, lactation can all drive that up upwards. You just don't want to ever be below five gallons. But here's the deal, if your horse normally under no exercise, no heat drinks 10 gallons of water a day, and then one day they drink five, that's a concern for your horse. Maybe it's not a concern for the horse in the next stall who always just drinks five gallons a day. So, water intake, because it's got such a wide normal range, is one that you really need to know what is normal for your horse. And I know a lot of stalls have those automatic waterers or fields have automatic waterers. You can hang five gallon buckets, you can hang water buckets in your stall, turn off the waterer just to get a guide.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (22:39):

Most of the time when you go to a show, they're not going to have automatic waterers at a show. So, if you know what is typically normal at home and then you go to a show, this is one where respiration rate, temperature, those kind of things might go up due to stress at a show. We really want a horse to continue to drink the same amount. Hydration status is really important in horses. So, if they do back off their water intake at a show, we know that we need to do things to encourage them to drink water because horses can get dehydrated pretty quickly. But huge range on water intake just normally.

 

Katy Starr (23:11):

Right. And we do have an episode that we talked about water and if you are struggling to get your horse to drink water tips and things like that. So, I'll be sure to link that in the show notes for listeners to reference in case they haven't had a chance to listen to that one yet. How do a horse's normal behaviors and vitals shift with the seasons?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (23:32):

Oh, I think there's so many different things. I notice in my, I have black Angus cattle for example, and they're black. And I live in Virginia and when it's, right now it's spring as we're recording this and the cows graze all day, they have no concern, in the summertime, they're lying under the trees and they're not grazing during the middle of the day. So, that is an environmental concern. Now, if I had a cow that I know normally grazes and a weather's nice outside and it's cool, but she's just laying away from the herd, it's different for her. And horses are the same. You get to view when you put your horse out, maybe he walks the field, maybe he grazes a bit. But if you look out there and he's been laying down all day and your horse does not lay down. So, again, this is really, these aren't things that I can tell you what is normal for your horse. You know, what is normal under different environmental conditions. I think it's really all about being a good observer and just watching your horse, taking notes. But definitely summer versus winter changes, changes with us. It's hot versus cold.

 

Katy Starr (24:45):

Right. Well and you've mentioned this before, but I think it's worth noting today also because we don't always think about dehydration in the winter versus summer. And so, the fact that their consumption rate of water could change. Not that we want it to, it just needs to according to, you know...

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (25:07):

The other thing we forget about, you know, especially if horses have access to pasture in the spring and summer and fall, that pasture is full of moisture. So, they might drink, this is where it gets real tricky. They might actually drink less gallons of water because they're getting moisture out of the pasture. And then in the wintertime when it's cooler and they're a hundred percent hay and no pasture, they actually need to drink slightly more gallons of water to get the same moisture intake. But yeah, dehydration in the wintertime is actually more common because they're not getting moisture out of the pasture because they're not exercising as heavily, they're not, they're just not as interested in drinking water and we just forget about it. So, but they also, one of the things that we see in the summertime when we exercise a horse is we see them sweat. And so, we see them try and cool themselves that way. In the wintertime the air is dry, so we oftentimes it just evaporates and we don't see that sweat if you do exercise them. So, that's another reason why maybe electrolytes are important in the wintertime as well. It's just an observation.

 

Katy Starr (26:16):

Right. And you've touched on this a little bit today, but how does travel or a new environment affect a horse's normal patterns, especially hauling to shows or trail riding trips or things like that?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (26:29):

Traveling, putting them on a trailer is super, super energy demanding and we think, oh, they're just standing there on the trailer doing nothing. No, it's like light to moderate exercise. When you put them on the trailer, it's a lot of exercise. So, they will get dehydrated, they'll get stiff and sore. There's a lot of things that go on when they're traveling. Taking them to a show, you know, again, you've got what's normal at home and what's normal at a show. And so, I'd be taking all the vital signs at a show and keeping that as my show style card, knowing that everything's a little bit different. Maybe he doesn't eat quite as much, maybe he doesn't drink quite as much, so I'm trying to give him a little extra salt or flavor the water. So, he's drinking more, but he doesn't eat quite as much when we go to a show because he is looking busy looking around, that kind of thing. But again, what's normal for your horse?

 

Katy Starr (27:23):

What common mistakes do you see that stem from a reactive approach to horse care and how can we maybe shift that mindset more towards prevention?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (27:35):

I think it's number one being reactive and not proactive.

 

Katy Starr (27:38):

Waiting for something to go wrong.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (27:40):

Yeah, you just, and then the vet comes because your horse is laid out on the ground rolling in a, in a frenzy and has no gut sounds and ah, I mean at that point, respiration rate's probably off the charts, pulse is off the charts. But you have no idea what was normal. Normal or what if it's the main big one would be, I don't know whether I should call the vet or not. I don't know. I'm on that edge and you hate being on that edge because you just want it to be black or white. And it would be more black or white if you knew what was normal for your horse and you could say, this is not normal, I'm calling the vet. But you're like, well, I don't know. I don't know. Like the temperature says on the, the guide that it's between 99.5 and 101.3 and mine's 101.2. I don't know should I call? When in doubt, yes you should call, but also when you veterinarian comes out and says, you know, the horse kind of looks fine, but you're like, I don't know whether it's normal or not, he's, if you are able to say, my horse every day on the dot is 99.5 and now he's 101.2, okay, there's a borderline infection going on, we need to treat this and be proactive versus reactive. Not wait till he's 103 and sick.

 

Katy Starr (28:56):

Right before it gets worse. Yeah, for sure. And then for someone who may, I mean, in horse ownership, I feel like it, it entails so much sometimes, and I think it depends on the horse that you have. Some are a little more high maintenance than others, but for someone who might feel a little overwhelmed by tracking all of the things that come with it and trying to keep up with it, what would you say is maybe like one small step that they can take today to better understand their horse's normal?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (29:26):

I think temperature's probably one of the, the best vital signs to know what is normal. Inflammation/disease, whether it be infection, whatever. It always elevates the temperature. So, I think temperature is one of the, the most important to measure in your horse and to know what is normal. And then also to know what is normal immediately after exercise and how quickly that your horse normally recovers. I think that gut sounds can be a bit challenging for people. I think dehydration is an easy one, but I do actually recommend if you're a new horse owner, schedule time for your veterinarian to go through all of these things with you, watch them do it, have them give you a baseline for your horse. They'll keep that in their notes. You'll have it on the door so that even when you are frantic and think, oh, think something's wrong, my horse, and you call them up, they have those baselines. It's like, why do you go for an annual physical with your doctor so that they have all the baselines, they want your normal blood values when you're not sick. So, that when then things aren't quite right, they can compare them to those normal values.

 

Katy Starr (30:31):

Yeah, just a little easier to figure out what the actual problem is that way. Excellent. So, as we begin to wrap this episode up, what would you say are maybe some of your key takeaways that you would like to leave listeners with about knowing what is normal versus abnormal for their horse?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (30:50):

I mean, just know that every horse is different. They're just like people and what's normal for horses, standing side by side in a stall could be completely different. So, I think that it's really important for you to know what is normal for your horse.

 

Katy Starr (31:05):

Excellent. And you mentioned this a little earlier in the talk, but I think it would be really great for us to kind of present a little mini challenge for our listeners to kind of encourage them to set some time to, like you said, maybe take the next five days or the next week to, you know, take temperatures, some things like that to build that baseline. You had mentioned maybe like a putting a notebook in front of your horse's stall. Yeah.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (31:34):

And I recommend this kind of approach even when you're trying to measure, like I was feeding a supplement because I wanted it to change their behavior or whatever. If you're trying to evaluate whether something's changed in your horse, you can do this. But also for something like this, have a little notebook, same time, every day. I'm going to take the temperature of the horse, 8:00 AM every morning, I'm going to take his temperature for five days and then I'm going to average that and that's going to be his resting temperature, morning temperature, right? So, I think you can challenge yourself that way.

 

Katy Starr (32:09):

Yeah, I think that'll be great. And we'll try to link some resources and things like that in the show notes from today's conversation. If you have any topic ideas or feedback that you'd like to share with us about the Beyond the Barn podcast, please reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you guys. Leave a review on Apple or Spotify. If you listen on those platforms, it just helps us be able to create more of this helpful and educational content for you, Dr. Cubitt and I really love doing these podcasts. We do look forward to doing these when we get together. And so, if it's helpful for you, we want to be able to be a resource for you for those things. So, reach out to us at podcast@standlee.com and Dr. Cubitt, thanks again for being here today with all this great information. 

 

Thanks for listening to the Beyond the Barn podcast by Standlee Forage. We'd love for you to share our podcast with your favorite people and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite listening platform. Until next time, keep your cinch tight and don't forget to turn off the water.