Native type losing weight, fast!

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Walfie

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Help! Please!

I am so worried about my Dales x Fell, Mac. (2 year old) He is losing weight rapidly and I can't fathom out the cause. He is on excellent grass (ex dairy farm), Alfa a oil and speedy beet twice a day, fed according to weight and including broad spec supplement. This should be more than enough for a good doer, frankly he was much chunkier in the winter, living out without a rug!

He is lack lustre and lethargic and spends a lot of time lying down.

He is wormed regularly to a correct schedule, though we have sent off a egg count today to rule out worm infestation. He has no problems eating his hard feed, though are getting his teeth floated as well to rule that out.

Has anybody else had any similar problems and could you think of any reason for this weight loss?

We will be getting a blood test done after the worm egg count results are back tomorrow (if negative) to try and find out more but I just though someone may be able to give me a clue as am so worried stuck here at work!

TIA

Jo xx
 
OMG hope it isnt that, he lost weight a while ago but then we wormed them all (they were due) and he improved.

Theres not a lot can be done with grass sickness cases is there?
 
Yep agree with getting vet out asap. Also what is his dung like, if really runny you have a problem and its a b***h to get them solid again. Another thing is that dairy pasture is not terribly good for natives...my pony was on a dairy clover field a couple of years ago...lethergic...walked out like a drunkard. I'm now at a different yard, working dairy farm as well, but use a grazing muzzle to keep her in check. Hope he gets better...
 
Mackeson - act fast coz like MariaToo says, ex dairy pasture isn't good for a native. Ideally they need scratty, scrubby, poorish grazing coz that's what thousands of years of evolution has set their guts up to utilise. Your ned could have a low grade grumbling colic. A few weeks ago I stupidly put my veteran cob straight out from barren winter mud onto ex hay-field pasture and within 6 days he was ill with gassy colic. Thank god for good vets, Buscopan, Coligone and a different field. He's fine now but it does sound to me like your boy could have a low grade belly ache. Act fast coz belly ache due to over-rich grass can also lead to laminitis.
 
<font color="blue">a native. Ideally they need scratty, scrubby, poorish grazing coz that's what thousands of years of evolution has set their guts up to utilise. </font>

Admin should sticky this. Should be a mantra.
 
A similar thing has just happened to a friend of mines pony. They had bloods done which showed anomylies, but the vet didn't know what was causing it and suggested it might be red worm and to give panacur. (This pony is wormed regularly). The second blood test showed some improvement but still unsure as to what the problem was. Anyway, over a few weeks the pony gradually improved and is absolutely fine now. They put it down to a virus.
 
damn!! just posted a reply to this and it went off into cyber space!

We had a similar thing to this 3 years ago. We have a normally round and well covered TB mare who lives to eat. She went from glowing and well covered to a hat rack in about 10 days. It was spring time and normally we have to watch this mare's weight cos she puts it on too easily.

We saw her condition, got the vet who said it looked like we had not fed her.which wasn't the case. Had every test going.cost £400 and still no results. She had been wormed regularly but we had a worm count done....still nothing, she didn't have a temperature either so we didn't think it was an infection.

She had a putrid smell coming from her gut and her droppings were very dark and very smelly. Thought maybe she had grass sickness ...lots of it about here.

Couldn't find anything wrong....she was depressed in a stable and went on hunger strike yet she walked more pounds off outside and didn't really want to eat anything.

We turned her out for just a few hours a day and afternoon time when she came in we hand fed her very small quantities of feed and gave her a very small hay net with large holes. If we gave her a big net, she seemed over faced with it. If we gave her feed in a bucket, she walked away from it. I considered shooting her, didn't think she was going to make it and at times thought it was unfair to carry on with her and whatever was wrong must be very serious.

I walked in the field with her one afternoon and walked round with her,she passed a huge amount of large red worm.......the smell was awful.........more worms than dung.disgusting..yet the worm count showed nothing at all.

She had been well wormed...nothing else was looking ropey...we wormed her with panacur guard and continued the feeding and limited turnout regime. We spent as much time with her as we could to stop her getting depressed and very slowly she started to pick up. It took 12 months for her to be back to normal..but to look at her now you would never know there had ever been a problem.

Someone locally came to see me re a smilar problem with their fellX pony..(vet told them about our problem so they asked how we sorted it out)..and I have heard of others in this area losing weight for no apparent reason.

I noticed we had a large midge population growing in the water troughs so we put goldfish in them.don't know if this worked but we haven't had the problem since.
 
Thanks for all replies, got the vet out and got bloods taken, however, in the meantime a large swelling appeared in his groin area which was very tender. We rang the vet again who then diagnosed an infection (God only knows where from, was gelded in November, so unless its been hanging around since then?! Seems unlikely but you never know). He gave me some penicillin to jab him with for a week (funnily enough he now is less than impressed with me!)

The test results came back today, he does indeed have an infection which accounts for the weight loss and lethargy and unfortunately very slight liver damage. Obviously the liver will regenerate, we just have to keep jabbing him with the penicillin til he is totally well again to prevent any additional damage.

BTW does anyone have any sneaky ideas for getting Bute into a fussy horse? Wont eat it in food. Was thinking may have to syringe it into his mouth but if any other more pleasant ways are known, please pass them on!

Thanks for the tips on the grazing by the way, just to let you know, incase anyone had a mental image of him stood there stuffing his face in knee high pasture, the field is divided up into sections with electric fencing as soon as the spring grass starts to come through. He is on meagre rations as it is with the grass being so rich.

I'm afraid we dont have any scrubby pasture! (would be useful if we had!)

Oh btw worm egg count was clear
smile.gif
 
Ah that good news, well better than it could have been!

I had the Bute problem with my old mare the other week, i was mixing it in Molasis &amp; squrting it down her throught like a wormer! I then asked the vet if i could have some Danilon its sweet &amp; she ate that with no worries - she seems to be getting wize to it now though, but shes now on it for the rest of her days arthritis!
 
Chortle...I have a fussy buter..found that I could get it into her by cutting and apple in half and making a hole where the core is and then plugging the core back in...she still likes apples, and it worked cos she thought she was getting a treat. Granny smiths prob best as tehy are bit bitter anyway and will mask the bute bitter taste.

Glad you got it all diagnosed...just watch rapid weight gain as it might lead to laminitis.
 
I used to persuade my arthritic anglo to take his bute in marmite sandwiches. Worked a treat, every time!

BTW, my little mare, normally a total scoffer, recntly lost a lot off weight and was off her food. Eventually I treated her for gastric ulcers and she improved back to normal in a week.
 
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