Horses Screwed Over By Recession
Posted by aranya | Filed under Uncategorized
Last fall I wrote a trend piece for DVM magazine, a trade publication for veterinarians. I examined the impact that the faltering U.S. economy is having on veterinary care of horses. I used to ride and jump horses regularly when I was younger, but my father would always tell me that I couldn’t own my own horse unless we moved to Oregon because the upkeep was just too expensive in the fancy D.C. suburbs where we lived. Land in Fairfax County, Virginia is a hot commodity, and you pay dearly for open space — and obviously, horses require land… lots of it. So going into this article, I guessed that the sinking economy was probably taking quite a toll on horse owners. However, I didn’t even think of all the factors that go into the upkeep of these awesome animals. Not only do they need a lot of land, but they also eat a substantial amount of hay (which of course has to be transported by vehicles that require ridiculously over-priced gas). And just like people, they have routine medical care that needs to happen in order for them to stay healthy. Yup. It turns out that health care for horses sucks too. Maybe Obama can help?
In any event, my article ran in the November print edition of DVM. Unfortunately, due to a glitch in the Matrix, I didn’t receive my copy of the magazine until today. I realize that there is a high probability that you don’t care about the state of equine medicine, but on the off-chance that any fellow horse freaks like myself are reading this, click on the link below to read my story…
Equine Medicine in Today’s Economy
February 10th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I just started riding again after so many years!.I just saved your article and will be reading it shortly! Yay Horsies!
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:02 am
The article on antibiotics are very good.