My horse has lost her 'sparkle'.....

Marnie

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I know that Marnie isn't very fit at the moment, but she seems to have lost her spark. She is in the majority of the time now due to the state of our grazing and fed more or less ad lib hay with the local feed merchants equivalent of alfa oil and Dodson and Horrel ERS pellets. She has also been a bit 'off' when trotting on one particular diagonal - I had the vet look at her earlier in the week and he said she looked fine and thinks it is just because she isn't as fit as she has been.

I took her out today, and bearing in mind how windy it was, she was not spooky or as 'goey' as she would be normally - her ears were forward and she appeared to be enjoying herself, just didn't have her usual spark.

I don't want to change her feed, she is holding her weight well and reacts badly to cereals - becomes very hot and itchy. I bought her some Simple Systems Total Eclipse today, has anyone used this before? Anyone any ideas about how I could get her spark back?

Thanks - this got a bit long!
 
She sounds similar to a horse I know, its probably nothing serious but could she be slightly anaemic? But if the vet saw her and said she was fine she probably is, maybe she's got a bit tired and sluggish from being in, like we get when we've had too much sleep.
 
I had bloods run on her about a month ago which were fine. I did wonder about that though, the total eclipse includes seaweed which someone said may help if she was - I don't know if that is true though. Need to do a bit of research!
 
Is she moulting quite a lot at the moment? I've known horses go a bit flat when they start losing their coat, and it can make them slightly anaemic. Might be worth doing bloods again, or maybe just give her some Red Cell or Heamolytan 400.
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Good to hear the blood tests were ok..could she be coming into season already? I think seaweeds got lots of iron in it so should help with anaemia. Also a friends mare has done really well on Equivite, maybe you could try that, or just see how she is in the next few days. I find that sometimes if my horse hasn't been ridden for a few days (he's turned out every day) he can be a bit lazy, but the day after that he's sharper.
 
Thanks for that - she is moulting actually, I haven't been able to clip her this year - she is the black and white cob in my sig - long story but basically she kicked the YO in the head last year (under sedation) when being clipped, so I wouldn't do it again. Even though it was windy today, it was warm, so maybe that may affect her.
 
She has been in season already. Someone told me that seaweed had a lot of iron in, which is one reason why I went for the total eclipse - glad to hear that backed up! I'll give her some time on it and see how she goes, hopefully it will do the trick!
 
That's interesting - I'll keep an eye out, her skin is quite sensitive, so knowing my luck she would do the same!
 
I've heard seaweeds got iron in it aswell. I think it could be change on seasons and moulting atc thats making her a bit down.
 
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