The Eyes Have It

If someone wanted to take my horses they could just walk up, open the gate, and walk off with them.  I don't ever worry about that though.  Mostly because they would have a hard time getting them off of the property (good luck getting them in a trailer without a fuss!), but also they are just your average backyard horses.  Priceless to me but no one else.   If they were worth tens of thousands of dollars then I might be a little more concerned about having a means of identifying that they were mine.

Racing is a big money industry and consequently horses do get stolen.  Most breeds of race horses in North America are required to have a lip tattoo before their first race for ID purposes. Ouch!

Branding is another means of easy ID.  Horses can be either hot branded or freeze branded. Neither one seems like much fun to me!
Most people are familiar was hot branding from old cowboy movies.

Hot Branding

 A branding iron is heated red hot and applied to the skin long enough to create a permanent, hairless mark. Some breed associations require hot branding for registration.

Trakehner Hot Brand

Holsteiner Hot Brand

 Freeze branding is done by cooling the branding iron with liquid nitrogen.  The branding site is shaved to get better contact with the skin and the area soaked with alcohol before the iron is applied for several seconds.  This process damages the pigment in the hair cells and the hair on a dark colored horse will become white.

Freeze brand  on a dark colored horse

For light colored horses the iron is held in place slightly longer to eliminate the hair follicle all together and the dark skin will show through.   This video shows the process:

It is supposedly less painful to the horse (this horse doesn't seem to mind), but anyone who has had liquid nitrogen burn their skin knows that it is painful after the fact.

I recently read an article about a new type of identification called eye D  which involves simply taking a picture of the horse's eye with a special camera.  The pictures undergo computer analysis that focuses on the contours of the corpora nigra (the brown globby stuff) in the iris which are as unique as fingerprints. 

Corpora Nigra

The horse's information and eye scan are stored in a database and can be retrieved at any time, similar to micro-chipping dogs and cats. This is so much less invasive than anything else that in currently being used to identify our horsey friends.  I hope this technology takes off!

My Little Hay Burners

As I have mentioned before I am not a big fan of blanketing my horses.  I believe in letting them be as nature intended.  I do, however, like to do a few things to help them stay warm in the winter.  I like to let them stay outside at night in the nice weather, but as the the weather turns colder I lock them in their stalls.  I'm not sure if it makes any difference the them, but it makes me feel better. 

I also like to feed them extra hay, especially at night. The amount of extra hay depends on how cold it is supposed to get.  I give them more at night for two reasons. One, it gives them something to do while they are stuck in their stalls and two,  they are in a small space and are not moving around as much so they are not as warm.

Horses use hindgut fermentation as an "internal furnace" to help them stay warm.  After food leaves the stomach it passes through the small intestine, which is about 70 feet long and can take up to 90 minutes to get through.  Most of the warming process occurs in the hindgut, cecum, and large and small colons. These organs are designed to slow the passage of food so that plant fibers have time to break down.  This process can take up to 72 hours.  Roughage, like hay or grass, take longer to breakdown than grain and create a more steady source of heat.  So if the digestive tract stays full of forage, by getting a couple of extra flakes of hay, they have a constant source of heat energy and are toasty warm!