Horses with Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS)

Pancakes

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Has anyone have/had horses with EMS?
how long did it take to diagnose and what routine do you undertake to manage the condition?
i am currently in my final year of uni and doing my dissertation. I am looking at EMS and whether the use of Body condition scoring would provide an indication of early diagnosis or highlight predisposition to a horse contracting EMS.
Any other useful info would be greatly appreciated:)

chocolate brownies for all, nom nom:D
 

superpony

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My horse has EMS, I actually had no idea he had it, he went to the vets for a lameness work up and he just wasn't himself. My vet knows him well and found him sweating in the stable by dinnertime (very unlike him) and realised he wasn't his normalself and seem depressed and unhappy.

So whilst he was there the vets tested him for EMS and cushings. Found out he has EMS, he is managed by 10 x metaformin tablets a day. I keep him on the thin side and in spring/summer he is a bare paddock due to the risk of laminitis.

If you want any more info on him just let me know. :)
 

texel

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I'll be brief the history is too long. I have a 11.2 mare with EMS. She is 13 now and was diagnosed at 6 after a blood test. Initially she came down with lamnitis and although she gradually improved with careful management but I just couldn't get it right sometimes. Hay was particularly difficult as it varied in quality and composition.

She is thin I would say condition 3-4.

I was going to have her PTS earlier in the year. Despite careful management I could not get her 100% sound and keep her sound, yet despite the pain she battled on.

The only option was to feed her on cardboard ! After much research on the internet I discovered a brilliant article and I found a possible solution which was her last chance and it worked. She is not cured but she is sound and pain free. It is amazing my farrier and other folk who know of her couldn't believe the difference.

It you would like further information please PM
 

Pancakes

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thank you for those replies, very helpful and thought provoking.
Passes the chocolate brownies......:D
My main concern with the condition is the difficulty in initially identifying a horse has EMS with laminits often acting as a mask. I feel this may make my dissertation a lot harder as i need to find a minimum of 10 EMS horses to condition score, i think i have my work cut out:D

Any other replies would be greatly welcome :)
 

Milanesa

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Hi, my pOny has ems and in response to your question in my case a high body condition score was why I had her tested and discovered she has cushings and ems as well as being a laminitic. Therefore her being so large did help me with diagnosing her, but I would not say it was an early diagnosis as with most ems horses the weight gain and crest is due to the disease and before this she was a normal weight. It could be tricky to use a horses weight as an early indication as there are many other factors that are interlinked. For example most ems horses are also laminitics first so are kept slimmer to help with laminitis therefore masking the ems symptoms. Good luck though with your dissertation I think you have lots of avenues you could explore on this subject!
 

Equilibrium Ireland

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Does anyone reading this thread not think the sudden spike in metabolic disorders in horses coincided with the explosion of ready made nutrition in a bag? This might be something for you to investigate further.

Though it could be argued that around this time the Internet was taking off. But growing up you always were warned of the dangers with ponies and over indulgence but seldom horses. Horses also work less, in general, nowadays but are probably fed way too much. Call this the human guilt factor.

A few years ago I had EMS symptoms in 3 of my horses. Mother and 2 daughters, obvious genetic link. The males from mare did not exhibit the symptoms. There's a hormonal connection. About the same time a thread came up warning of the dangers of soya specifically in balancers. To cut a very long story short, I called feed company. They told me I was mad in the head. Told me to keep them for the rest of their lives in a dry lot soaking hay. Also told me the balancers were basically for TB's. I told them that's what I have and actually questioned my sanity more or less.


Soooo, took them off all the balancer and replaced with a vit and min source soya free. Food would consist of speedie beet, oats, barley, alfalfa, rice bran, and a vit and min supp. Those things above were only as needed depending on season and work. Also hadn't been able to get my mare in foal for 2 years despite vet works saying she was fine. Off soya and pregnant on the first try. All horses went back to normal grazing and regular hay.

I personally do not believe all cases are triggered by the same thing. I also cringe when I see recommendations of high fat (almost always soya) diets and expensive peroglide for treatment. And a horse confined to a life of misery. I went rogue and went with an easy simple solution first that I knew would not harm my horses. I'm so glad I did. All symptoms were gone in 2 weeks.

FWIW, I found as my now 5 YO grew up and she was in hard work, she could handle a source of soya. The only one I found that didn't bring back symptoms was a GM source.

Before balancers we fed simply. Now we are bombarded by not enough protein, too much protein. Not enough this, your horse will die without that. On and on. For 2 years my head spun with all the information. Horses used to work and work hard. Now they do a fraction and are fed stupid amounts of food and we are told grass is evil!

It's a head spinner for sure! I would love someone to do a study on soya and it's effects on horses. But you'll never see that from a feed company because it's in everything in copious amounts!

Terri
 

crabbymare

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E. Ireland, thats an interesting post and is something thats been rattling around in my head for a while now.
When I was a kid the riding school horses were fed a scoop of oats and 1/2 scoop of bran, they worked (well were ridden) for 4 hours a day Saturday and Sunday and perhaps 1 or 2 hours Tuesday to Friday, Monday was day off. They lived out from fields being dry enough and came in at night when they got wet. When they were clipped they lived in most of the time as they wore jute rugs (they did not have New Zealand rugs and turnout rugs had not been invented!) and only went out for a few hours if it was dry or had snowed (they were blanket clipped) for a leg stretch and a roll.
Things were a lot more simple and the horses seemed to thrive on it, certainly most looked well and worked albeit at a reduced amount until mid 20's.
I have a mare who came early this year who has EMS symptoms, I changed her to an oat with unmollased sugar beet and added vitamins/minerals diet she started to change and now looks "normal" can graze happily with the others and although I do watch her now if its frosty she is a much better shape and seems a lot happier in herself plus she is a lot saner to ride which is always a bonus :D

I have not been sure if it was the higher levels of sugar that we are feeding now, an intolerance, more able to test for things that may not have been picked up years ago or what has been happening. I do know that some vets think that horses are way overfed for the amount they are doing, but it would be very interesting if someone unbiased would do some research to see if there was a provable correlation between certain things (like soya) and EMS.

Glad its not just me that has been pondering this :)
 
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canteron

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My 19yo horse came up with high EMS levels earlier this year. Tried metformin, which was the most horrendous faff (35 tables a day - yikes) and actually was completely useless, his levels actually went up. I think this was because the underlying cause was Cushings.

My very well respected farrier thinks that EMS is a bit of a 'fashion' thing coinciding with Metformin becoming available for horses? My view (based on only a few horses) is that EMS is a sympton not a cause and that treating the underlying problem (weight, Cushings, diet) is more effective.

I think now that a good forage analysis and a soil analysis and then properly balancing the minerals would be a million more times effective that Metformin - but as yet the Vets don't have a money making system for that so until they do ..........


For example, I have found my grazing is acidic, compacted, high in iron, low in magnesium copper and zinc - which as he has eaten it everyday for the past 13 years is bound eventually to have an impact?
 

Equilibrium Ireland

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Crabbymare,

It's really amazing with feed affecting horses. I'm actually in the process of switching my horses to the Simple Systems Feed. A bit of a pain as I have to meet a rep as it's not available to me in the South. But well worth it. Sick of having to get ingredients all over the place and not really what I want.

It's been a long road trying to sort the diet out but has been so worth it.

Terri
 
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My shetland mare has it. She came down with chronic lammi overnight, she wasn't excessively fat or on good food and grass so the vet came out to look at her and by pure chance the student with them asked about testing for EMS - must have been that weeks lecture! So she got tested and came up positive. That was 5 years ago and since then she has bred 2 foals and lives pretty much a lammi's life. To date she has only gone off her feet once since then and then it was only slightly otherwise she has sucessfully managed with no drugs what so ever.

She is only 11 now and I may well put her back in foal next year if I keep my big mare barren. She has never been backed so I can't comment on what effect it has on their ability to work but she never had a bother with the foals and both of them have grown up as perfectly normal ponies despite growing up on a lammi's life until they were weaned.
 
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