Photo credit: Chris Hassell

I am going through some more personal development in my life and am waiting until I can go back to using my in-the-saddle-time as down time for everything else. While Tori has never been the same as riding Raime, she still provided a great place to take my mind off of other things. Hopefully I’ll have lots to share in the next few weeks as we return Tori back to a fit performance horse!

To any of you who have used lights in the past to start broodmares cycling earlier, I’d really appreciate hearing from you. I need to put Tori on lights soon (by November I think, maybe sooner?) in order to have her cycling in time to breed her early next spring. I would like to get as much input as I can before starting this project as I’ve never done it before! You can email me with advice and your good and bad experiences of setting up lights at kristi@hiway16.com

Till next week, I hope you’re still riding lots! The snow and cold weather will come all too soon!!
~ Kristi :)

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In the October 2001 Emergency series, I mentioned the importance of having your horses halter broke and trailer trained before an emergency should arise. But what if you don’t know how to approach halter breaking that baby?

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll look at some accepted methods of halter training a foal or other young horse. This is a good time to start working on this if you haven’t already, as soon enough you won’t be able to go riding!

How your foal was raised and what type of personality he or she possesses can go a long way to set the method you’ll use in halter training him or her. A hand raised baby may already be mostly trained to lead and tie by fall, they are comfortable being worked around, they may even have had feet trimmed, been dewormed or been trailered.

However, many of us horse lovers have too many foals each year to find the time to deal with them individually, and so their early education gets neglected. This will be particularly true of foals raised in a ranch or range situation, or in some larger scale breeders, PMU farms, etc. The filly I bought in 1999 came from a PMU farm and it was a real challenge getting her halter broke!

We’ll start this series with the foal or young horse that has had minimal handling, as you can work on these gentling procedures for quite some time before actually getting your horse halter broke. If your foal or young horse is well handled and just needs some leading and tying lessons, you can still follow along on the gentling part of this series, and then start your homework when we get farther along.

If you have comments or suggestions along the way, please share with me at kristi@hiway16.com

This note comes from Cori Stephen, a Vanderhoof resident who is currently in school at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, in Saskatoon, SK. Thanks, Cori, for sharing this up to date information with us. Please use the links Cori has provided for the most recent information on the West Nile Virus.

Hey Kristi,
I just want to help you out here a little bit with the article on WNV. There is some important information that you may not be aware of and as you are posting this site to the public I thought I should let you know about it.

Because of the "fear" of WNV due to its rapid infiltration throughout certain parts of North America it is receiving a lot of media attention. Not all of what the media portrays is accurate and sometimes they forget to mention the important parts. West Nile has been positively identified in Saskatchewan. Birds of the crow family (Jays, crows, magpies) whom become infected with the virus die. Many other birds unrelated to this family are unaffected and therefore become carriers. The big concern at the moment is that they have identified high viral loads in the wild Canadian Geese population whom of which we both know have a huge migration pattern. This poses a big concern for areas not yet infiltrated by the virus, eg BC and Alberta.

Also, WNV has zoonotic potential, meaning that it can affect humans. There is no need to worry though as it is often not fatal and symptoms are similar to the flu. The risk lies with the young, old, and immunocompromised individuals eg. those with cancer, HIV, high stress load etc. At the moment the lab testing for WNV is back logged immensely (this is in the US) and as of right now there are no testing facilities in Canada. The Prairie Diagnostic Center at the WCVM is trying hard to get things rolling here for WNV diagnosis but of course are waiting on a back log for their reagents and supplies.

You are correct when you say that the clinical signs for WNV are similar to WEE and EEE, those of which most of us vaccinate for annually, and have more than likely never even seen a case. On a more serious note, though is that the symptom also mimic other diseases, and most important of those is Rabies, which is a government reportable disease and we know to been fatal in humans if not treated almost immediately.

There is also a vaccine available for this disease, which I am sure that you are aware of. It is available on conditional release by one of the drug companies ( Fort Dodge/Ayerst) in the US. It has not had any significant trials or challenges done but at the moment it is our only hope at protecting the horse population. As for the horses of BC, the recommendation is vaccination in the year 2003 prior to mosquito season.

I would also like to suggest that when you write the articles on certain diseases that you cite your references so that your readers may be able to link to more information. As for the WNV your best shot would be the Health Canada site, as this is government documentation, updated, accurate and legally bound. I will attach these links so you will find them easy.

Take care and hope all is well,
Cori Stephen

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