When looking at medicine from a CAVM standpoint, the first question to ask is what is health? Health is defined as freedom from disease. According to this definition many domesticated horses are not truly healthy. In conventional medicine “normal,” chronic conditions are accepted as healthy, as long as the animal is considered free from devastating […]

Question: How do I know if my horse is cold? I put him out in cold weather with a shed, but he will not go in it. I am not sure how many blankets he needs to keep warm. Answer: Horses are much better adapted to the cold weather than we give them credit for. […]

Holistic vet Dr. Joyce Harman offers tips to keep your horse at his best this winter Fall has descended upon most of the country and, though we might enjoy long, foliage-filled rides, it means Old Man Winter is just around the corner. With him, he brings stressed immune systems and wild weather patterns. “Though winter […]

Dr. Joyce Harman offers expert advice on keeping your horse at his prime over the winter months. As humans, we have winter-weight everything: winter-weight jackets, socks, hats—we may even find a new weight for ourselves over the course of the cold months! But, how closely do you monitor the winter weight of your horse? “Because […]

Chinese food energetics has become more popular in small animal medicine, but has gained little attention in the horse world. Prepackaged, processed equine feeds are just a bad as pet bagged pet foods and just as detrimental to health. Whole food material is best to feed, with attention to the actions of each food. It […]

From one of my past newsletters: There are several ways to deworm horses without using harsh chemicals. Each of them takes a bit more work and attention to detail than using a conventional paste, however the rewards exceed the effort, if you enjoy that kind of time with your horses. Holistic deworming does not usually […]

The digestive tract is critical to the horse’s well-being, and it was poorly designed by the creator, unfortunately. So we are left to help the horse cope with an increasingly artificial diet, stress level and limited exercise. In nature, the horse has a herd, walks 20 hours a day and grazes on rough roughage during […]

One of my favorite statements is that the blessing and the curse of holistic medicine is that each animal is an individual and must be treated as such. It is a blessing because finally your veterinarian wants to listen to all aspects of your horse’s life and personality and all that information is important. The […]