Horse has looks fat when ribs showing

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maybedaisy

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My horse is retired due to PSD. She is a very good doer and wears a grazing muzzle during the summer and is only out during the day.

I have always struggled to get any weight off her and had her tested for Ems and Cushings this year. Both were negative. She was on soaked hay in trickle nets and honestly anything else on the quantities she was getting would be stick thin.

I put her on Nometsyn for a while and either this re booted her metabolism or the trickle nets started working because she actually lost weight. To the point where I can just see her ribs. She needs the weight off because she had a bit of Lammi early in the year and being heavy is not good for the Psd.

Anyway despite the fact that I can see her ribs she is still very, very round so that when she has a rug on she looks really fat.

I worm count regularly and its always negative.

She's bedded on Barley straw and does eat it. I tried non edible bedding but she chews the stable when her hay is gone.

Does anyone else have any experience of straw causing bloating or any other suggestions.

She's 13, 16hh, IDxTBxArab.
 
I won't be able to get any recent ones due to lack of light and work. Plus you can't see her ribs in the photo's she just looks fat.

Vet thinks its the straw, I just wondered if anyone else had experienced this.
 
It is not uncommon to get negative results of PPID blood tests when all the symptoms point to Cushings. Do you know how the samples were handled after they were taken? If not handled correctly, false results can happen.
http://liphookequinehospital.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/PituitaryParsIntermediaDysfunction.pdf
If the link works, it is info about how to test for PPID and how to treat the samples correctly. It comes from Liphook Equine Hospital laboratory where they have some good information about PPID.
If you can talk with your vet, ask if this protocol was followed and if not, ask for another test as you may have had inaccurate results. Perhaps the test was done when ACTH is low anyway but you may have more chance of a result at this time of year.
Here's a pic of my boy who was diagnosed with Cushings three years ago now. He has the fairly typical pot belly but you can also see his ribs in summer.
potbelly.jpg

He has suspected suspensory ligament damage but hasn't been diagnosed due to no insurance at his age.
 
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It's very common for mares that have had foals to look very round even when not fat, due to a mummy tummy. I'd get your girl weighed on your vets' weighbridge and compare it against your weigh tape measurement taken at the same time, then you'll know how accurate your weigh tape is and can make adjustments accordingly. Eating barley straw shouldn't put any weight on her and is a good fibre option for porkers but do be aware that gobbling it could cause an impaction colic.
 
My mare looks obese even when she is at her perfect weight and you can see her ribs.

She has a massive rib cage and vet things she has had a foal in the past so that's why she never looks thin:o
 
This is the reason why we don't assess a horse's condition by the size of it's tummy, as the tummy size is often indicative of the amount of fibre in it. Straw is a particularly coarse form of fibre so yes it is quite possible that eating lots of straw is making her belly look round. But if you can just see her ribs and she doesn't have a cresty neck or a gutter down her bottom then she is not fat, regardless of the size of her tummy! Another factor is conformation - some horses have very round ribcages which can make them look fatter than they really are.
 
How long is she going without hay in the stable? If she eats the stable if she's not bedded on straw sounds to me like she's desperate for food in her tummy. I don't know a lot on the subject but I think that could point towards gastric ulcers.
 
She's on soaked hay in trickle nets, the hay is soaked overnight. I already give her ulcer calm as she will run out of hay and I don't want too much acid build up. If I fed her enough to last all night she would roll out of the stable, that's why she is on straw so she's got something to chew on when they hay is gone. She is an eating machine.

I have another horse who gets a stuffed full haybar and leaves a bit. Daisy would eat that in less than an hour.

She gets fed Hi fi lite just to soak up the vits.
 
Unless you are on hand to dish out minute quantities of forage every 20 minutes, you have to make the best of a bad job. OP sounds like they are on top of the weight and in the same pickle as the rest of us with fatties who cannot be worked.
 
Its a nightmare Brighteyes. She damaged her ligaments again at the beginning of the year when she got spooked in the field and skidded up and down in blind panic. I had her on box rest but she got no better. I really thought I was going to have to call it a day but I decided to turn her out in a small paddock which seemed to do the trick bizarrely

She's now back out with her mates and is field sound again.

It would be great if I could lunge her to keep the weight off but obviously thats a no, no with the psd.
 
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