Your Fall-Health Checklist

Keeping your horse healthy and happy and your facility maintained is a year-round endeavor. Fall is an especially good time of year to arrange veterinary care, assess your horse’s condition, secure winter forage, and restore your pastures in preparation for winter. As a conscientious horse owner, your to-do list can seem daunting. Take heart! With the help of our stable of experts, we’ve broken down fall horsekeeping tasks into four easy-to-tackle steps with accompanying checklists.

Step 1 Provide Optimal Veterinary Care

During the fall and winter, keep your horse on his regular health-maintenance program, advises Bonnie V. Beaver, DVM, a professor at Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine.

“Prevention is the key,” agrees Cherry Hill, a Colorado-based instructor, trainer, and horsekeeping expert. “It’s much easier to keep your horses on a regular vaccination, deworming, and dental schedule than