Depressed and lifeless pony! (very long! sorry!)

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welsh_monster

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Hiya, I've got a slight problem with one of our ponies, just wondering if anyone could help really.

She is a 13hh, 12yr old Welsh B cross (apparently), she is incredibly fine, and has always been high maintainence, suffers from COPD, has had sesmoiditis (sp?) and laminitis in the past etc.

Recently we have been having serious trouble trying to get weight on her as she lost it almost overnight!!! She is on Top Spec Balancer,Hi-Fi Lite and corn oil, extreme amounts of hay and the odd mouthful of haylage if she manages to steal it. Usually she is very nosy and quite energetic.

But today she was led down in her barn looking very depressed whilst the pony she shares with was outside eating his breakfast, which is highly unusual, then later was led down and didn't want to get up for her tea. When she decided she would, she only picked at it, again very unusual for her.

But when we put everyone to bed, she quite happily tucked into her hay, but still looked lifeless and depressed.
We have checked temperature and all the usual supsect symptoms of illness and there is nothing obvious but we are really worried about her. She had full bloods done about 2 months ago for her cough getting worse and nothing came up, so really don't know what to do!

Well done if you got this far without nodding off! Any ideas please!!!
 
Can't offer any advice on the listlessness sorry.

We had a pony that was permanently skinny, he was old and couldn't really eat hay or anything. We used to feed him on a porridge made from soaked high fibre cubes and stud cubes, with some sugarbeet added too. This was the only thing in over 10 years of owning him that ever put weight on - he used to spend ages sucking his bucket clean
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Has anything else changed in the ponies routine? any new horses/people on the yard? Do you think she could be lacking salts or anything? Just suggested that as ours get listless in the summer due to sweating, so will give them some kossolian blood salts that seem to perk them up.
 
I was looking at her short feed and thinking, I wouldn't fancy eating that, to be honest!

How about adding some alfa a or happy hoof rather than hi fi lite, at least to tempt her? I use hifi lite in the summer for my lami type ponies, but have swapped onto alfa a now as there is very little goodness in my grass and mine are desperate for something more tasty. If she is underweight, then you shouldn't have a problem with lami, not this time of year. Or phone up one of the feed company helplines, they are brilliant with diet advice.

If she is keen to eat haylage, could you give her half and half? My vet said that it has less sugar than hay because more of the sugar is used up in the fermentation process, so as long as it is over 6 weeks old, it is not a problem to feed at all.

As to why she is depressed, that is more worrying. How much work is she doing? Is she being turned out much? More info please!
 
We have our own yard and stables but it is part of a very busy farm, with industrial units so very noisy but she has lived there for nearly 10 yrs, so should be used to anything and everything that goes on there.

No new horses, they've all lived there for years. There is always people about but she is usually very sociable so wouldn't worry her.

She always has a salt lick in her barn and one in the field so I wouldn't have thought she'd be lacking salt.

Only change in her routine was the hard feed which we started about a month ago and introduced slowly as she can be fussy.
 
Has she had her teeth checked lately? We had a pony that would't put on weight and found that she had a couple of teeth at a fuuny angle so uncomfortable to eat, she went onto A + P Fast Fibre which helped till removed, she was also quite depressed prob because she wasn't really eating enough to have energy.
 
Unfortunately she won't eat any other chaff apart from Hi-Fi Lite for some unknown reason, have tried almost the whole Dengie range, which she just walked away from, Fibergy she managed for 3 days then decided she didn't like it, very frustrating being left with a bag with 2 scoops taken out! None of the others get any feed.

She quite happily eats her hay, but we can't give haylage to our other little pony that she shares with. We have the exact opposite problem with him that he has too much weight but they cannot be separated! Very annoying. We also have the problem that our haylage is really good quality, so we only give it to our horses half and half, who are working.

She doesn't do much work, only goes for half hour walks 3 -4 times a week as she had so many problems when she was younger she has never been broken. She is free to turn herself out or bring herself in as her field backs onto their barn.

She has been rugged since August as she feels the cold and is sometimes a bit too stupid to bring herself in when it rains and no one is there to take her in.
 
did they check the liver when they did the bloods?( two of the symptoms of liver disease is depresson and lethargy) i expect so but it's just a thought- when my horse was dull and lifeless he had a bad liver which ran into suspected virus which ran into inflammed lungs. perhaps lungs are suffering if she has copd.
 
Yep did liver. I wondered whether it was her lungs as she was coughing terribly yesterday, but not today. Was also thinking an infection of some sort. Think it will have to be vet tomorrow, friend has just been and checked on her and she was still looking miserable but slightly more with it, which i suppose is a good thing in a way.
 
Has she had the tests for cushings disease and Equine Metabolic Syndrome? These cause many of the symptoms you describe and are very common in little welshies entering their teens. The lethargy and loss of condition tend to come about gradually though. Anyway, I'd get the tests done if you haven't already if I were you. Both can be helped with management and medication.
 
I was going to say Cushings as well - depression, weight loss and low immune system is a symptom of cushings disease, also laminitis in under weight equines can be a symptom of cushings. We have just been through this with my 13.3hh welsh x arab...
 
My horse had similar symptoms. He had a blood test and urine test and it turns out he has slight kidney dysfunction. I changed his feed to a low protein diet. He was on Good doer, but the protein was too high. After a few months, he was back to his old self.

Wait and see what the blood test show. I know my vet was very surprised with my horse's blood test results. Fingers crossed it is nothing too serious with your horse.
 
Have been up this morning and she seems a lot perkier but still not right.

She had tests for cushings several years ago but nothing showed up. Is it likely to show up now? I may be being rather naive about this, but I haven't got much experience in the like.

She is not actually mine but have known her and owner for years, but due to not having horses for several years I was never there when she went through being diagnosed with COPD and previous cushings tests etc.

Would it be worth getting more bloods done even though she had the full works 2 months ago and nothing showed?
 
One of the cushings tests (if I remember rightly) is quite expensive and has to be done separately to normal blood tests, so not likely that it was included last time. Ponies can get cushings at 12, but it is still quite young, so it depends on how much money the owner is willing to spend. You could wait a few days to see if she improves any more maybe?

Can you tempt her with some apples without upsetting the chubbier friend? Is her age accurate, or is there any chance she is actually older than 12, which means cushings is more likely?
 
Well, over the last couple of days she's gradually got perkier, not 100% but getting there.

Llewelyn, we took your advice on the apples and she's munching away now, and she is definetly 12, owner has had her since she was 4 months old.

We had chubby in a stable yesterday with his own haynet and left her in their barn with a huge pile of hay to work through and that seemed to work well!

Thank you for all your help.
 
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