Horse care tips

Getting a horse used to clippers? Go in small steps — noise at a distance, then touch, then vibration — rewarding calm at each stage, over several short sessions.

A nervous horse's first clip can be done in stages over several days. Patchy for a while is better than a frightening experience.

Planning to bring a horse that lives out into a stable for fireworks night? Start a week or so before, set up exactly as you will on the night.

Practise deworming with an empty syringe filled with apple sauce, rewarding your horse for keeping still. It makes the real dose calmer and more accurate.

Changes in behaviour can signal pain: resenting being tacked up or mounted, tail swishing, ears pinned back, or reluctance to go forward. Don't dismiss it as naughtiness.

If a horse that isn't used to clippers must be clipped urgently for a wound or skin problem, ask your vet about sedation — then use the following weeks to train it calmly.

Horses are social animals. Make sure a stabled horse can at least see other horses, and if possible interact with them safely.

A horse-safe stable mirror can reduce stress for some horses. Supervise when you first fit it, as the 'other horse' can startle them.

After an emergency, a horse on box rest benefits from company — friends' horses stabled next door in turns, or chances for mutual grooming — as well as enrichment your vet approves.

Remember the 3Fs: friends, forage and freedom. Company, plenty of forage and room to move meet a horse's most fundamental needs.

Given the chance, horses move 10–20 km a day. Any turnout helps, and herd turnout on varied ground is best.

Offer choice where you can: forage in different ways — nets, boxes and loose — different surfaces in the field, and the freedom to pick companions.

Make forage an activity: spread it in several places or use different feeders, so finding food takes time and interest — just like grazing.

Horse-safe herbs such as mint, thyme, rosemary or dandelion in forage add interest through smell. Check your governing body's clean-sport rules if you compete.

Introduce new smells outdoors, away from food and water, where your horse can move away if it wants. Avoid essential oils near pregnant mares.

Introduce new enrichment items in an arena rather than the stable, so a worried horse can move away instead of feeling trapped with them.

Low-volume music can soothe some stabled horses, but watch how yours reacts — its preferences may not match yours.

Stress signs include a change in personality, unexplained weight loss, tooth grinding, repetitive yawning, loose droppings and tension around the muzzle.

A horse that seems calm may be quietly withdrawn and stressed. Horses that 'shut down' can be as stressed as those that react openly.

Stress stacks up: pain, an anxious owner and an unfamiliar vet may each be manageable alone, but together they can tip a horse into overload. Remove what you can.

A horse pulling faces when the girth is done up may be in discomfort. Possible causes include gastric ulcers or saddle fit — ask your vet.

Horses like routine. Keeping to a consistent daily schedule wherever possible helps reduce stress.

Train your horse to be calm for the vet and farrier before they're needed. BEVA's short 'Don't Break Your Vet' videos show how.

On fireworks nights, give plenty of hay to keep horses busy. A radio, placed out of reach, can help mask the bangs for stabled horses.