EPSM and grazing?

cptrayes

cptrayes

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My rehab horse, which I took on as Insulin Resistant, is actually showing many signs of EPSM, though fairly low grade. I've put him on a high oil diet and vitamin E as recommended and it certainly seems to be making a difference to how many stones he feels if he treads on one. I had expected to rehome him as never being able to graze again, but I am now wondering if that is necessarily the case.

Can I please have your experiences of being able to graze EPSM horses once they are on the EPSM diet, good and bad?
 
Hiya, just had a thought - isn't oil contra-indicated in the IR horse?
Sure I have read this....

I know sometimes you have to 'suck it and see', but will be interesting to see what replies you get..
 
Shamelessly stolen from another forum, hope SueB doesn't mind...

"It is a mind boggling thing. In general I know that Dr. Kellon doesn't recommend feeding IR horses high amounts of fat....not that they get worse, but that it masks the symptoms and the IR can get out of hand while tests and symptoms reveal nothing. On the other hand, Dr. Valentine recommends that all EPSM horses....even those with IR...be fed the high fat diet. She believes that it improves the IR.

Now, logically looking at these two senerios, I guess you have to decide which side of the fence to sit on....me, I sit in the middle.... "


So, clear as mud then!
 
Oil is said to be contra indicated for IR by some people and recommended by others - I had emails both ways to "advise" me when I took him on.

But if he's EPSM and not IR, then oil is absolutely essential in very large doses. And since he's moving freer tonight after doing a 6 mile farm ride and jumping several jumps than he has at any time in the 12 weeks I've had him, in addition to the muscle wastage, tying up, excess sweating and standing under , all additional symptoms which have been corrected (he's even got muscle building on the chest already, but then we do live on some big hills!) after only 4-5 days on the oil, then I figure he's EPSM for sure.

I was hoping to hear some positive stories of laminitic EPSM horses on high oil diets who can graze. I know of two on the UKNHCP site, but I need to get more of a balanced picture than that before I would risk him again on the green stuff after how weak it made his feet.
 
Mine was fine for ages but not any more. It was ok the whole time she was moving a lot (and not eating much). Now just 20 mins on grass is too much.

Although turnout is highly recommended for EPSM I found the downsides for my lami outweighed the benefits. My girl is now in (which I am not happy about) and is exercised 3x a day (which she seems very chilled about) but is knackering (for me).

I am hoping to get a (grass free) track organised for her sometime later this year.
 
Thanks Lucy,

I'm thinking, since he has done so incredibly well, that the expression "better safe than sorry" applies here! I have offers of a number of grass-free homes for him, so I think we'll just stick with the grass free life, since he is so chilled about it. I left a gate open today and he had a choice between a patch of grass, bale of rough late-cut hill meadow haylage, and a bale of rygrass haylage and he ate the rough haylage. I think he may have been trying to tell me something!
 
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