EMS Horse & Grass

[Myotto]

Has anyone seen an improvement in their horses general wellbeing and hindgut health when moving them off grass onto a dry lot or sand paddock with hay?

My 11 year old gelding has EMS and has also just gone through a barefoot transition which has massively improved his general health.

However, I am still struggling to improve his hindgut health, particularly in spring and autumn. He suffers with faecal water and gets bloated and uncomfortable whenever there is a change or flush in the grass, particularly during autumn and winter. He does ok-ish in spring and summer.

He has a species appropriate diet in most ways but is still on grass during the day in autumn/winter and at night in spring/summer. He has a Progressive Earth balancer and their Pro GI supplement mixed into his low sugar/starch muesli. His hay is soaked.

Getting him off grass when turned out is now an option for me and I wondered what results people had seen after making this change.

 

[AppyLover1996]

My friend had great success with getting her EMS horse off of grass and onto a track system - she credits it with saving his life!

Friend's EMS horse was so bad that the vet was advocating for PTS as couldn't see a way back from the dire situation (not my friend's fault by the way! - she had him out on loan and despite strict instructions the loaners ignored them - she only found out when she did a surprise visit) and my friend asked for 72 hours with some pain relief and to see if coming off grass completely would be enough of a "shock" to the system to reboot itself in a way and start the healing process. It took her 2 years to get him back to where he was before he went out on loan, but by some wonder she has done it and he's back fully competing and tanking off with her around the bridleways and local shows.

Her track system has various piles of soaked hay spread around so he has to constantly move in order to get it, she has various buckets with herbs infused in water and herbs in their natural form spread around for foraging opportunities, plenty of shade areas, plenty of areas where he can get up to a lovely canter and hoon around and a small area for tacking up etc. This is spread over 2 and a bit acres so she has a decent sized track (it helps that she owns the land so can do whatever she pleases) - however I'm sure you'd be able to replicate something similar if you wanted to?

My friend's horse had the most awful gut health but his recent tests have come back and it's improved wonderfully

 

[Myotto]

My friend had great success with getting her EMS horse off of grass and onto a track system - she credits it with saving his life!

Friend's EMS horse was so bad that the vet was advocating for PTS as couldn't see a way back from the dire situation (not my friend's fault by the way! - she had him out on loan and despite strict instructions the loaners ignored them - she only found out when she did a surprise visit) and my friend asked for 72 hours with some pain relief and to see if coming off grass completely would be enough of a "shock" to the system to reboot itself in a way and start the healing process. It took her 2 years to get him back to where he was before he went out on loan, but by some wonder she has done it and he's back fully competing and tanking off with her around the bridleways and local shows.

Her track system has various piles of soaked hay spread around so he has to constantly move in order to get it, she has various buckets with herbs infused in water and herbs in their natural form spread around for foraging opportunities, plenty of shade areas, plenty of areas where he can get up to a lovely canter and hoon around and a small area for tacking up etc. This is spread over 2 and a bit acres so she has a decent sized track (it helps that she owns the land so can do whatever she pleases) - however I'm sure you'd be able to replicate something similar if you wanted to?

My friend's horse had the most awful gut health but his recent tests have come back and it's improved wonderfully

That’s great. I won’t have a track to use but I will have use of a sand paddock which must be an improvement on grass!

 

[AppyLover1996]

That’s great. I won’t have a track to use but I will have use of a sand paddock which must be an improvement on grass!

My friend uses a sand paddock when she's doing work on her track and sometimes forgets to let her lad out and he does equally just as well on the sand paddock as he does with the big track

I'd say it's deffo worth a shot

 

[Birker2020]

That’s great. I won’t have a track to use but I will have use of a sand paddock which must be an improvement on grass!

Do you have to be cautious of sand colic?

 

[AppyLover1996]

Do you have to be cautious of sand colic?

It's something to certainly be cautious of - I've heard that psyllium husk is quite good for expelling any sand that has been ingested

 

[SEL]

It's something to certainly be cautious of - I've heard that psyllium husk is quite good for expelling any sand that has been ingested

It is - but if you can put down something not sandy where the horse is fed.

I track around the outside of my field and it's been great not just for my pssm/EMS horse but also a pony who doesn't have a great gut. Her gut is better on minimal grass.

 

[tristars]

I put a large plastic tank on arena, inside is a concrete paving slab I attach full Haynet to it

 

[Myotto]

Do you have to be cautious of sand colic?

I feed from a hay saver so shouldn’t be too much of an issue.