A little worried about my mare views please!

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alext

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Hi just wondering if I could have some opinions? My mare is a 15 year old arab who i've owned for ten years so know her pretty well. She is a very good doer and always looks well.
Recently I have felt that I can see her hip which is certainly not normal!So I called her back lady as thought looked tense. Mare throughly enjoyed her massge and yawned and groaned her way
through it :) you could almost see
the area come up!
However the next night she had the worst colic I've seen her with. ( she
gets mild colic about once a year)she couldn't decide to be up or down and was obviously very
spasmodic.
Vet - says horse is in good
condition,couldn't feel any lumps etc gut sounds quiet on right side and
that would point to tape worms. So he wormed her with pramox. which I had also done the end of sept.
So that was last wed she has taken a while to get back to herself just been
a bit quiet still eating etc.
But she has this dent just before her hip that she's not had before.sounds a bit wet but what could it be? Is it
colic related,weight related or some other pain? Feel a little silly but I'm stumpted . Mare is now fine and full of energy but at the moment I'm thinking of calling the vet Monday.
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How much is your mare drinking?
Check out your water supply too, make sure its clean.

How long has this area been like this? Is it matching on the other side, or just this side?

Could be muscular, possibly internal (over the upper colon & kidney area - but still shouldn't look like that).

If mine & it had happened suddenly within past couple of days or so, then yes, I'd get the vet for full check over & bloods taken if nothing muscular found.
 
Hi thanks for the reply I would say she has been like it for a few weeks although the dent was not as deep.
It is on the other side but not as bad.
She probably drinks about 1/3 of her water in her and half of her field water. Both normal sized fexi bucket. She has a salt lick though would say it's going down fairly fast at the moment.
 
That looks very much like age related loss of topline. So long as she isn't laminitis prone, try changing her to a senior feed. Or maybe a balancer such as blue chip or top spec. Some horses look old at 14, some not till 24! Give the feed companies a call and see what they suggest.
 
If it makes you feel any better, below is a photo I took of my mare last spring when her rugs came off and I had a good look and was shocked how the condition had dropped off so suddenly without me noticing. She is the same age as your mare. She soon got back into shape with worming, spring grass and work. You can see the hollow in the same place as your mare.

My horse is also prone to spasmodic colic. What helps her and I think would help your horse is Coligone. I feed the powder version (mint flavour) available from H. Bradshaw. It's a good digestive supplement and calmer.

I would get the vet out though just to be sure there's nothing underlying, and to take a blood test. Also to do an ELISA test on the blood sample for tapeworm antibody. Although Pramox contains a tapewormer, I believe there are other wormers more effective across a wider range of tapeworms.

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This is what I'm a bit torn over! Part of me thinks it's just weight she is getting older after all. But then she has always been rounded and so I would not expect her to look like that! She doesn't appear to of lost weight anywhere else which is why it's a little confusing though I think her ribs are more easily felt.
 
To me it looks like typical muscle loss due to age. She looks fab though, and I wouldn't worry too much about that. unless of course it is only one sided or happened suddenly.
 
One of mine will quickly get that look if he doesn't eat enough hay, even though he isn't underweight. Tempt him to eat more (in his case either HorseHage or some different hay), up his stomach supplement & he's soon back to normal. Not being warm enough seems to make it worse too.

Re the tapeworming praziquantel (Pramox, Equitape) is the drug that covers all three types of tapeworm rather than just the main one, so there shouldn't be a problem there. An Elisa test, according to my vet, is of limited use - it shows antibodies so will tell if there's been a tapeworm burden, but you don't know if that's a current burden or historic one that's been cleared.

Another thought, have you had her teeth checked recently?

If she was mine I'd try upping her hay intake, if she'll eat more, & making sure she's warm enough. If that doesn't show a fairly quick improvement or you're still worried then I'd have another chat with your vet. I'd also get a weightape on her, they may not be terribly accurate but they are useful for monitoring changes in weight.
 
Thanks for the replies! Yes she will always eat more!! To be honest I feed her very little 5 kg of hayledge and two handfuls of feed and fibre! They have hayledge in the field though I don't weigh this! But she is currently in a much smaller field than last year due to her companion injuring his tendon and he just can't be without her! So I am starting to think she may not be finding as much grass as before !
 
I think if she was unwell she could have tucked up a bit and that's what you're seeing. It is especially noticeable as her belly drops as she gets older.
A chiro treatment or similar can make horses feel under the weather, its not unnknown for them to get a touch of lami also, people don't get sufficient warning about this IMO.
 
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