Rapid weight loss - help

E

emze-wemze

Active Member
Joined
18 August 2011
Messages
36
Visit site
Hi there,

I am very confident in my vet and yard owners opinions and paths for treating my horse but we cant find anything wrong with her so I was wondering if anyone had any previous experiences of the same thing.

My mare lives out 24/7 as I am at uni, she comes back into work in the spring/summer and competes in showjumping. This year we had a few issues with her soundness and we could not find the route cause of this. This was making her lazy and although she tried she wasnt happy jumping. She went on bute and she was sound and then I returned to uni and we are hoping that the soundness was a muscular problem and that with rest it will sort itself out.

Obviously we had a very dry summer with little to no grass, my mare was still constantly eating some form of grass. Obviously she lost weight but she looked great. When she went unsound and we put her on bute and light work for 2/3 weeks before I left for uni she lost even more weight and i could see her ribs showing through - we immediately added more to her feed. Instead of a scoop of chaff and half ride and relax we bought alfalfa chaff, sugarbeet and feed balancer. She was loving the extra feed and I felt confident going back to uni that the rest and extra dinner would help along with hayledge during the winter months.

Since I have been gone (1month) I think (judging by pics) that she has lost a bit more weight and my yard owner noticed this as she has been looking after her whilst I have been away. My mare has become really lathergic - my yard owner tried to trot her up in the sandschool to see if she was sound but she was too lathergic. We therefore did blood tests and these came back completely clear. She is also fully up to date with worming.

We moved her into a different field with more grass but shes more often than not found stood talking to the boys over the fence rather than eating the grass (my hope is that she is eating at night). She is still having even more dinner now. Due to her lathergy we have given her a multi vitamin jab and this apparently seemed to perk her up a bit.

The hope is that she starts putting some weight on asap! The yard owner is monitoring this very carefully with weight tapes and pictures etc. and I am going home to see her next weekend so I will be able to assess how much weight she has lost since iv been gone.

I have no idea if the soundness and this weight loss are linked?! She should be a good doer as she is a welshXtb. I have had her 7 years and never had a problem with her weight - iv more often had to get the weight off her!!

I would just be interested to know if anyone has had a similar experience?
My horse is kept at my vets yard and my yard owner is a very experienced and knowledgable vets wife and i have been there a long time so I am more than satisfied that I am getting the right advice.
 
Has the horse been scoped? This would be my next port of call. carry on doing what your doing, and try and add some redcell to her feed, this should help perk her up abit. Also fast fibre is good, soak some of that (takes a couple of minutes) and let her chomp on that to make sure she gets lots of fibre! Hope you find a cause soon. Oh and another important thing, warmth!! keep her as warm as you can!
 
yeah shes wrapped up in her big snuggly rugs!

we are possibly contemplating re stabling her so that we can monitor how much she is eating more effectively - through weighing out the hay etc.

Thanks for the advice
 
emze-wemze said:
yeah shes wrapped up in her big snuggly rugs!

we are possibly contemplating re stabling her so that we can monitor how much she is eating more effectively - through weighing out the hay etc.

Thanks for the advice
Click to expand...

This is a good idea, its hard to monitor what grass they are eating, it may be something like a tooth erupting and she wont chew the forage, you can only hope its something that simple ;-)
 
I would relook at her hardfeed. She isnt actually getting much calories there. A feed balancer is only vits and mins it isnt a weight gain feed. I would go for a conditioning cube and oil chaff. Also take out sugarbeet as its is adding bulk rather than nutrients. How big is she?
 
Sorry, DONT add redcell unless a vet actually tells you she is low in iron. Iron is toxic when fed too much so if she isnt lacking in iron adding an iron supplement to her diet may cause her harm.
 
i dont think it would be that much iron that would cause harm, or it would not be sold in tackshops willy nilly. I 99% sure that it also doesnt have a warning on it either, most things like that have a warning to the buyer or that we as sales people have to worn the customer of first (which we generally do)
 
Iron is in nearly everything that a horse eats and drinks – hay, grass, water, most commercial feeds, and many supplements. Even dirt is an important source of iron. Only 40 ppm of iron is needed in a horse's overall diet daily, but most horse's diets contain much more iron than that. Iron deficiency is very rare, but if a deficiency is suspected in a horse, a serum iron test should be performed by a vet, and iron binding capacity and ferritin levels should also be checked.

Read more at Suite101: Iron Overload in Horses | Suite101.com http://casie-bazay.suite101.com/iron-overload-in-horses-a384171#ixzz1aIN1DUT6


Just one of many articles on iron for horses on the web
 
Trot_On_Dressage said:
Read more at Suite101: Iron Overload in Horses | Suite101.com http://casie-bazay.suite101.com/iron-overload-in-horses-a384171#ixzz1aIN1DUT6
Just one of many articles on iron for horses on the web
Click to expand...

Just out of interest, can you recommend any articles, preferably written by qualified vets/biochemists etc as I wouldn't take a primary teacher's advice on iron supplementation. Anything from a decent peer reviewed journal (and not by Dr Kellen as I have read most of her research) would be great! Thank you :)

OP - how old is your mare? Which blood tests did you do?

Regarding feed, even if there is grass in her field it won't be of great quality so I would make sure she has constant access to good quality hay or haylage. A decent conditioning feed and adding some oil will help, and preferably feeding 2 or 3 times a day :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top