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RDA Ballina & District

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25.01.2022 Fabulous article about how training works. Take the time to read it

24.01.2022 The effect of Glyphosate Pesticides on the Equine Microbiome Glyphosate reduces the numbers of good gut bacteria that act as a control system against the bad ba...cteria which cause severe gastrointestinal diseases in horses. Clostridium are a group of bacteria that are both good and bad. The 'good' members are part of the gut ‘police force’ that - defend the gut wall against invading bacteria, interact with the immune system, release ‘friendly’ chemicals that help to maintain peace in the microbial community. The 'bad' members of clostridium are pathogenic, they- are linked to diseases such as grass sickness and severe gastrointestinal infections. Over-growth of the 'bad' members of clostridium is controlled by the production of a bacteriocine from good gut bacteria, lactobacillus, lactococcus, streptococcus, pediococcus and enterococcus. Glyphosate reduces all the bacteria within this group. See more

23.01.2022 I’ve been asked before if I exaggerate the hardships that accompany raising my boy H. If he’s really as physically demanding or expensive. If he really is liter...ally always creating hurdles to overcome to live a somewhat normal life. If he’s really as messy as I claim. If he really needs absolute constant supervision the same as a 2 year old would need. The answer is no I’m not exaggerating. (In fact I really truly don’t even share the really bad parts. I share maybe 1/16th of what our life is truly like) and yes to all the other questions. This is all in addition to his needs surrounding autism (assistance in all life skills. From dressing to holding hands super super tight every second. Checking out to pay, loading groceries into the car. Never letting go one time. My actual toddler is often following behind without a hand hold in fact) outside of our totally locked down house. (Just some examples). Well here is another small example. This photo is of his room. 6 weeks after we moved into a brand new build. It took 1.5 weeks for him to destroy the carpet. It took us until now to rip it out Because the entire house started to smell and both labor and materials are currently way delayed for all things. We couldn’t wait. He literally peed on the carpet 9000 times a day. Why?? Who knows. He hasn’t had carpet in years. So I guess it was sensory? Funny? I don’t know. It’s not like you can reason with him. Then the nailed on curtain? That’s because he strips down naked in the mornings and stands in the window while a bunch of construction workers or neighbors stare at him. And he is literally none the wiser. Do you know how easy it would be for him to be sexually assaulted if he wasn’t under our super tight watch? Or beat up for flashing himself. Even though he’s like an 18 month old and does NOT know better!? Or why he does not have anything but a bed in his room? No it’s not bc we are mean parents. It’s because he either breaks everything. Or. He climbs to the top and jumps off. Dangerous. Once broke a collar bone doing that. So, we are replacing all carpet in home that we had hoped would last 6 months to a year that we would then do ourselves. We chose to save money by doing bedrooms and game room in carpet since there is a literal 10k difference (for exact same floor) if we did it versus builder did it. Again, this is just one small example of the constant adjustments and life we live. This is by no means the worst or even the most expensive example. But it is just life here. I share these things to bring awareness to the fact that severe autism is not the quirky thing you see on TV or your neighbors kid has. A child that is stuck on certain topics and won’t shut up about their interests. I wish I knew my kids interests beyond swimming And you tube kids. He has no other interests he’s able to show. Severe autism can also be dangerous. Devastating. Bankrupting. Deadly. The list goes on. It’s quite offensive to ask a parent of this type of autism what special skill your child has. What’s their IQ (we don’t know his. He can’t hold a pencil, talk, tie his shoes, or even know to close the fridge behind him after he opens it 3000 times a day. He can’t wipe his own butt. So yeah. Asking his IQ really is kind of a slap in the face that the asker deserves). This is not for sympathy. Trust me I am thick skinned as they come. I handle our life better than most I know. I can handle shit boss up. It’s the way I do. And we make the best out of everything. I don’t need anyones sympathy. In fact the victim mentality ppl have over stupid shit these days makes me cringe. But with the numbers rising every single year in autism (mainly the number of SEVERE children. So don’t give me better diagnosing. That’s actually an insult to medical professionals and parents everywhere lol. They just didn’t notice kids like him? Mmkay) It’s time everyone learns this. Because give it another 10 years and it will be in every family. Don’t believe me - go back and read my posts from 5, 10 years ago all those things ppl rolled their eyes at likely? Yeah welcome to 2021. Because all those things became reality too. ****edited to add since some asked me to make it public to share. I didn’t include that he’s also a huge blessing. Has the best smile and laugh. He’s loved beyond measure. A d is the sweetest snuggle bug you will meet. I didn’t add this initially as my friends that have followed me already know he’s amazing and celebrated. But if someone who doesn’t know our story reads this. They need to know that he’s amazing***** #diaryofatiredmom

22.01.2022 Horses mask pain so well, it's up to us to listen well.

13.01.2022 An excellent article about a little discussed topic that can have a devastating effect on your equine’s health and behavior. Early Warning Signs of Laminitis...Your horse’s best chance of overcoming this hoof disease might lie in your ability to catch it earlyIt’s a painful condition that veterinarians, farriers, and horse owners have been racking their brains about for decades. Laminitisthe separation or failure of laminae, which connect the hoof wall to the coffin bone withincan cause permanent structural changes in a horse’s foot, leading to repeated bouts of disease and lasting lameness. In severe cases the pedal (coffin) bone in the hoof rotates downward, potentially even puncturing the sole and prompting the decision to euthanize. But get this: Watchful handlers can actually detect signs of laminitis in its early stages and intervene before the condition becomes debilitating.Everyone talks about laminitis being a lameness issue, but we know that horses start to get damage at a microscopic level before they show any lameness, says Andrew van Eps, BVSc, PhD, MACVSc, Dipl. ACVIM, senior lecturer and specialist in equine medicine at The University of Queensland Equine Hospital, in Gatton, Australia. Therefore, keeping an eye out for minute changes in your horse’s health is key to maximizing his likelihood of recovery, says Tom Ryan, FWCF, a researcher and farrier based in Bedfordshire, U.K. You have to be proactively thinking ahead, he says. To help you catch this devastating hoof disease while your horse still has a chance to avoid suffering its consequences, our sources have helped us come up with a list of 10 early warning signs. Regardless of the type of case (supporting-limb, systemic inflammatory response syndrome, or endocrine disease-related), these red flags could indicate laminitis is setting ineven before you see any signs of lameness. So alert your veterinarian as soon as possible if you detect one or more of the following:1. A strong/bounding digital pulse Slide your hand down the side of your horse’s lower limb where the digital artery runs through the groove between the flexor tendons and the suspensory ligament. Where the artery continues down the back of the fetlock you should be able to feel his pulse. Normally, the pulse should be faint or even seem absent, says Ryan. But in laminitic horses it will be stronger and is often referred to as bounding. How do you know what’s strong or bounding? You kind of have to feel to know, he says. Ideally, you should get to know what’s normal for your horse’s digital pulse. A strong digital pulse can indicate other foot pain, as well, but a bounding digital pulse in both feet is a major clue that laminitis is to blame.2. A hoof that’s hot for hoursHealthy horses can have hot hooves, says van Eps, but not for long periods of time. It’s normal for horses to experience large influxes of blood into their feet periodically, which causes hoof temperature to rise. But the body regulates this heat, and it should only last a couple of hours at mostunless it’s hot outside. In other words, there’s no need to panic if your horse has been standing in a sunny field on a 90-degree day and his hooves are hot. The time to worry is when hooves reach 91.4F (33C) for several hours in a row and the outdoor temperature is lower than 77F (25C). That’s a sign they could be getting laminitis, and that’s what we’ve seen experimentally, van Eps says.That increased temperature, says Ryan, is the hoof’s response to the trauma within the laminar tissues. Sometimes lameness follows quickly. We see lameness begin eight to 12 hours after that temperature increase, van Eps says. If you don’t think you can estimate surface temperatures well with your fingers, van Eps recommends using an infrared surface temperature gauge from a hardware store. 3. A distorted hoof shape and/or unusual rings Healthy hooves grow faster in the dorsal (front) part of the hoof and slower in the quarters, says Ryan, creating smooth, wide, evenly spaced growth rings across the front of the hoof wall, which can be slightly closer together at the quarters. With laminitis, that growth pattern no longer applies; because the growth at the heels is now more rapid than at the toe, the horse develops wider growth rings at the heels. Currently, says Ryan, we don’t understand why the heels grow faster than normal in laminitis.This altered pattern causes the hoof’s rings to curve upward and abnormal rings to develop on the hoof wall surface, which can precede lameness sometimes by months or years, says Donald Walsh, DVM. Walsh leads the Animal Health Foundation, in Pacific, Missouri, which funds research and education projects related to laminitis.Ryan believes abnormal hoof growth starts before all evidence of pain, causing the laminae to be traumatized when the hoof capsule changes shape around the underlying pedal bone. He’s been investigating the pain-relieving properties of cutting vertical grooves into laminitic horses’ hoof walls, with the intention of reducing the effect of the distortion. The small strip of horn removed protects the dorsal laminae by isolating it from the rapidly growing heel. Early grooving appears to protect the laminae from the more severe effects of hoof capsule distortion, he says, adding that research is pending on this theory. Our experience indicates that if you can do it very early on, you can see pain relief within hours.4. An increased heart rate We used to think that heart rate was not a very sensitive indicator, van Eps says. But we found that in our clinical patients the most sensitive indicator (for pending laminitis) is probably an increase in heart rate. Most horses maintain pretty consistent resting heart rates of 30-40 beats per minute (BPM). But van Eps has noted that heart rates of laminitic horses tend to rise a day or so before lameness sets in. A mild increase in heart rate of even 6 bpm can be a significant early indicator that your horse is getting uncomfortable, he says.A lot of people have dismissed small heart rate changes, but actually they can be very useful warning signs if the horse’s normal heart rate is known, he adds. You can measure heart rate with a stethoscope or by feeling for the pulse under the jaw or at the pastern, as described before. Exercise, excitement, and ambient temperature can also increase heart rate, however, so keep these influences in mind when interpreting results.5. Too littleor too muchfoot liftingHorses rely on movement to get blood flow and the nutrients within to hoof tissues, says van Eps. But if a horse is injured in one leg, he might bear weight for too long on the opposite limb, causing a phenomenon called supporting-limb laminitis.Consider putting these horses in a sling so they can take weight off that foot, suggests Walsh. With your veterinarian’s direction you can also try to get horses with leg injuries out of the stall to move around. Even if the horse is hopping, it’s producing enough movement to prevent laminitis from occurring.On the flipside, a horse that picks his feet up too often might also be showing early signs of laminitis, van Eps says. Horses normally shift their (weight between) feet about two or three times per minute, he says. We noticed an increase of three to five times that weight-shifting when they were developing laminitis. If the feet get painful enough, the horse will begin to change his stance, shifting his weight back to his haunches, along with stretching his legs out in front of him in the classic laminitis pose.6. Apparent stretched and/or bleeding laminae As laminae start to stretch, they separate from the hoof wall, explains Walsh. A gap becomes visible along the white line, where the sole and hoof wall meet. This white line widening is known as seedy toe, and you can see evidence of this in the trimmings from a laminitic horse’s foot during a farrier visit. He adds that if you notice spots of blood in the white line when you pick up your horse’s foot, it doesn’t mean your horse has been quicked by the farrier; it means the laminae are hemorrhaging, which is a sure sign of laminitis.Owners can check trimmings each time the farrier comes and begin to recognize what’s normal and not normal for their horsessomething farriers might miss, says Walsh. Laminar stretching also increases the distance between the external hoof wall and the front of the coffin bone, which can be seen on lateral radiographs (X rays), says van Eps. That space is normally 18 mm, but it will increase as the laminae stretch, he says. There won’t be any rotation of the bone yet, just that lengthening that could go to 20, 21, sometimes even 22 mm.7. A shortened stride A laminitic horse starts shortening his stride before he begins limping, says Ryan. Stride changes are more obvious on hard surfaces, especially when turning at the walk.Not many other conditions will make a horse lame on a circle on a hard ground at the walk in both directions, van Eps says. Know your horse’s typical stride length at the walk so you’ll recognize when those steps get shorter. And watch for signs of pain when the horse turns at the walk; these can range from the horse pinning his ears to a reluctance to move. A horse that looks fine on a straight line on soft ground could look very different on hard ground in a circle, he adds.8. Increased insulin levels Insulin, a normal hormone released in the body to regulate blood sugar, activates a particular growth factor (IGF-1) in the laminae, causing them to grow. But the laminae aren’t supposed to grow, Walsh says.A basic insulin reading by a veterinarian should show 20 units or lower, Walsh says. If it’s over 40, you need to take action to get that insulin down before laminitis hits. In the gray area between 20 and 40, Walsh says he recommends performing an oral glucose test, in which the horse receives a weight-calculated dose of corn syrup that causes insulin levels to spike. In healthy horses these levels should return to normal within 60 to 90 minutes. In insulin-resistant horses they’ll stay elevated for much longer. If your horse is already experiencing a bout of laminitis, however, it’s important to wait until it has subsides to test for IR.Walsh says he sees storms of laminitis cases caused by high insulin in spring, when horses are turned out on sugar-rich pastures. Even so, rich spring pastures won’t affect all horsesjust those genetically inclined to insulin resistance. These animals need low-sugar diets and plenty of exerciseeven if they’re laminiticto lower their insulin levels, Walsh says. 9. Obesity An obese horse is more likely to be an insulin-resistant one, say our sources. Obese horses’ feet also bear more weight, which contributes to the mechanical changes in hoof shape. Physical weight could cause the hooves to grow abnormally, says Ryan.The excess weight can also send conflicting messages to farriers, says Walsh. A lot of farriers will think the horse is wearing his feet down from being overweight, he says, when in reality, the horse is breaking his foot down, not wearing his foot down, due to first the stretching of the laminae. Then the excess weight helps to break the foot down. First and foremost, it’s important to recognize if your horse is fat. Owners are generally blind to how overweight their horses are and don’t appreciate how much they’re overfeeding, says Ryan. And, secondly, reduce the horse’s calorie intake and increase his exercise, Walsh adds.10. Diarrhea, infection, or inflammatory responseSystemic inflammatory responses can trigger laminitis, says Walsh. If the horse is developing a high fever and diarrhea, then laminitis is next on the plate, and you have to be proactive in thinking about that, he says. These horses are engaged in massive destruction of the laminae, which occurs because of enzyme reactions in the feet due to the inflammatory response.A good way to keep laminitis at bay in these types of cases is packing the horse’s feet in ice, Walsh says. Work with a veterinarian to keep the horse’s legs at a maximum of 41F (5C) all the way up to his hocks and knees, starting immediately. If you wait to do this until clinical signs of laminitis appear, you’re often too late to prevent damage.Take-Home MessageLaminitis starts at a microscopic level well before actual lameness sets in. Careful horse owners can learn to recognize the subtle signs caused by microscopic changes, call their veterinarian, and take steps to prevent the laminitis from worsening. Although these microscopic changes might not be reversible, it’s possible to stop the disease before it becomes debilitating. Laminitis is all about ameliorating or halting the progression, van Eps says. If it’s very early and quite mild then you can go on to have a horse with no functional disruption.Researchers recommend getting an idea of what’s normal for each horsehow he walks and turns, how he stands, what his posture is like, and his normal hoof temperature and heart rate. Once you do that, van Eps says, you’ll be well-equipped to detect what’s not normal and instigate change.SHARE:ABOUT THE AUTHORChrista Lesté-Lasserre, MAPassionate about horses and science from the time she was riding her first Shetland Pony in Texas, Christa Lesté-Lasserre writes about scientific research that contributes to a better understanding of all equids. After undergrad studies in science, journalism, and literature, she received a master's degree in creative writing. Now based in France, she aims to present the most fascinating aspect of equine science: the story it creates. Follow Lesté-Lasserre on Twitter @christalestelas. See more

04.01.2022 *HOW TO BUILD BOUNDARIES WITH POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT AND WHY HORSES DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF "RESPECT"* The idea of RESPECT is probably one of the most ...misunderstood and misused concepts in horsemanship. "My horse doesn't respect me. I need to teach him respect. I need to show him who the boss is" Let's start with what actually respect is : respect /rspkt/ noun a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. Just reading the definition of what respect is tells us clearly that it has nothing to do with what we expect from horses. So even if we go by the definition we know that horses will never feel a deep admiration for us because they don't have the cognitive capabilities to understand this concept. When people say they want their horse to respect them they usually mean obey or at least keep in the boundaries set up by the human. And there is nothing wrong with setting clear boundaries - they're actually crucial to our safety. What's wrong with using the word "respect" is that the word is used to cover up how these boundaries are set up - and that's often through inflicting a fear response. Respect sounds better than saying "the horse needs to fear me so I can feel safe". Pushing a horse away, flicking a string of the stick, using a whip - all aim at teaching a horse to move out of our space through punishment /negative reinforcement and create avoidance or escape behaviours. The horse doesn't learn to "respect" us, the horse remembers that stepping into a human will mean negative consequences. This strategy can teach our horse what not to do but it will not teach our horses what to do. And this is where this way often fails - despite punishing / using negative reinforcement your horse will still push into your space now and then - simply for one reason - he doesn't know what behaviour is right. He will also often habituate to the pressure that is being used which in turn "forces" the human to escalate the pressure/punishment even to an extend of hitting the horse either with the whip or slapping /pinching until the horse moves away. Sciencific evidence tells us that such approach can compromise human-animal relationship and often leads to more unwanted and agressive behaviours due to the aversive learning that occours. And here is where Positive Reinforcement can come to help - by using food as a Reinforcemet we actually teach our horses what behaviours we would like to see and at the same time strengthen the positive human-animal relationship. The way we teach boundaries with Positive Reinforcemet has a pretty simple concept behind it - we reinforce the distance we want our horses to stay at by marking (with a clicker or another bridge signal) and offering a reinforcer (mainly food). To eliminate unwanted behaviours such as pushing into our space we set up the environment and create training plans that reinforcers desired behaviours . This can be done through few ways : * Protective Contact (PC)- PC is a physical barrier such a fence line or door /gate that separates the horse from the human. This barrier allows for safe interactions until the distance and default behaviour is established. The horse cannot physically get close to the human and therefore allows for safe teaching. Most behaviours can be taught behind the protective contact which can be weaned off as soon as the behaviours are strong and reliable * Stationing - stationing is a behaviour of standing still and often chosen as a default behaviour by Positive Reinforcemet trainers. The horse learns that standing still in a neutral position is what results in things he wants - such as food. He learns that the food comes to him and not the other way round. Stationing can be trained with the use of targets such as cones or mats which are slowly weaned off as the horse progresses . *Hand held targets (HHT) - HHT are long objects such as pool noodles that your horse has learned to touch /follow. They can be used for maintaining a safe distance and redirecting behaviours - for example if the horse is learning to maintain a safe distance in walk and suddenly steps closer to a human the target can be extended out to the side to redirect the horse - the horse will follow the target because it has been positively conditioned , he knows that following the target will result in click + treat. * "Back up" cue - the back up cue is often one of the first behaviours trained with Positive Reinforcemet and can work wonderfully for asking for some space. The behaviour is trained with the application of Positive Reinforcemet either with the use of a target, capturing or using a feeding position ( offering food close to horse's chest so he needs to step back to get to it which is marked and reinforced). Personally I utilise all these approaches to keep safe depending on circumstances and what we are working on.

04.01.2022 Spots available, NDIS approved.

04.01.2022 Can anyone top this? Who in your paddock is doing his/her best to be a chestnut?

04.01.2022 Exercise....good for them...good for us https://www.safergrass.org//exercise-is-preventative-and-n

01.01.2022 Meet Jane, Dinky the dog and Diamond the pony Each year the 80-year-old and her companions make a 600-mile round trip from Hexham to the north of Scotland https://bbc.in/2SBRHzX