Experiences of EMS and how to manage it please.

[Hepsibah]

I strongly suspect Bess, my 18yo Fell pony mare has EMS. My farrier says there are distinct signs of her having had laminitis in the recent past although she showed none of the usual signs beyond preferring to be ridden on grass which isn't unusual for her anyway.
She is also a good doer and tends towards being fat rather than thin. She lives out on unimproved meadow grazing which she shares with other horses and sheep, is muzzled most of the time during the good grazing months and has no hard feed.

I have the vet coming out next week to do jabs and will be discussing it with him then and she is currently in a barn 24/7 being fed hay or haylage and losing weight so on the right track for the moment.

What are other's experiences with EMS and what steps should I take to ensure her future comfort and soundness?

 

[paddy555]

has she been ACTH tested? If not I would do that when the vet comes next week. If he is doing jabs make sure you do the ACTH blood pull before the jabs so she isn't stressed. That will then rule cushings in or out.

 

[meesha]

Neighbours pony had it, was extremely overweight - vet will do a test for it and put pony on tablets if confirmed, you will need to keep off grass certainly initially and soak hay, neighbour now feeds good quality oat straw (fairly sure its oat straw) I supplement to hay. Her pony looks like different pony and is at goal weight and after a year has come off the tablets.

Going forward he will never be out grazing unless on very rough/bare ground with a muzzle.

She crushed tablets and syringed them into pony initially as he wouldn't eat them

Hope this helps just to add he didn't have Cushing's.

 

[DuckToller]

I have a ex event horse and a pony x cob with EMS and they are managed slightly differently.

The horse has 16 large metformin tablets a day (8 in each feed) and without them he gets laminitis within hours. He is currently turned away so I am being extra careful. It helps if he is kept fit and slim and I never let him have any feed with a large amount of sugar in it - he gets meadow haylage not the seed haylage that my others get, he has to have soaked hay in the summer, and very limited turnout.

The smaller one is currently managed without metformin, although that time could be coming. I keep him slim and fit too and until xmas the ems was under control. Then he didn't get ridden much over the holidays and I think he got some seed haylage by mistake which led to a lami attack. He went on metformin for a couple of weeks but I have gradually weaned him back off and he is doing ok without it but I have a feeling I might have to start medicating him in the summer.

Both are clipped and only lightly rugged (depends on weather obviously!) but I work on the theory that if they are a little cool they will burn off more calories - certainly when I gave the horse a warmer rug he was a bit footy the next morning, so I now make sure he only has a medium or light weight rug - he was clipped out in November. The cob is clipped all year and only has a medium rug for a few weeks after the clip, as he grows a coat quite quickly. After that he is in a lightweight or even naked, again depending on the weather. It is a good way to keep weight down

 

[swellhillcottage]

out of interest how do you diagnose EMS?

 

[meesha]

Think neighbours horse was starved then given huge amount of glucose, I assume to see if it could get rid of it out of his system ! Think it was a blood test x number of hours after the glucose administration.

 

[WandaMare]

I have one with EMS who I feed soaked hay and restricted grazing. I read somewhere that even just 20 mins exercise a day makes a huge difference to these horses as it reduces the insulin resistance. So I try to do at least this with her even if I don't have time to do a proper exercise session, it does seem to make a noticeable difference.

 

[_HP_]

out of interest how do you diagnose EMS?

Blood test


http://www.thelaminitissite.org/irems.html

 

[Micky]

Have a look at thelaminitissite web, there is a forum on there and plenty of information on ems, ppid and laminitis

 

[swellhillcottage]

Very very interesting - I should think EMS is what is wrong with my little chap- which has been a long running saga to say the least - I knew he had a sugar issue but he had tested negative to Cushings but I had discovered any sort of grass has been a no no and out of desperation and having run out of ideas I took him off grass completely last November and he turned into a very different pony - he was on soaked haynets until the weather started freezing them about 3 weeks ago so I stopped soaking and let him have dry haynets and almost immediately he got very footy and puffy legs and as the only change in his diet had been the lack of soaking, so soaking started again and within 2 days feet and legs were good again - because I had had the soaking issue I did some research and figured it was pointing to some sort of Insulin resistance - recomendations were to work IR horses every day - so I did that and started to ride him every day about 3 weeks ago and the difference has been amazing - a soft happy sound pony and long may it continue!!