Any equine nutritionists, advice needed.

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JillA

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Please only respond if you have advanced experience or knowledge of nutrition, I have been keeping horses for 50 years and generally know how to feed for condition. This horse is out of the ordinary, so a bag of conditioning cubes ain't gonna cut it!!

I have a big rangy ex NH chaser who is always a struggle to keep condition on, and top line. I have tried high fibre, high oil, plenty of good grass, top quality forage, adequate protein and the best I have achieved is his ribs are lightly covered - condition score 1. He was rescued about 6 years ago in a severely emaciated state (score 0 - lucky to survive) and I wonder if this could have affected his metabolism.
He has been fed low sugar/starch for over 2 years since he suffered from ulcers, his FECs are always low/0 and he is wormed annually for tapes and his teeth are checked and attended to. He is not stressed - out in the day and stabled at night, and well rugged.He is on loan now and his loanees are struggling with his condition, I have been and checked on him today and they are doing everything right, he is getting plenty, bucket feeds, oil and top quality hay. His coat is gleaming but he has nothing on his ribs or top line. Even on spring/summer grass he barely covered his ribs.

Do you have any suggestions I could pass on please? I mentioned a probiotic in case he is just not getting sufficient out of the food he is getting , and I wondered about micronized barley, if you have any suggestions I'll pass them on. They are getting the vet to check on him tomorrow. They love this horse to bits but he is a one off!
 
I'm not an expert but I'm answering anyway :p

Can you update with what the vet says - I'm guessing bloods will be taken - as I'd be interested to know if there are any internal problems which are affecting him, seeing as all the usual external assistance is being offered?
 
Not a lot of help to you but if the vet does not find anything thats remaining from or caused by his past and as I suspect he is getting plenty of smaller feeds then he could just be one of those who will look great in their coat but like some people they are naturally skinny and only put on muscle where its needed for the work they are doing. one of the old ways was to feed a raw egg and stout which did help a couple of times for us but you may need to accept the fact that he will never be a round horse
 
Did he get wormed for encysted redworm in the autumn, probably best to use worm counts and keep a strict record of ingredients used when wormed. There is a saliva tapeworm test now [Westgate Labs are excellent].

I used micronised linseed for condition rather than oil as it is not processed, but I have not used more than 200gm,, thought I know some use 250gms per day. Charnwood Milling delivers.

25gms of salt per day.

Is he drinking a normal amount? You can add some warm water to bucket in case he is not liking it on his teeth. Assuming water in field is OK. Measure how much water he normally drinks then try two buckets of water in the stable, one with apple juice or some molassed sugar beet in it. See if he drinks more. Is the skin very tight, the de-hydration "pinch test" on the neck.

I think you could try the mashes for oldies, and also have a variety of chops in small buckets overnight to let him pick. I am assuming ad lib forage overnight.
Soaking the nuts might help. Barley sounds good but I would want to add minerals, try a broad spectrum mineral to make sure he gets max RDA including the "minor" minerals, the main ones are covered in normal feeds. You could phone Equimins to see if they have any special things, I think that Mark/Mathew is very good, very specialised.

Is the poop normal, any abnormality in eating?
Have you considered a full blood profile.

Les hope vet comes up with some ideas.
 
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I think veterinary investigation is a wise choice - sounds like there must be something wrong if he truly doesn't get above a condition score 1 even in the summer. Do you know why/how he got emaciated in the first place? Was it pure lack of food/care or something like illness, worm burden etc?
 
He had plenty of micronized linseed when he was here (went on loan last Autumn) ditto salt, and he was condition score 2 at best on all of that, but I might contact Sarah at Forageplus, she might have some ideas, or Jenny Patterson in NZ.
He was wormed with Pramox in the last couple of weeks, poo is normal (he obliged while I was there lol) and he eats and drinks as normally as any other horse, not overly picky or greedy, and he drank well in the field while I watched. Would there be any other symptoms if it was his metabolism, kidneys etc, anyone know?
ETA he was rescued when he came out of racing to go to slaughter and the lorry driver fancied making a few squid and turned him out in a field in mid Wales in January with no rugs or supplementary feed. This was him when he was rescued

Atfirst_zps23a69145.jpg


And a couple of years later, after everything we could throw at him, in summer. The best he has ever been, since he was rescued

August20121_zps3700d9d2.jpg
 
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JillA said:
He had plenty of micronized linseed when he was here (went on loan last Autumn) ditto salt, and he was condition score 2 at best on all of that, but I might contact Sarah at Forageplus, she might have some ideas, or Jenny Patterson in NZ.
He was wormed with Pramox in the last couple of weeks, poo is normal (he obliged while I was there lol) and he eats and drinks as normally as any other horse, not overly picky or greedy, and he drank well in the field while I watched. Would there be any other symptoms if it was his metabolism, kidneys etc?
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Colour [light or dark, clarity of urine is another thing to monitor.
If skinny I would tend to have him lightly rugged when stabled as long as not overheating, also light rug in mild cool weather, the Amigo Light is good.
I am assuming he has plenty of good ad lib forage.
 
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I rescued a ex p2p gelding big 17hh boy. He was always a lean horse during winter compared to my sport horses, however to keep him looking the best he could look during winter was to keep a large round bale of top quality haylage at his stable door so he could eat it 24/7. He got no hard feed as it seemed to make no difference to him so we cut it off & he just had good quality general multi vit & a kick in his stable
 
I once had a TB off the track who my boss always said looked sick, thin as can be despite everything working as it should and being fed many small feeds daily. My feed bill was massive each week.

The end to a long story was that he was in constant low grade pain from his neck being out of alignment. took a year of chiro treatment with the final one being done under general anaesthetic. After that he lived on the smell of an oily rag. Could be worth investigating
 
re tapeworm. my horses are always wormed annually in the autumn with a suitable tapeworm product. this autumn I did an equisal test fully expecting the result to be low. it came back medium high. I was very surprised. I am now going to worm my horses every 6 months for tapes. Maybe your TB needs worming again for tapes? Westgate sell the equisal test kit. only praziquantel clears all 3 types of tape worm found in the uk BTW.
 
also wanted to add that Baileys Outshine works wonders and includes B vitamins which help the gut with digestion. Yes I know they are ment to make their own vit B's in sufficient quantities but a vet put me onto this and it worked wonders for my skinny arab without causing fizz.
 
One cause of failure to gain weight is low level pain. So could try 1-2 weeks on bute and see if he gains weight. Or ulcers are another possible cause. Could scope? Or could talk to vet about short trial of treatment to see if helps.

I would run broad spectrum bloods to see if anything shows. I would also get a trusted bodyworker to have a look and see if can find any underlying pain causes.
 
Our 22 year old TB has been diagnosed, via blood test, as having poor protein absorption. He is on 3 meals a day inc micronised linseed, Bayleys No1, Alpha A Oil and Calm and Condition - diet devised by a nutritonist..plus ad lib good haylage. He is currently on a course of steroids for possible inflammation in the hind gut - he had has every test available and nothing has shown up. He is weighed monthly and has been steadily losing in spite of our best efforts - he is very bright and cheerful. Teeth and worming done regularly. I would def be going down the vet route if I was you.
 
Summer pudding said:
Our 22 year old TB has been diagnosed, via blood test, as having poor protein absorption. He is on 3 meals a day inc micronised linseed, Bayleys No1, Alpha A Oil and Calm and Condition - diet devised by a nutritonist..plus ad lib good haylage. He is currently on a course of steroids for possible inflammation in the hind gut - he had has every test available and nothing has shown up. He is weighed monthly and has been steadily losing in spite of our best efforts - he is very bright and cheerful. Teeth and worming done regularly. I would def be going down the vet route if I was you.
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As with the OP's horse, get a good chiro out to look over the horse.

OP, and anyone else with a horse not thriving well, does your dentist use a gag on your horse. One horse I had was very thin, despite good food, well wormed and dental care all done. Same Dentist had looked after horse all its racing career. Old dentist had never used a gag and had missed one back tooth each time. New dentist discovered it straight away with the gag on, took 30 mins to reduce the tooth, it was digging into the roof of the horses mouth reducing his ability to swallow properly. Tooth fixed and I had one plump horse within weeks.
 
Other than getting vets on the case etc. Thrive feed is meant to work wonders for horses that are in poor condition. Looks like they've done a lot with welfare cases. I havent fed it myself as mine are good doers.
 
Did you post about this horse a couple of years ago? I'm sure I recognize the photos! I've had two skinny horses. One was fixed, the other wasnt.

When I looked into the calorie content of the feed, the best combination I could get was Topspec balancer, topspec conditioning flakes, and outshine, all fed at required/max quantities in two feeds per day, then a third feed made up of alfa-a oil and anything left over "weights" of the other two feeds. This sorted first skinny horse out, although it took about six weeks for him to look anything like.

Second horse had a whole host of veterinary issues, as well as not being fed as she should have been by livery yard at the time. She had everything from chronic kissing spines, to an internal abscess and problems in her hocks. I'm pretty sure that she also had digestive issues, but this was never proven. The only thing that worked with her was a yard move, getting the internal abcess sorted, no work and I think she was fed on Pure Feeds. Ended up having to be PTS, but that's a different story.

So if you are sure that he is getting conditioning feed that *should* be required to fatten him up - I'd be looking at veterinary investigations. Has he ever been scoped for ulcers? If he were mine, I'm not sure really where I would start, but would probably be a visit from the physio, and asking my vet on the free call out day to come and get a blood test done.
 
I must say he looks far better in the second photo than I imagined from your description! He has rather unconventional back/hindquarter conformation which may not lend itself to really developing an ideal rounded top line, whatever you feed him!
 
He doesn't look condition score of 2 there, bar the rather unconventional conformation he looks in good condition for his type.
Therefore are you sure he is a condition score of 1 now?
If he was on the truck for meat, and given his rather unique features (!!) I do think it would be worth exploring underlying pain
 
Agree with TGM and IHW. If you put your finger over the odd conformation, he looks fine for a horse of his type in the second pic.
Our old mare lost a huge amount of weight in a short time last year, and we addressed it on veterinary advice by feeding her only Equijewel - no chaff/beet/fibre in her actual feeds (she had ad lib forage and was out on good grass) and leaving her in for an hour to digest it. The rationale was that she was having small, easily digested powershots of feed, so was able to easily metabolise each feed, rather than wasting precious effort digesting the fibre elements as well. She came back beautifully on that regime
 
Major disclaimer - I am NOT any kind of expert but a friend of mine has a big warmblood who she could not get any weight on to, and vets in the end diagnosed malabsorption syndrome. (sorry not sure what its scientific name was). He has had treatment and is now doing a lot better, though he needs careful management.
 
Auslander said:
Agree with TGM and IHW. If you put your finger over the odd conformation, he looks fine for a horse of his type in the second pic.
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The second pic is the best he has ever been since he came here, and is NOT what he looks like today, as I wrote when I posted it. That was some three or four years ago.
 
TGM said:
I must say he looks far better in the second photo than I imagined from your description! He has rather unconventional back/hindquarter conformation which may not lend itself to really developing an ideal rounded top line, whatever you feed him!
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ihatework said:
He doesn't look condition score of 2 there, bar the rather unconventional conformation he looks in good condition for his type.
Therefore are you sure he is a condition score of 1 now?
If he was on the truck for meat, and given his rather unique features (!!) I do think it would be worth exploring underlying pain
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Agree with both of these posts ^^^ getting the vet I think is the best option.
 
Tobiano said:
Major disclaimer - I am NOT any kind of expert but a friend of mine has a big warmblood who she could not get any weight on to, and vets in the end diagnosed malabsorption syndrome. (sorry not sure what its scientific name was). He has had treatment and is now doing a lot better, though he needs careful management.
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How was he managed? IF there is a med problem with OP's horse like malabsorption surely no amount of feed/advice will help here but a blood test would be a good starting point?
 
My thoughts would be:
- ensure he is wormed for encysted redworms
- get blood tests run
- treat for gastric ulcers
- if all that is clear, consider getting an abdominal ultrasound to assess his intestines which can indicate if he may have issues absorbing food
- more extreme option could be rectal biopsy or other such sample to further investigate the absorptive ability of his intestines

Be aware he could have severe damage to his intestines from heavy worm burdens before you rescued him.

Good luck with him and please let us know what the vet says. Skinny horses are frustrating and I hope you can find answers for him. He is very lucky you gave him a second chance at life!
 
JillA said:
The second pic is the best he has ever been since he came here, and is NOT what he looks like today, as I wrote when I posted it. That was some three or four years ago.
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Apologies for trying to be helpful (and I wasn't the only person to say he looked pretty good in the second pic). Hopefully the latter part of my answer was more what you were after.
 
Firstly, what a fantastic job you've done with him, he's glowing. I wouldnt say he is thin now, but simply lacking topline which is rectifiable. I think many people are used to seeing fat horses and it is becomig the norm so he may just not look as heavy, which is good!

I was formerly a nutritionist for a very well known company and if you PM me with more detailed info I would be happy to help, but I don't want to be seen as an advert for certain feeds, however I no longer work for them and will only recommend them as they truly work! I have a few ideas up my sleeve which might help maintain him
 
Thanks BeingKate.
If people had read my original post they will spot that I said vet is booked for tomorrow - once I know what he has said I'll message you.
NB There is no photo of him in his current condition but he is currently condition score 1 at best (NOT AS IN THE PHOTO!!!!!) and his management is outlined in my original post.
I have sent a link to the loanees who are managing him as best they can, this thread is intended to throw up a few ideas for them to take forward, he is no longer in my care.
*Sigh* Do people not read or have I not written it legibly???
 
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