Categories
Blog General Post

Equine Disease Surveillance in Canada

Equine disease surveillance in Canada

In Canada, equine industry organizations such as the Canadian Quarter Horse Association work closely with other partners including the Canadian Animal Health Surveillance System, regional animal health networks (Western, Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic), governments, universities, veterinarians, laboratories and others to monitor diseases and share information.  

At the moment, these networks are paying attention to:

  • Equine infectious anemia (EIA), particularly in western Canada
  • Respiratory diseases (Influenza, Equine herpesvirus)
  • Antimicrobial use and resistance in horses
  • Vector borne diseases and climate change

Up to date information for horse owners includes:

  • The interactive Equine Diseases Dashboard
  • Infographics on EIA in Canada, including what you can do to protect your horses
  • Infographics on good practices for managing snotty noses and minor wounds

These are free and can all be found at: https://www.cahss.ca/cahss-networks/equine

Categories
Blog

Area 3’s Youth Amazing Challenge

The Area 3 Quarter Horse Promotional Club hosted a new event this year at their Summer Classic Circuit hosted in Lindsey, ON for August 17th to 21st.

The goal of the 2022 Youth Amazing Challenge was to bring together all their youth in a setting outside of the show ring in order to build camaraderie and include those youth that were attending the show but not yet showing horses themselves.

Over 20 youth took part in this special event sponsored by CQHA and it provided an opportunity to introduce youth who may not have known each other or know each other well to work together as teams and build problem solving and planning skills through fun and interactive tasks.

It was an encouraging environment, where teams cheered each other on, had lots of laughter and completely entertained the spectators who were on the side line  boosting moral.

Categories
Blog General Post

Health and Regulations for the Transport of Animals in Canada Update

Transportation Code

An update to the 2001 transportation Code has been underway since December 2018. This multi-species Code of
Practice, covering animals from 14 national on-farm Codes, has been a massive undertaking. Additionally:

  • It has had to take into consideration robust federal regulations governing the transportation of animals in
    Canada (Health of Animals Regulations (HAR) Part XII: Transport of Animals), the long-awaited update of which
    was published in February 2019 along with an “evergreen” Interpretive Guidance for Regulated Parties.
  • The COVID 19 pandemic hit in 2020 halting all in-person meetings and requiring the nine Working Groups and
    the Code Development Committee to meet exclusively online. This was a huge learning curve for many and
    impeded the relationship-building opportunities and open dialogue that in-person meetings offer.
  • It is the first Code using NFACC’s Code development process that is not intended for on-farm use, and included
    the care of animals during transportation as well as when offloaded at specific types of intermediary sites.
  • It was initiated by NFACC versus a national stakeholder group representing transporters and other primary
    stakeholders, which has led to additional challenges in following the Code development process.

At the outset it was recognized that this complex Code required all the time afforded under the Canadian Agricultural
Partnership’s (CAP) AgriAssurance Program time allowance. Unfortunately, over the last several months it has become
apparent that a finalized transportation Code is not achievable by the CAP program end date of March 31, 2023. Initially,
attention was focused on finding alternative means for completing this Code. However, in recent months further
challenges surrounding the lack of national lead organizations have led to concerns with proceeding to update the
transportation Code. It has become prudent to take stock of the issues being raised and consider alternative approaches
for addressing humane transportation of livestock and poultry.

After deliberations with varied perspectives being brought forward, the NFACC board agreed, and secured support from
our project funders, to pursue a Risk Assessment (RA) coupled with a Collaboration Planning Exercise (CPE). It was
further agreed that RA & CPE are the soundest approach to:

  • Make best use of the time remaining under the current project to identify a path forward,
  • Ensure that we make best use of the time and funding already invested,
  • Ensure that we make best use of content developed to date through the project,
  • Unite the diverse interests around humane transportation into an achievable and cohesive plan,
  • Ensure that any decisions are consistent with NFACC’s mission and processes (and risk tolerances),
  • Ensure that we identify a viable path forward for the future.

Additionally, transporters and intermediary site operators are key stakeholders who need to be more formally
involved/engaged in a way that facilitates sector-wide inclusively. Hence, the remainder of the project will focus on
conducting a RA and CPE with the goal of determining viable options that can be operationalized with the broad support
of stakeholders.


Thank you to the many people who have participated in working groups and committees. There is a wealth of
information in the work already produced under this project activity and a strong desire has been expressed to make
best use of the content that has been developed to date. Both the RA and CPE are expected to provide possible
approaches for further consideration (e.g., incorporating transportation within commodity-specific Codes of Practice).

It should also be noted that while updating the transportation Code by March 2023 is not possible, much has already
been accomplished through this project. Aside from progress on various drafts of the transportation Code:

  • The transportation sections of 11 on-farm Codes were aligned with the new Health of Animals Regulations, an
    effort that required a significant investment of resources from 2019 until early 2022. The transportation Code
    team undertook this massive effort and worked with national livestock and poultry groups and CFIA.
  • A substantial update to the Environmental Scan of Regulatory and Operational Considerations report was
    undertaken in 2019, which included incorporating significant updates from both the Health of Animals
    Regulations and the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations.
  • A survey at the outset of the project captured top-of-mind concerns related to humane transportation with a
    report produced.

Previous progress reports are available here.

For information on the steps of the Code development process and progress of the Codes being updated follow this link.


Funded in part by the Government of Canada under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership’s AgriAssurance Program, a federal, provincial, territorial initiative.

Categories
Members Only Post

Aug/Sept Issue of Canadian Cowboy Country

Categories
Members Only Post

Canadian Horse Journal Early Summer 2022

SPECIAL FEATURES
  • Reducing the Risk of Eventing Falls
  • How Do OTTBs Compare to Other Breeds?
  • Stallion Housing Affects Their Welfare
  • How to Create a Paddock Paradise
  • Commercial Horse Transport: The good, the bad, and the ugly
  • Riding the Rail: Winning tips for flat classes
  • Are You Riding All Your Gears?
  • Practice Emotional Resilience for a Better Ride
  • Riding Canada’s Beaches
HEALTH
  • App to Monitor Equine Body Condition
  • Vaccination Guidelines for Healthier Horses
  • Should You Breed Your Mare?
  • Close Call – Saving the Life of a Newborn Colt
DEPARTMENTS
  • Horse Council BC News
  • Manitoba Horse Council News
  • Canadian Quarter Horse Association News
  • Canadian Therapeutic Riding Association News
Categories
Blog Youth Post

Youth Member From Nova Scotia Authors Children’s Book

An Entrepreneurial Mom and a New Horse Inspire 13 Year Old

Sadie’s Story is available online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo, Target and Barnes & Noble. It is also available in select Chapters, Indigo and Coles stores across Canada. You can learn more about the book and follow Kacey and Nora’s journey on Instagram and Facebook at @feel.good.farm.books

It is no secret to those of us in the horse world that horses and everything that goes with them is expensive. Really expensive. Like so many of us who have horses today, I was once a little girl who dreamed of having a horse someday. But, I always heard the same story from my parents – “horses are too expensive” and “we know that you won’t look after it”. So I grew up riding every horse that someone would let me ride and dreaming of someday owning my own horse. I was always grateful to have friends and relatives who were willing to share their horses with me.

Fast forward to 2018. I was a solo parent to three incredible humans and my youngest daughter, Kacey, who was 10 at the time, started asking if she could have a horse. To make sure it wasn’t just a passing phase, I signed her up for riding lessons with a local coach, Taylor Folkerstma of TF Show Horses (Stewiacke, NS).

Like all first lessons with new riders, Taylor started her on a bomb-proof horse with a lunge line. About 20 minutes into that first lesson, Taylor unhooked the lunge line and had Kacey jogging around the arena on her own. My heart went into panic mode for a few minutes watching my
little girl ride around, controlling a very large animal all by herself, until I saw Kacey’s beaming face … and I knew she was hooked.

Kacey continued to take one lesson a week for the next year but her love for the sport kept growing and she wanted to do more. She wanted to have her own horse to take to shows and to ride more often than once a week. Taylor helped us find the perfect horse, Sadie (Hot Time to Invest), a 2006 AQHA Chestnut Mare. Although we were warned about the stereotypical personality of the chestnut mare, we knew that Sadie was one of the good ones. Sadie was quiet, kind and patient — the ideal first horse for a little girl.

Over the next year, Kacey and Sadie spent a lot of time together. Sadie taught Kacey so much and helped improve her riding skills tremendously. She loved Kacey and would follow her around anywhere, without the need for a lead-line. They bonded the way every horse owner dreams of bonding with their trusted companion.


In February 2021, Kacey and I were at the barn and her coach and mentor, Taylor, said in passing, “you guys should buy Nora”. I had no idea who Nora was so she explained to me that she was a two-year old bay filly from Krymsun Farm named Ms Good Tyme Krymsun and that she was definitely going places. No one had ridden her yet but she had been saddled and had tons of ground work done with her. She was quiet and had a great personality. Because this
conversation happened in front of Kacey (of course) it then became constant begging and pleading from my now 13-year old – “Mom, can we get her?”, “Mom, she is so pretty”, “Mom, pleeeeaaassseeee”.

Again, I am a solo parent and I am also a solo entrepreneur, struggling to make ends meet through a global pandemic, in addition to supporting my son who was battling cancer. I knew that Kacey would benefit so much from going through the process of training a young horse and that it would help take her mind off of what a hard year we were having. But I couldn’t afford the horse and all of the expenses that go with her.

So, I challenged Kacey to come up with a way to help pay for Nora. The next day we sat down and brainstormed ways that teenagers can make money – Google showed us lots of ideas! As we scrolled through the ideas, Kacey had a “lightbulb moment” and said, “Mom, you published a book last year, I could do the same as you! I could write an inspirational children’s book with a horse as the main character!” And, the next morning, Kacey sat down and did just that!

The final product is called Sadie’s Story: It is Okay to be Different. Sadie’s Story uses horses as characters to focus on how it is okay to be different and on the power of the unconditional love between a little girl and her horse. It was adorably illustrated by another young Nova Scotian horse girl, Megan Johnson, making her dream come true of being a children’s book illustrator. It is quickly becoming a favourite for all horse lovers, young and young-at-heart.

And, of course, Nora (Ms Good Tyme Krymsun) and Kacey are now teammates and are working hard to get ready for western pleasure shows this summer. In addition to working with Nora, Kacey spent the summer of 2021 learning more about reining and had the opportunity to show at her first reining show on our friend’s horse, Henry (Twistology), owned by Dr. Laura Buckland. And she also learned about liberty, horsemanship and how to connect with your
horse. She is passionate about learning everything she can about horses and is fortunate to have some amazing mentors.

‘Kacey hopes that this story helps other young horse lovers dream big and find creative ways to try to make those dreams come true. And, as her mom, I am thrilled to be watching her live her dreams, which were once my dreams that I never got to live.

Submitted by Karen Dean (Facebook and Instagram — @karendeanspeaks)

Categories
Blog Members Post Uncategorized

Meet the Canadian Horse Journal’s 2021 Quarter Horse division Photo Contest Winner

CQHA was pleased to sponsor a Quarter Horse division of the Canadian Horse Journal’s 2021 annual photo contest. Out of over One Hundred entries, the contest judges chose “Two More Heels” submitted by Mandy Panas of Elk Point, Alberta as the inaugural award winner.

The CQHA Media Team contacted Mandy and asked her to tell the Canadian Quarter Horse community about the photo, and her relationship with the horse featured in the photo. The following editorial was submitted:

Lenas Blue Bur aka "Rusty" a Horse With Many Friends and a Million Stories

The first time I saw Rusty I didn’t think much of him. He was unloaded off the trailer at a ranch I worked for as a un-halter broke coming two year old stud colt. I was 17 years old at the time, and preferred coloured flashy looking horses; a plain old chestnut with a star and a bad attitude did not catch my eye!

He did catch my friend Wayne’s eye a couple weeks later at the sale held by the ranch. The sale was held after, hours were spent trying to rope Rusty and get a halter on him. The hardest part of halter breaking Rusty occurred once they finally roped him, he was so big the pony horse they snubbed him too had trouble teaching him manners. My good friends Wayne and Karen took him home and turned him into a horse, a horse that I spent many many hours riding over the next decade.

The first time I rode Rusty was on a camping trip in Saskatchewan at Manitou Outfitters. I took my coloured flashy buckskin, but two days into the trip he needed a rest after prancing his way through the 35°C sun on our long rides. Wayne loaned me Rusty who had only been started under saddle the previous year and I actually enjoyed riding the big chestnut on our evening ride. I was glad I was not riding him when he laid down in the lake, which was the start of his nickname “The Duck Horse” –  Most horses will stop, put their head down, paw a little bit and start to lay down when they get in the water. Rusty walked right in, got knee deep and dropped to the ground with no warning. It was like his legs collapsed and disappeared, he went straight to his belly in that water. To get around the cattle guard we had to go through the water, which was not that deep and that bugger was not going through there without a swim. I took his lead rope and pulled him through the water on my buckskin much to his disgust. The next trip through a much longer stretch of deeper water produced the same effect out of Rusty so once again my buckskin encouraged him through the water. For years to come Rusty would lay down, or try to, whenever his hooves touched water. From a puddle on a gravel road to a creek or a lake. Sometimes he was sweated up and you hit a patch of deep sand on the trail he would drop there too. He would rarely ever warn you, you would feel him slow down and then the ground would be rushing up towards you. Rivers seemed to be the exception, I don’t remember him ever trying to lay down in the current of a river.

I rode Rusty as often as I needed, when my horse was injured, or when I couldn’t haul or just anytime I wanted to ride him. I cattle penned and sorted on him, I rode at poker rallies and trail rides, chased cows at our friends pasture, caught calves to tag them, took him up to the mountains or anywhere else we went camping. After a couple of years under saddle Karen started riding him more than Wayne but she still shared him with me.

Titled "Two More Heels" Mandy Panas of Elk Point, Alberta was the winner of the inaugural "Registered Quarter Horse Division" of the of Canadian Horse Journal Magazine's 30th annual For the Love of Horses Photo Contest. Pictured is, Lenas Blue Bur aka "Rusty" and Jeremy Heraid bring another calf to the branding fire. Rusty is an Alberta bred 2004 chestnut gelding sired by Lenas Azure San, out of Shabbys Blue Bur by Leo Blue Bug.

 

People we knew asked occasionally if he was for sale and Karen always used to say you have to ask Mandy. One year I was in Ponoka when my cousins called me to ask if I could ride in a ranch rodeo with them on their Ag society team. I told them if I could find a horse I could rope off to borrow I would. Of course Rusty was my first choice, so off we went on a two hour road trip to ride with my two teenage cousins and their mom on the team they had entered. Most of the events were your typical ranch rodeo events but the one event that concerned us was where we had to catch a yearling and tie it down. When our team rode in we had a game plan, throw loops in the dirt until we reached our rope limit. I wasn’t a very good roper to begin with so it shouldn’t have been a problem. Rusty was fast enough I could usually run the young calves down and fishing a loop over their heads when we would tag them. My cousin went first and missed the calf our team was called. I rode into the herd and moved two calves down the fence, threw my loop and by some miracle caught the right calf. I don’t know who was more surprised, me, my teammates or Rusty that I had caught the yearling. Thankfully the other members of the AG society jumped the fence and came to help my team lay the yearling down and tie her up.

Over the years Karen and Wayne would pack Rusty to pennings, and the mountains and trail rides for me. As their grandsons got older I shared Rusty with him as well when I was between horses or just wanted a nice easy ride. But riding Rusty was not always nice and easy. When they decided to sell him Rusty was offered to me first. At the time I couldn’t afford him, it was pretty sad to think that someone else might buy him and I wouldn’t get to ride him anymore. A couple
months later my husband Jeremy and I  sold one of our ranch horses and needed another broke horse that could be saddled up and go to work, I convinced Jeremy to try him out. We drove two hours and picked up Rusty to add to the herd of geldings at Rafter HJ Ranch.

Eleven years after I watched that half wild Chestnut run around the pen and duck his head every time a loop flew his way he was mine- even if I was supposed to share him with my other half he is mostly my horse. Rusty always was a family mount and still is. When we head out with a trailer load it would be rare for Rusty not to be on it. As much as he is “my” horse I will share him when I need to.

Rusty’s biggest quirk besides being the “Duck Horse” is his spring time bucking! Every year when the green grass comes out he turns into a bit of a handful, sometimes he gets pretty serious about it – to this day he has never managed to buck me off; but he has tried a good number of times! It usually happens chasing a cow or calf across the pasture, but a couple of times its been at pennings; the most memorable was after we bought him, while I was helping to chase bucking horses out of the arena, while the rodeo club we help with was dummy bucking. I hadn’t ridden Rusty much that spring, and I knew there was a good chance he would try it that day. I warmed him up good but it did not surprise me when I asked him to step up after a bronc that he ducked his head and tried to unload me. I pulled him up, let him stand a few seconds and went back to the task at hand. The next horse out, Rusty tried it again; s soon as I asked him to run! I pulled him up and then off we went again across the arena. The third time Rusty ducked his head and started bucking I pulled him up, made him spin a couple circles and yelled at him to knock it off before going back to catch up with the others . . . he was good until the next spring!

When we first bought Rusty, I had acquired another gelding a couple months before, that had, had a rough hand dealt to him in his past. We were unsure of the gelding’s whole story as every previous owner I talked to told me something different about where he had come from that contradicted the last. His fear of people was his biggest problem, however Rusty was instrumental in helping him get over that! Rusty can be hard to catch on a good day, always has been but he isn’t scared of people in the least and a pocket of cookies is tough to turn down. I took the two geldings everywhere together, if the grey went Rusty went too. I spent countless hours ponying the gelding with Rusty to rehab him; circles, over trot poles, down the trails when we got into summer and then in the mountains and out to the pasture where Jeremy was working. I had planned on taking Rusty to the mountains and decided the week before I was taking the grey too. I was called crazy considering I had never rode him yet, but I made up my mind, the farrier put shoes on him (which was no easy task) and I packed them down to Ya Ha Tinda to meet with Rusty’s previous owners for a week of camping. Rusty ponied that grey horse up and down the mountains, through the rivers, around the camps for two days before an evening ride to Eagle Lake made me decide to ride the gelding back. I gave Wayne Rusty’s lead rope and stepped onto the grey horse for the first time in the nine months I had owned him. After that whenever I would take the grey horse it became a habit to saddle up both of them and ride out on Rusty first then switch part way and pony Rusty back. I never worried about ponying Rusty off a green horse because I knew he wouldn’t do anything if I ever had to let go of him and he wouldn’t do anything to get me into trouble either. I could turn him loose to cross rivers and catch him again on the other side. I could let go of him to get gates and he would follow me through and wait eating on the other side. I took the two of them into the mountains together the next year as well and the year after that I left the grey at home and took the two year old pups instead. Leading pups through a campground out to the trail is a
little more challenging than ponying another horse but he got that job done like any others I asked him to do.

This summer before we started out on a family trail ride one of the other horses our ten year old was supposed to ride started acting up. I shortened the stirrups on my saddle and he could just reach them when he climbed up on Rusty. He rode him around a little bit and then I climbed into the kids saddle, with stirrups that wouldn’t have gone long enough if I tried, to ride the other horse. Rusty was as solid as I knew he would be and after being ponied for the first bit we turned him loose to ride on his own.

I have done a little bit of everything on Rusty over the years, a Pony Express Relay Race at a local stampede where our team won, carrying a flag during O ‘Canada at another local rodeo, numerous mountain trips, penning, sorting, I even tried jumping him a couple times. This year we got to try something completely new to us. While we had done some obstacles like bridges, the horse ball and pool noodles at home we had never done many man made obstacles or cowboy challenges before. Some friends of ours not too far from home started the “Moose Hills Cowboy Challenges” and we had a lot of fun attending them.  Rusty learned that stepping in a box of water was very different from crossing natural water! We jumped on and off big tires as well as walked across them, rang a bell, went through the noodle curtain and attempted the very narrow teeter bridge. In September, the second time we had attended the challenge, they added a Toonie jackpot class with new obstacles and I entered it. I think there were only six of us entered in the jackpot. The new obstacles had us hanging clothes on a clothesline, popping balloons with a nail on a stick, putting a football in a tipped over muck tub with a broom, roping a dummy being pulled by a quad, going up and down stairs and through a trench. Rusty was great and never blinked at a thing through the whole course. We ended up winning the Toonie jackpot but most of all we had fun with our friends and family!

Rusty has made me a lot of memories over the years, not just with him but with the family that owned him. I will be forever thankful to the plain chestnut gelding with a star, for making Wayne and Karen a bigger part of my life; and to them for allowing Rusty to be such a big part of my life!

Mandy & Rusty, August 2021 competing at the Moose Hills Cowboy Challenges
Categories
Blog Breeders Post

What’s Good for Your Breeding Business Can Also be Good for Your Community

Promotion and marketing of one’s breeding program is an ever evolving field in today’s world. Ryan Fleetwood of Fleetwood Farms Quarter Horses based in southern Alberta has found a way to market a chosen foal each year, and benefit a local charitable organization. Fleetwood discovered that the Alberta government allows raffles to be conducted when applied for by a charitable organization, so he approached one local group in 2020 with the idea to do a percentage split if they’d get the raffle license and he would do the marketing to sell tickets. It worked and that first year they sold out $10,000 worth of tickets in 16 hours! In 2021, with the same agreement with another home town charitable organization, they sold out $15,000 worth of tickets in a matter of days.

Fleetwood is fourth generation rancher and AQHA breeder on their ranch near Champion, Alberta. Ryan and his wife Brandy are raising their children on the same place and in the same house as 4 generations of Fleetwoods have lived in before them, and their community is important to them. Fleetwood says “the beauty of this is that money is coming in from outside of the typical area that would pay taxes or donate to support these types of groups because it is through the Fleetwood Farms Quarter Horses network that the tickets are sold.” Frankly, at $50 for a 1/300 chance of winning a foal, the price is great and the odds are even better. It’s a price many people can afford for the chance to win the foal and even if they don’t win, they are satisfied to know that some of their purchase price is going to support a worthy cause.

It’s a win, win, win situation for all involved! In today’s world, it is important that people support local charities and stay involved inside their own communities, in a day and age when they really don’t have to. If you have something to market, think outside the box!

 

 

About Ryan Fleetwood of Fleetwood Farms Quarter Horses:

Ryan is an AQHA Professional Horseman, and has been honoured by AQHA’s Legacy Breeder’s program as a Twenty-five year breeders as of 1999.
Fleetwood Farms Quarter Horses won CQHA’s  “Best Remuda Award” in Canada 2021.