 Good afternoon. This is number three of four NDSU Extension horse management webinar series. We're glad you joined us today. Today we're going to be talking about traveling with your horse. So my name is Mary Keena. I'm the livestock environmental management specialist with NDSU Extension. And today I have my co-host but also a treat for you as they're your speakers. And so our speakers and co-host today are Paige Brumman from Ward County and Rachel Wald from McHenry County. And so they're joining to talk to you about traveling with your horse. And we're just going to get rolling right away. We'll hold questions until the end. But of course, like I said, I'll be in the chat. And so more than welcome to toss your questions in there and we'll get them answered at the end. So with that, I'm going to turn it over first to Paige and we'll talk about traveling with your horse. All right. Well, hello, everybody. It kind of goes without saying that being a rural state here in North Dakota, we know that at some point in time we're going to need to go somewhere with our horses. So whether that is for hopefully not, but maybe a veterinary emergency or regular appointment at the vet, or maybe you got a holiday or a fair year, or maybe you just want to go on a trail ride with some friends or off to a competition somewhere across the country or the states or even the nation. So today we're going to go through some of the items to consider when traveling with your horse and talk about some of these things on this slide throughout the day, throughout the hour. So before we go just run through, you know, does your horse load easily? Vaccinations, are they current? Are they healthy? When's the last time that you've run a trailer and truck safety inspection? How about do you have all your paperwork in order? And are you going to be hauling them yourself? You're going to hire somebody else to haul them for you. So we're going to go into detail on these things and a few others throughout the webinar. All right. So the first thing we have is plan your route. So map it out, decide where you're going to stop. So this might not need to be quite as in depth if you're just going for an hour long haul or a couple hours across the state. But if you're going to go across the nation, this is something that might take a little bit more forethought. So where are your fuel stops going to be? Think about where you have easy access to get into. Not every community will be able to fit a rig into their local gas station. So keep that in mind. Which ones are going to have diesel if you're using a diesel vehicle to pull your horse trailer? If you're going on a really long day or a long trip, you're going to want to think about planning an overnight stay. A lot of times these can be found through word of mouth, through the horse community and social media. There are also some nationwide overnight stabling directories available on the Internet and some other horse motel websites that can assist you in finding a safe place for your horse and then also for yourself. Anytime that you're crossing into new territory that haven't been before, sometimes it's easy to just go on to MapQuest or some other navigation system and type in your destination and whatever route they pop up with is the one you go on, right? Maybe not when you're pulling a trailer. So some things to think about is oftentimes the route might pop up as the shortest possible distance that might take you down some roads that maybe aren't the best for a pickup pulling a trailer or a longer rig. Or sometimes you'll even get on small township roads or back roads that ones that you maybe rather not go through. So sometimes the shortest route isn't going to actually be the safest or the fastest route for you. So again, planning those out, kind of looking around and seeing how much am I on interstate, how much am I on state highways, and then how many miles am I driving on roads that are lesser than that, that might be more challenging. The other thing to think about when you're hauling long distances is to look at the forecast and the road reports. And often we can look outside and we're loading up our horses and it's sunny and it's great. And you can get a few miles or a few hours or a state or two away and run into some not so pleasant weather. So checking those road reports for the duration of your entire trip and looking at those forecasts for the duration of your entire trip too. Maybe you need to leave a little earlier than I originally thought or maybe you need to hang out and wait a little longer to avoid driving in. The other thing to consider as we get, maybe not so much in North Dakota, but as you get out of the state would be some larger cities and trying to avoid those areas at rush hour. The route that we have here is, you know, from Minot where I'm located all the way down to Fort Worth, Texas. And, you know, when you haul those routes, you kind of look at a couple cities that you just don't want to hit at certain hours because it's going to be really stop and grow crawling type traffic. And typically rush hours around large cities are going to be the busiest and most congested in the morning between six and eight a.m. and then in the evening again between four and seven. So if you can plan your travel to avoid that, that will help make your trip a little smoother. All right, so that's planning your route. Now let's think about packing and getting ready for our trip. I recommend keeping copies on your phone and in your hauling rig so that you always kind of have a go to list of what you need every time, and you're less likely to have to forget something or have to recreate that list and take that time to do that. So keep it on there and you can just keep adding to it as as you travel. So I recommend at least two lists to so one that is essential for every single haul every time you throw your horse in the trailer and load up and go somewhere whether it's a half an hour or a few hours or many days you're going to for sure need those essential items. And then also you can have lists tailored to your event or your destination. If you're going to a sale or you're going to a show or a trail ride, maybe it a branding at a neighbor's or you camping overnight, and maybe you'd have separate lists to have different items on each of those trips. Here's just a quick example of a few lists to have so for me horse essentials that we would recommend would be having a spare halter and lead on board a first aid kit, bringing water buckets, and if you're going away with lives because then oftentimes you can bring water from home. Extra hay in case something came up where you needed to stay a little longer than planned electrolytes. Any of the paperwork that Rachel will talk about later that you may need and then a pocket knife a pocket knife or some sort of sharp utensil would be in case of emergencies of a horse where to get hung up, and you need to release them quickly. The other things that are essentials for your truck and trailer would be higher changing equipment and keep in mind that the pick up and trailer might have different requirements different size sockets, different size tires, those sorts of things so sometimes people say oh yeah I got that it it's in my pickup. Well that's just for your pickup your trailer is likely going to need a different set of equipment. Top blocks to keep your trailer from rolling away and to help you change your tire quickly, your spare tire of course and check that spare tire that it is properly inflated. It's always a bummer if you go put your spare tire on and then it's flat things like oil and a freeze coolant wiper fluid tire gauge. And then another thing is a remote thermometer and that really comes in hand to monitor the temperature inside your trailer, particularly if you're hauling across multiple different climates. So you're going from North Dakota to a couple states to the south or even to the east or west the weather and the climates can change quite dramatically. And that'll help you keep an idea of what the temperature is where your horses are in house in that trailer. Here's just a quick pre departure trailer check that really should be done every time you load up and go somewhere. So take a quick check of the floorboards make sure that they're secure and sturdy. Check your trailer lights and turning signals and make sure they're working. Same with the brakes. Always double triple quadruple check that trailer hitch. How many times you don't have to admit it here, but how many times have you kind of second guess yourselves that you get going down the road. I know I've had to pull over a few times and be like did I actually latch that or did I just crank the trailer down so making sure and double checking that that trailer hitch is secure. Did you hook up your safety cable your safety chains. Do you have that spare tire along and all that changing equipment that we talked about and check the tire quality and also pressure on both your pickup and your trailer. The other thing to plan for is where are you going and what amenities are at your destination and this is going to help you determine what you need to pack so what's going to be provided there. Maybe what will be available for purchase so you don't have to bring it along, and then that'll help you determine what you need to bring. So find out at your destination is feed going to be provided. Do they have betting there. What stall type are you in and what's the flooring like is it concrete. Are you on rubber mats. Is it a dirt floor that might determine how much betting you're going to need to bring along. How far is the trailer parking area from where your horse is going to be. How about manure disposal what's available for that. Is there a bed on site. Is there a farrier on site. Those are some questions to ask and find out before you go. How about loading a horse. It's not enjoyable as I'm sure you will know to have a horse that doesn't load well or you're in a hurry to get somewhere you're on a deadline. And and the horse doesn't want to get in the trailer so this is something to definitely plan for and prep for well ahead of time both to reduce the stress on you and on your horse. So it's probably not enough to just say yeah I loaded my horse one time. I'm sure it's good. We're fine. Load them often until your horse is confident and comfortable in the trailer. Some people load their horses in the trailer and just kind of drive them around their farm and unload them or maybe they'll load them in there and feed them their grain on their trailer and unload them just something to get your horse really comfortable and confident. So that that trailer isn't a bad place to be. Consider on your trailer if it's a ramp or a step up trailer those are typically the two most common that we see in horse trailers, and some horses might load really really well with one system, and then not comfortable with the other system maybe they've never seen a ramp before or they're always accustomed to a ramp and all of a sudden they have to back off and step down off the trailer and that really provides a lot of anxiety so load them in multiple types of trailer if possible. Another example of horses that are really comfortable loading and stock trailers that are a little more wide open more space and then to load into say like maybe a small straight load two horse bumper pull really feels claustrophobic to them. So it's really beneficial to you if you can have access or borrow friends trailer and and get them accustomed to loading in different types. Another thing when you're loading and if you have multiple horses is to load them by personality. If you have a couple horses that don't get along that tend to bicker or there's a more dominant horse that likes to kick another one, maybe separate them put a really calm horse next to a young fractious horse that's never loaded before. That's just a little tip to make it go a little bit smoother. The other thing to think about is the different types of trailers and the sizes of those so we have slant load trailers, there's straight loads that might have two, four, six stalls in them. Reverse load trailers where the horses are actually tied opposite of what we traditionally see or they'd be tied backwards with their nose facing facing towards the back of the trailer. Box stall trailers where the horse can have more room and turn around lower their head easier and then other stock type trailers that maybe don't have any dividers in them at all and they're completely open. This might change the way that you load your horses or position a horse if it's a single call. So something to consider in relation to loading the horses is where do you put them on the trailer. So a couple things to think before we get to that point is check the towing vehicle rating of your pulling vehicle, the tow vehicle and see what it's rated to pull and then figure that math in. Look at how much your trailer weighs and then add in how many horses you're hauling and then all the feed and attack and the equipment estimate the weight of that to figure out if you're safely able to pull that load. Keep in mind that Goose necks are typically more stable than bumper full trailers. And we recommend that when you are loading like a single horse say a single horse on this six horse trailer in the picture here. You'd want to load that horse towards the front of the trailer, put more of that that weight onto the pulling rig, rather than in the back where it's going to be less unsteady for more unsteady where it can move across the lane easier. The other thing to consider is to load those heaviest horses towards the front and that might not always work to fit your horses personalities but if it does that's that's a recommendation. And then if you're hauling in a straight load trailer, you want to put that heaviest horse or if it's a single horse on the driver side position. And this is because most of our roads have a little bit of slant to them. If you to put them on the passenger side position, it makes it a little bit too weighted to the outside of the road, the outside of the vehicle. So again, if you're hauling a single horse or in a straight load haul on the driver side, the heaviest horse. And if you're in a slant or stock position move that the heaviest load up towards the front of the trailer onto the towing vehicle. These are all great safety things to keep in mind. The other question we get a lot is do I tie my horse or do I not tie my horse and some of this is personal preference or will depend on the horse and the trailer situation as well. So there's a lot of benefits to being able to haul loose. So this would be like in a box tall say box doll type situation or you have a single horse where they're able to move about freely. It allows the horse to put their head and neck in any position that they're comfortable and it more easily allows them to clear their airway. They need to put their head down to cough and to clear debris from their airway. If you do tie and often in our trailers, we do need to tie with our slant loads or you're tying strange horses next to each other. We recommend that you use a quick release knot or a quick release panic snap or the tie rings out there to reduce the risk of entanglement and to be able to quickly release them if you needed to an emergency. The typical recommendation is going to be about two foot of length to tie your horse. The complications that you run into is if you tie them too short, they're not allowed or able to put their head down and clear their airways. They're at a higher risk of getting a shipping fever and pneumonia and they can have challenge accessing their feet or reaching their hay that's in front of them. Many of the trailer ties that are commercially available out there are only 12 to 18 inches long. So a lot of people will just buy those trailer ties. They're really convenient. They already have the panic snap on them and just hook them in their trailer. Often those are too short, especially for a long haul where a horse needs to be able to clear their airways. So keep that in mind and measure the length of the length of that trailer tie. On the flip side of that, if you're tying your horses too long, they're able to stick their heads up and over the divider, maybe bicker with the horse next to them or put their heads down all the way down too low to the ground where they could get a leg over the rope and get entangled. So it's kind of that happy medium between being too short and too long. You want it just right. So hauling is stressful. I think if you've hauled horses enough, you know that it's stressful on both horses and humans sometimes as well. As far as the horse goes, horses will release cortisol, just stress hormone, and that can impact the immune system. So it makes them more susceptible to disease. And also shipping fever is a real thing. It's called shipping fever for a reason. It's a type of pneumonia that horses can get, particularly on long hauls. When you're hauling for 12, 18 hours plus, they're much more at risk for that. And that has a lot to do with them being able to clear their airways effectively. Dehydration is real. Often horses, especially if they're new to hauling, aren't comfortable drinking on the trailer. They aren't comfortable drinking strange water from a different location. So they drink less. If they drink less, typically they're eating less. If they're not comfortable eating out a hay bag or hay nets, they're struggling to eat as much as they normally would. And oftentimes they sweat more, especially in warmer climates or warmer temperatures. They're having to work to maintain their balance. That work to maintain their balance also puts some stress on their musculoskeletal system. So you'll see an increase in the muscle enzyme released into the bloodstream, which results essentially in soreness, because those horses are constantly working their muscles to maintain balance in the trailer. The other thing that we often encounter is gastric discomfort. And a lot of times that's because of the decrease in the amount of forage that they're consuming while on the trailer. And there's a variety of different supplements out there that you can assist in in buffering the stomach acid and helping them out a little bit, decreasing their gastric discomfort. The recovery time that's recommended is at least a day if you're going on a six to 12 hour haul. Most horses can handle short hauls under six hours with minimal recovery time. You know, maybe just a little bit of time to relax and rest. However, if you're getting to that six to 12 hour haul, we recommend that you give them a day before expecting them to go perform at a high level. If it's over 12 hour haul, we recommend that you give them two days to recover. And that's to help do all the things we talked about in the previous slide, get those cortisol levels reduced, decrease that stress, have them recover from the muscle skeletal soreness issues that they're going to have as well, and get them back on a normal feed and water intake. Oftentimes if the horses experience an inexperienced hauler or if they're really kind of nervous or fractious minded horses, they might need a little bit more time and they might need more time settling into their new location as well. Something you can do to reduce the stress on your horse is pay attention to your driving habits. So accelerate and break gradually. And this is for safety, but also for comfort of your horse. Complete your term completely before accelerating. So don't just wait for your pickup to be straight and accelerate, but wait for the trailer to be completely straight before you accelerate with any sort of speed. And then also always keep in mind, keep that extra distance between you and the vehicle in front. I think it's pretty common knowledge that it takes much, much longer to stop a rig, a heavy trailer, and the heavier the trailer, the longer it'll take. If your towing vehicle is a little bit lighter or you don't have the proper brake system on your rig, that's going to be even longer. So keep extra distance between you and the vehicle in front. And visit a little bit about bedding your trailer. So there's differing opinions and there is really no right or wrong answer. Some people prefer not to bed their trailer and there are certain flooring types where it's not recommended to or it's advertised as not needing to bed your trailer and that's certainly a personal preference. Bedding is good enough few ways because it does provide extra cushion on the trailer. On the horse's legs contacting the trailer floor. It does absorb a lot of the moisture in the trailer. And then the thing to remember if you are going to provide bedding is to bed deeply. And you want to pick a bedding with the least amount of dust that's going to absorb the most amount of liquid. So typically that's going to be a pelleted sawdust type shaving works the best. Doesn't mean that you certainly can use wood chips or pellets or straw or whatever you have access to for bedding if you choose to bed. But the pelleted wood ones really do work well. You do want to pre wet them before use otherwise they're very slippery and hard for the horse to get traction on. But they do absorb a lot of moisture. The other thing you can do with those fine sawdust shavings is to pre wet them before hauling to minimize those dust particles that will be released into the trailer and irritate your horse's airway. We do recommend that you clean out your trailer of the manure and urine after every single use. And then strip your bedding and mats regularly and power wash the floor. And this might vary depending upon how frequently you haul. So that might be, you know, a couple times a year to once a week depends on how frequently you're going places and how many different horses that you're hauling the condition of your trailer. Recommend to disinfect your trailer regularly as well, particularly if you're hauling strained horses or you're going to events with lots of other horses regularly. It's a good idea to disinfect that trailer. And again, not all trailers require bedding at kind of a personal preference and opinion that depends on the flooring type on your trailer as well. This is probably one of the most important slides I feel in this presentation. And that's the importance of ventilation and temperature control in hauling our horses. So I find most people worry about their horses getting too cold when really I think in reality we struggle more with horses that are getting too warm when being hauled. So horses generate a lot of heat. And I think when we put, you know, four horses in a trailer and it might be it feels really cold to us. It's, you know, 20 degrees outside. It's, you know, maybe a little rainy or wet. So we bundle the whole trailer up. We don't provide good ventilation. You get to your destination and open up the trailer and it's humid. The ceiling is raining. You have all that condensation raining down on the horses. The ammonia smell is really severe. Those horses needed more ventilation going down the road. Okay. So again, I recommend that you put a remote thermometer in your trailer and you can see the difference in temperature. And that allows you to choose when to pull over and stop and either open more windows, close the windows up. It just really helps to know what's going on rather than make the assumptions that, oh, your horses are very cool. Remember to adjust those roof vents. So if we're talking North Dakota, we're hauling in the middle of winter, maybe it's below zero. You probably want those hoof vents pointed backwards so that they don't pull in quite as much air. If they're pointed forward, it draws air in and helps really circulate that air throughout the trailer. But when they're open to the back, they help to just vent the moisture and move smaller amounts of air through the trailer. So keep in mind what direction those are pointed and adjust depending upon the weather conditions. Drop down or sliding windows can be adjusted really easily or the plexiglass on some of our other trailer types. Keep in mind that the bars should always be up or must always be up when the trailer is moving. If you haven't heard the stories or seen the wrecks out there, they exist where horses have panicked going down the road and tried to climb out of those windows. So if the weather allows, it's even safer if you have the drop down windows up as well and if need ventilation, just use the sliding bus window portion to provide that. However, when it's really, really hot out, we're traveling in states where it is quite warmer than up here. Often we need to keep those windows down, but always, always, always have the bars up. Don't allow your horse to drive down the road with its head sticking out the window. And again, that's a couple of different risks. So they can have debris hit them in the face as well as the risk of them getting startled and kind of trying to jump out that small window. So very important safety reminder there. And then, like I said before, even when you're hauling in the winter, it still requires ventilation, just lesser ventilation. So we still need airflow moving through there. We need a way for that high moisture humid air that, you know, smells quite a heavily ammonia to escape the trailer. This is a question that we get quite frequently as well. And what sort of things does my horse need to wear or should or could it wear while hauling? And this is highly variable, depending upon many, many things. So let's look at the right hand side of the slide and consider what's the outside temperature and what is my horse used to? What kind of hair coat does it have? Does it have? Is it a slicked out horse in the middle of winter where it is going to need some blanketing and some protection? Or are we hauling a really haired up horse from North Dakota and we're going all the way down to Arizona? What's the forecast along the route? So again, look at the forecast and where you're going to be hauling to and the states you're traveling through. And that'll help you decide too on what you need to pack and when you need to adjust your horses' blankets throughout the trip. Most horses do just fine without if they're hauling in the climate that they're used to. So a lot of these are optional things to provide. Consider how many horses are on board because again, remember if we have four horses on an enclosed trailer, they're going to heat that trailer up very quickly versus one horse on an open-sided stock trailer that's going to have not extra heat provided to them. How long is the haul? Are they going 10 minutes down the road or they're going 10 hours down the road? Can you access your horse if you need to adjust things? So picture, you know, you put on shipping boots or leg wraps and your horse with the wraps is the second one in the trailer of a four-horse slant load and the leg wraps came undone or the boots are slipping. How do you fix that? How do you access that horse safely without having to unload everybody or find a safe location to unload? So consider before you put a lot of extra things on your horses. If that needed adjustment for some reason, how would I get to that horse? Also consider the disposition of the horse. Is that horse comfortable having these items on it? Are they used to being blanketed and having their legs handled? If not, I'd recommend not putting them on there the first time that you're loading the horse. It can make them quite a bit more nervous. The other thing to consider is the soundness of the horse. If you're hauling a horse, you know, with an injury to a vet or a horse that has some foot sourness, you know, there's a reason to have some of those therapeutic boots on and different items that are going to help them out. So again, this is a personal preference, but some of the optional items that you might want to consider when you're hauling would be whether your horse needs insulated blanket, a light sheet or a fly sheet. Oftentimes you want just a light fly sheet or something on them even in summer. For a lot of our horses going in the competition to prevent those aluminum stains on the side of your horses well to keep them clear. Maybe there's a therapeutic sheet that they benefit from. Some people will put on leg wraps and shipping boots or therapeutic cushion boots with padding on the bottom. Head bumpers are also an option if you have a horse that's a little skittish about their head or tends to throw their head. That provides a little cushion so that they don't injure their skull. And then also padded halters if you have a horse that's really sensitive and it's skin and gets halter rubs easily. That would be a good option. All right, so let's start talking about both packing feet and then feeding on the road. If possible pack some hay from home. This will minimize your horse's risk of getting some digestive upsets. However, realize that if you're hauling and going somewhere for a long period of time, it's maybe not possible to pack as much heat as feed as you need for the duration of the stay. So if that's the case, plan to pack enough to get you there and then also to transition over the course of a few days to the hay source that they're going to be eating at the destination. The other option is to ride hay cubes or pellets. They're a little bit more uniform and they're usually available at most feed stores across the nation. Your horse does have to be accustomed to eating those and some horses are more prone to choking on that style of hay as well. We do recommend that you provide access to hay on the trailer even on short hauls. Even if you're going 45 minutes or an hour down the road, we still recommend that you provide access to hay. That helps have something in the stomach at all times to buffer the stomach from the stomach acid. So an easy way to do that is to provide a hay bag or a hay net in front of each horse on the haul. As far as grain goes, if you're going out a long haul, we recommend that you maintain your feeding schedule. Keep feeding them what you would normally feed them. If you wanted to cut that slightly, you could. But it wouldn't be totally advisable to remove them completely from their feed for the few days that you're hauling and then suddenly put them back on again. Realizing that some horses maybe don't consume grain real peacefully on a trailer next to other horses. So you kind of have to take another personality and consideration. The one thing to remember is not to switch to a different feed product on the trip. If you're going to need to switch when you get to your location, do so slowly over the course of a week or so. Supplements can be useful when hauling. And we actually have another webinar we did a while back just completely on supplements. So I'm not going to get too deep into each of them. But electrolytes are one supplement that is usually recommended. That's because horses do tend to sweat more. They are working their muscles more than they normally would, and they're also less likely to drink. So by adding an electrolyte to their grain, that will help you maximize their water intake. Gastric support supplements are also other things that could be recommended because we do know the stress that hauling can cause. So remember to pack any regular medications that your horse is on. And I recommend contacting your vet and getting a prescription for suggestions, suggested medications that they recommend you have on hand in case of emergencies and have those in your trailer as well. Whether you need something to potentially sedate a horse if they got injured or in a wreck, or if they had a colic episode, visit with your vet about what those medications would be and get a prescription and get them ahead of time. Horses don't drink as much on the road as they would at home. So here's some tips to help them out. Bring water from home if you can. So you can purchase some five gallon buckets and get the lids that go on them and bring as much along as you can reasonably fit in your trailer will help transition that horse and keep them drinking on the road. Add electrolytes to the feed a few days before and during the haul that will also encourage them to drink. If you don't have electrolytes along you can also add two tablespoons of salt each day to their ration and that will encourage them to drink as well. Offer the water frequently and also at the end of your rest stop. So a lot of times people will say well I held the bucket up in front of their face for five seconds and they didn't drink so they must not be thirsty. If you do that right after you stop, they're looking around, they're a little bit nervous, they might not want to take a drink right then. But offer it again after they've had a little time to relax, maybe eat a little bit of hay and work up their thirst. Also if possible I recommend just hanging a bucket in the trailer with them during stops. Some people leave it in there while hauling the whole time. That's a personal preference but I think there's a little bit more risk for them getting tangled up and allow that water just splashes out while you're driving. So I do recommend though that during the rest stop that you offer that water the entire time. One other tip that you can get to get a little bit more water in them when hauling is to soak your hay bag or dump your hay bag in water before leaving. This will reduce the dust and also increase the water intake of the horse. But in North Dakota you can't do that when it's really cold you'll just end up with a giant hay sickle. So keep in mind that you don't want to freeze your hay. And then also if it's really hot out or it's a large quantity hay that hay can mold really quickly. So those are things to just keep in mind before you decide to soak your hay. Some horses are a little I guess aversive to the taste of soaked hay as well or don't like their hay soaked. So that's something to experiment with maybe ahead of time before you do so on a haul. Let's talk about rest stops on the road. We get this question a lot too. How frequently should I be stopping? And the recommendation is every four hours give your horse 30 minutes at downtime. And sometimes people say oh I'll take me forever to get on my trip. Not really because usually that 30 minute rest aligns with a needed fuel stop. It aligns with a needed human rest stop. So give your horse a solid 30 minutes to relax and rest every four hours. This is the time when you'd want to offer them water both at the beginning of the rest stop and at the end of it. Check their hay bag or hay net. Make sure they have plenty of feed in there. Look at them for injuries. So peek in the trailer. Look at their feet and legs and make sure that nobody's gotten tangled up or injured during that time. And then the other thing is park in a quiet area with shade particularly in the summer when the sun's out. I wouldn't think that it's really that restful if you're parked at a truck stop with a lot of traffic coming in and out or you're parked between a couple of large semis where the air breaks are going off frequently. Try to find a quiet area where the horses can relax a little bit more. Also take care of yourself on these breaks. So stretch your legs, get out, move, get the blood flow on, go for a walk or a hike while your horses relax in the trailer. And then each of these stops, this is a good time where you want to check your hauling rig very carefully. So observe each tire for uneven wear. I recommend you go and touch each of the tires to see if there's one tire that is much, much warmer than the others. That's a pretty good indication that something is going wrong and you're at a high risk for a blowout. So that's a good time to do that as well. Unloading your horse while traveling. So typically the trailer is going to be that safest location. And we do not recommend that you unload at truck stops, at public rest areas along the interstate, along the side of the highway. It's not recommended to unload there. It just isn't safe. The horses at risk for getting loose, even if it's a horse that you know really, really well, it's just not the best location to do that. Especially if you're hauling a horse you don't know, a young horse, one that maybe isn't as handled as well, or it's also because we'd like it to be. You risk that horse getting loose and entering traffic. We can imagine all this bad scenarios could happen there. They can panic and get injured. They can get entangled. So we just don't recommend that you unload on the side of the road. There are exceptions. You know, if it's an extreme emergency, it's a major accident that involves the rig. There's a fire, or you have a horse that's downed and having issues on the trailer. Those are times with emergency situations where you may need to unload. If you must unload in those situations and you can, find a safe space, preferably away from traffic and an enclosed area. So is there, find a location or look for a location that it would be quiet and away from traffic. Consider the pavement that you're unloading onto or the footing that you're unloading onto. If the pavement is very icy or if it's wet and slippery, that can be an issue. And then always untie your horse before opening the door. The many horses that the door open, they're kind of trained or instinctively want to exit the trailer and they hit the end of the rope and they can have some panic injuries that way. So always untie your horse in case they were to get a little nervous and try to unload themselves. Alright, here's another topic that we don't often think about until it's a problem. So what do I do with the manure when I'm hauling my horse across the country? Plan those overnight stops that you're making and ask ahead of time, do you have a place that I can unload, clean out my trailer and unload my manure? Ask if manure disposal is included in their rates. Sometimes they might have an additional rate to leave your manure with them. I recommend packing a manure bucket and a fork, but if you don't have room for that, make sure that the places that you stop along the way will have that for you. Another option you have is contacting livestock sale facilities along the route and seeing if you can empty and clean out your trailer there or landfills or waste management facilities and companies. That's another option. Some select truck stops and truck washes particularly in the Midwest and in livestock country will have livestock clean out areas or you're able to place manure into their dumpsters. It's always, always, always recommended and needed that you ask those questions before you just assume that it's okay though. For short trips, if you're just hauling down the road or across the state, just haul your manure back home with you if there's not a clear area to dispose of it at your destination. And then I recommend you bed really deeply to absorb the moisture. So again, unless you have the trailer flooring type where the urine just leaves the trailer, bed really deeply to soak up that extra liquid. So the don'ts for manure management and these might seem really obvious, but they happen. Okay, so don't clean out your trailer anywhere that you don't have permission to. So this includes a long interstate exits. So don't just pull over and pitch the manure on the ditch highway approaches. Some people pull into fairgrounds and unload there or alongside road roads just don't do it unless you have permission seems obvious but we mentioned it. And then lastly, if all this stuff is like, huh, pretty overwhelming. There are professional haulers out there and if you need to get your horse from point A to point B. That might be an option when you feel your rig given up for the trip. Maybe you're not comfortable hauling long hauls across the states or the nation, or you can't take the time off work or you don't have you have something else going on there are professional haulers out there. You do want to verify that they're credible. So if we want them to be legal licensed and insured, we often recommend asking for word of mouth as well to make they are a legitimate business, and that they have a safe rig for your horse. A lot of times professional haulers their rigs are extremely well kept up. And they have the option of box dolls, they'll have shock ride or air ride systems that are really maybe better than our stock trailer that we're hauling around it. So if you were hauling your own horses, there were some new laws and rules that were put into place that were causing some confusion a few years ago. So I threw up a little infographic that extension has available to kind of determine what you need and don't need for most people that are hauling their own horses short distances. You don't need to keep any sort of electronic logging device or have a CDL. It gets a little bit trickier if you're going long distances or if you're calling other people's horses. So it's something that you want to look into before you get stopped along the way. So I just threw up a couple of resources extension does have a lot of recommendations for how to travel safely with your horses and these will be sent to you in an email as well. But just wanted to make you aware of those and some of the resources that we have. So at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Rachel and she's going to talk about the travel requirements for hauling within your state and across state lines. Hi, everyone. My name is Rachel Waldem with NDSU Extension in McHenry County. So I am just next door to page. One of the things that I might have a little bit more of an insight in on I used to work at a veterinary clinic. So I get to see a lot of those certified veterinary inspections or CVIs would be commonly called a health certificate come through. I've also done some international travel and then interstate travel. So what I have here is kind of our requirements or travel basics for even in the state and out of the state travel requirements. So some of those basics you might know already would include that CVI or health certificate, which is only good for about 30 days. Negative Coggins or test for equine infectious anemia. Normally, if we test for that, the requirement is to have it good within 12 months. If you are traveling internationally, both the CVI and your Coggins will be a little bit different. For the Coggins, it would have to be current within six months. And that certified veterinary inspection would actually have to be done by a federal vet or signed off by a federal vet. So that is one other consideration if you're traveling internationally. Some other things that we need to think about is we do have a line of states that require brand inspection before leaving. And that even means like if your horse doesn't have a brand, they still need this brand inspection to say that this is your horse or this is someone else's horse that you're traveling with. And the states that are required, and even if you're traveling through that state and it's not the state that you're going to end up in, you do still need that brand inspection. So the states that require it are Montana, North Dakota, the western edge of South Dakota that the river is the line where you would need it. Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and Washington. If you were to purchase a horse in Washington, they would need to have a brand inspection prior to leaving the state. Most of the Canadian provinces require a brand inspection for coming in too. So that would be included in your international travel. I highly recommend having a copy of the registration papers. And if you don't have your name on those registration papers, you would also need a bill of sale. That would also be something that you would need for a horse that is not registered. So even if you have an unregistered horse that you purchased maybe years ago, if you're planning on traveling with them, you need to have proof that that horse is yours. So just for an example, this is the state of North Dakota. So when entering the state of North Dakota, you need a health certificate accompanied by a negative Coggins within 12 months. So that's kind of one of the basics. But another aspect of it is if a horse is coming in for breeding, mainly stallions, if they are tested or needing to be tested for vesicular stomatitis prior to coming in, and if they are positive, need to have a quarantine and also a permit number to come into the state of North Dakota. And that's done usually at the time of that veterinary inspection, and they should get it through the Department of State Board of Animal Health as they would get that permit number through. Other things to consider as you travel to the events, most of the places that have events are going to have a list of what they require for horses that are coming in. So even if you are in state and you don't need a health certificate to travel within the state or even a Coggins to travel within the state, you may need that at the place you're going to ensure that the health of the horses that are there and the health of your horse does not affect others. You may need that proof of current or required vaccinations. If the facility you're going to requires vaccinations, you'll need that list prior to. You're also going to want them to get vaccinated two to three months prior to going because that will ensure that there is an immune response within your horse, so that they're able to withstand any of that immune pressure once they get there. And then that's pretty important to make sure that they are able to fight off things that maybe come their way when they're at a different facility. Make sure you know their check-in requirements. There are some facilities that require you to take temperatures, rectal temperatures of your horse three to five days prior to coming to ensure that there is no spike in temperature before they get there. So a lot of times your horse is stressed out as you travel and there may be a spike in temperature when you come to the facility because of the stress. So having that averaged out three to five days prior to knowing that maybe we need to take a break before taking that temperature again to know what their range is. And then you also want to have kind of a set of your own biosecurity rules to ensure that you're not bringing anything home to any horses that you have that are still at your farm or facility. When you get to a point of arrival, so there's several different options. There's a lot of different exceptions and there are exceptions for every state. And you want to make sure you know what you need when you're coming into that state. So Minnesota has kind of those basics that we talked about that CBI and health certificates. But once you get to the race track, if that's where you're headed, there's a whole other set of rules that you need to know. There's vaccinations and other things that may be required within that facility. There is also the University of Minnesota has a great veterinary facility. There's some exceptions if you're in an emergency heading there, meaning you don't need possibly a health certificate if you're heading from your location to that point of destination. But with that exception, you need to make sure that you're not stopping anywhere else. So it's just some of those things to look up. And we do have great resources through the state of North Dakota and other states surrounding us. So you want to make sure that you look up any state that you're going to their animal health requirements. These are some of the places that I looked up North Dakota Department of Egg. And importantly, the Equine Disease Communication Center is where I got a lot of stuff on biosecurity and they have a vast collection of what you may want to look at. And then American Association of Equine Practitioners has a great list of vaccines that are useful for you if you're, especially if you're traveling or going into high risk areas. And knowing those vaccines and seeing what maybe you would need prior to leaving the state or leaving your facility to know what would be helpful for your horse to have on board. And with that, I think we can get to our question. Okay, so Paige has been answering as we go. And so, Rachel, I'm going to do the one that that would be mostly for the paperwork side of things first and I'm just going to read the answer and then if you have a reply to that as well. That way folks that are on the phone or if you're not reading the chat you're getting this so the question was if you're crossing state borders. If you need to stop anywhere and present paperwork such as way stations or is it only only a fast for situations. And so, Paige had commented larger rigs are often directed into way stations. Many of them have cameras and electronic notification letting you know if you need to stop or not. Some state patrols will or livestock officers will be there to stop a certain size rigs and ask for that paperwork. Anything else to add to that, Rachel. If you're if you're taking your personal horse anywhere and you're just headed across state lines and you have the correct paperwork. You may not need to present it to anybody if you don't have. If you're not on a road maybe that has any of those way stations. You probably won't need that until you get to the facility that you're going to. Then they may require to see those things because you're an out of state person, or person, person writer so that those are important to think about. You may not get stopped or you may not get seen but once you get to the facility you're going to you're likely going to have to show that paperwork to ensure that you're safe to come in. The other thing is if you're traveling internationally and you stop at a border crossing you plan on being there for a while because they will do a look through of your paperwork and then they'll likely take a look at your horses as well. To ensure that number one you're taking the horses that are on the paperwork through the border and number two that that they are healthy and they they seem like they'll be okay to send on. If they're not healthy they may tell you to turn back. Okay, thank you for that. I did put in the chat if you guys have any helpful tips or tricks. Certainly share those we do like the lady said we do have the resources that we're going to put in the email and of course will be on this presentation when it sends out. But if there's any tips or tricks that you have certainly feel free to put those in the chat we would like to hear what you guys do to make traveling a little bit easier. One of the questions that was asked on average how many gallons of water does a horse consume in a day. And so typically eight to 15 gallons is going to vary depending on all the things so size of horse individual horse outside temps moisture level and feed. Are they sweating with their environmental stressors. And so just generally eight to 15 gallons. And page so when you had said take a rest stop so does a rest stop mean a load, or does that just mean stop driving for a minute. It is really good for those rest stops those short ones every four hours four hours rest for 30 minutes. Not unload your horse oftentimes these are going to be at gas stations at restaurants in areas where you can just find a quiet place to park. Don't unload it's typically more stressful for a horse to unload and then also you're at a risk of all those things with the horse escaping getting injured that sort of thing what if you unload it and it doesn't want to load again and you're no worth nobody to help you so the safest place for your horses to just rest on the trailer and they get a chance to quit working their muscles because again they're constantly having to balance as you're driving down the road. They get a chance to just rest and horses are really calm they might take a little nap you know horses can sleep standing up when necessary so those are the recommendations however to clarify if you're hauling long distances usually it's recommended to unload your horse every 12 to 18 hours and that would coincide with an overnight stay where they'd actually get a chance to go in a box stall or a small pen and lay down and and totally relax. That's the recommendation if possible every 12 to 18 hours cover a long rest read unload. Another question that came up was what's the reason for wrapping legs and paid you addressed it here. A lot of it is just to do to prevent injury. And so preventing injury from another horse, stepping on its own legs, if it's losing balance, kicking the wall. So that's just general safety, and then somebody else had just replied to that. They had a horse that fell in the trailer and cut his leg up. And so, maybe if they would have the boots on that they their horse wouldn't have been laid up all summer and so again that just goes back to safety just to reiterate that point. And so that just adds to that to if the horse is used to it so you might actually cause an injury if you go and wrap the horse's legs that have never been wrapped before. They may try to kick them off and step them off and really it could be a bigger problem than it's worth. And then the other issue that leg wraps really trap a lot of heat next to the horse's legs as well so if it's 100 some degrees out. We don't recommend wrapping their legs because you can really heat up those tissues very quickly. And then just a comment here. Um, so Michelle says, we bought one of our horses in Canada we needed to have a vet check, as well as all the paperwork that Rachel talked about the vet coming into the US had appointments we made sure we had an appointment in the morning prior to the heat of the day, and waiting at that border and so it was a great tip for us. I was so I've been able to purchase two horses from Canada and it was kind of the same thing. Luckily the person that we purchased from was able to get their vet out to do most of the paperwork for us prior to heading to the border, and then absolutely have called the border that you're going to be crossing it to ensure that there's a veterinarian to do the inspection, because those smaller borders don't have those it's only the 24 hour reports that have a veterinarian on staff. So you want to make sure that you're, you're in there and adequate amount of times and be warned. If there are large, large rigs coming through with cattle or hogs, they're going to hit those up before they hit you, mainly because they need to get traveling down the road and heat is one of the issues that they have as well. So if you end up having to sit for a cattle pot or for a hog truck that that is something that they're going to push through prior to a horse. So you just know that you might end up getting to set for a little bit. So Leah asked any info on the renewing type health certificate available for use in North Dakota, and a few select other states, not sure what it is called. And Michelle said we also have broker handle a lot of this paperwork. Yep. And who knows what they're doing to kind of handle that right off the bat. I am going to try and see if I can't. So to address Leah's question, if you haul your horse a lot there were a few states and I don't have those pulled up, or off the top of my head that are allowing longer term health certificates to be renewed by your veterinarian so that you don't have to get a 30 day one and 30 day one and 30 day one all the time. So, visit with your vet and unless Rachel's pulling back real quick. I know she's looking for it and see where you're going because it'll depend on what state you're going to not every state except those. Next week we will be back I'm just going to give Rachel a second and if we can't find it now we will certainly add that to our resources and the email will put that in there. And so, next week we'll be back with our final for this webinar series. So we're going to be talking about footing for footing for horses. And so page and Rachel will be back again to discuss that. Next reading here. Okay. So Stacy put a comment in the chat. She shows dogs that have a lot of similar biosecurity measures, something I use on crates, and such can also be used in a horse trailer, called a wishy wash. It attaches to a garden hose. Okay, very good. That unless there are other questions or Rachel, did you were able to pull that up. So I do see that there is extended equine health certificates or EE CV eyes and I did see that when I was doing a little research for this as well, could be valid up to six months. And it's up to your veterinarian to to do that. And I believe you have to have a good client, veterinary client patient relationship to get that on something like that going and then they would also have to sign off on it. The following states, it looks like there's at least 15 states that are allowing those EE CV eyes to go through but so it automatically submitted it in the state of origin, and to the destination states you do have to be aware of if a destination state does not allow that you need to know. Even if the state allows it. Just one example, sometimes shows specifically like Rachel brought up will have a requirement that they require a CV I within 10 days. So if that's the case, then your six month one isn't valid anyway but so always check both check what the state requires and then also check what the show facility or whatever your destination is what they require because they can be different. I agree and yep they those show facilities can actually be more strict than your state and that's going to be one of the the determining factors on what paperwork you're going to get to. So unless there are other questions we will be back next week, same time noon central time. And so today we learned about planning your route packing list, pre departure trailer checks, what amenities are at the place where you're going, loading and what that looks like stress stress during travel feed considerations, water for your horse rest times potential unloading and all the paperwork. And so all of these things again all the tips and tricks and paperwork and links will be in the email with the presentation attached to it. And so, because you registered you'll get that. And with that unless there are any further comments, we will end for the week. Thank you guys so much for joining us.