Pedigree Query

this caught my attention.

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressr ... orses.aspx

Part of the problem is perception by owners.

I wonder if the standards have changed in what people see as 'normal'. Look at pix of older horses and they look far more ribby. In the 80s they really started plumping up yearlings for the sales.

what is normal anyway? Part of the problem may be that the owners also are too plump!

jm

I see your point every single day when I go anywhere here. The problem is that people rely on their stores employees to tell them what to feed their horses. And they don't understand how much to how little it takes to feed their animals. We have one idiot that work in our town Cal Ranch and she pushes alot of grain. We caught her one time when she pushed the grain for our mare and we told her that she didn't know what she was talking about since she didn't know our horse.
People think that they NEED to feed a horse to death thinking that they are trying to keep their horses warm. They pamper their pasture horses to death.
It's stuipd.

The standard Body Conditioning Scores stand very well overall, for all makes and models. Vets, SPCA, judges, farm managers etc use them as standards.
However, public opinion is a huge part of deciding if a horse is fit or fat...people want to see round, glossy, fat babies as they look better. But most don't think about the extra strain added onto the joints, bones and structural development on said horses.
No different than the supermodels of the human world, they are so thin that you can almost read the paper through them...perception and developed standards.