Weightloss. Could it be environmental?

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Jim bob

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I thought I would start from the top with this , as I am after ideas and opinions on this.
My horse is a 17.hh ex racehorse, a bit of an anxious type, does crib and windsuck

I moved my horse to my current yard last Nov time as he wasn't good with individual turnout out and I found a yard that has two small groups of geldings, so my lad went to join the yard. A field with a horse and another pony in it, both geldings. The field is 2 acres To start of my boy was doing okay, and throughout winter held his weight well on high calorie feed ( he is a poor doer).
There was a few times my boy came in with bites on his neck but I thought this was horses just been horses. In the new year, a few months after we noticed the ponies rug was getting ripped and my horse may have been the one to do it. This continued for some time. My boy did come in with more bites and at one point was lame due to a kick right on the ball of his hip. My boy was doing well generally a bit grumpy though. Another horse joined the group so we had 4 horses on 2 acres

In may he got a really bad skin disorder and ended up been put on steroids and having to be sectioned off for a lot of the summer due to the risk of lami, or he would have to be in for a few days due to his pulses. In this time I had to reduce his feed a lot. He wasn't pleased at been sectioned off and I noticed started to drop weight. We then moved them to another field ( 1 acres) for 3 weeks and luckly for me I didn't have to section my horse off . However he still appeared to drop weight.

He was generally getting 2 scoops of alfa a molasses free per day at this point. My vet came down to review his legs and saw his weight loss , advised me to up his feed, and worm him which I did do. He still continued to drop , but I was advised to let the feed get in his system. I had put him on conditioning feed along with the chaff and gave it 3 times a day. This feed he had last year and did very well on this.

The following week, I got a call from a livery saying that my horse had cut his face and blood all day his legs. Had to get the vet back out and he has a fractured frontal bone or our forehead, it certainly looks like a kick to the head. The first thing my vet said was 'Could another horse have kicked him?' I did say I was sure but certainly could have happened. I later found out the previous night the horses were fighting a little, chasing each other around etc. And the same day my horse got injured, another horse was injured too.

Bloods were taken from my horse the following week and all came back completely normal.
My horse is currently sectioned off, with hay on a night and thicker rug as all the horses are still out 24/7. However he continues to drop weight.

Would any of you say the reason for weightloss is environmental? That he is stressing on the inside?
At the moment he will be going to our vets in less then 2 weeks.
 
does he eat all the hay he is given?

if yes then I would give him more and at least twice per day, how was the fracture diagnosed? is it possible there is more going on in his face and he is losing more weight through pain?
 
Haffies rock;
I know its a lot of horses. he is one grass 24/7 and does get a haynet out in the field as well.

Twiggy: He doesn't eat all the hay but eats a good amount of it. The fracture was diagnosed by my vet , he said he could tell it is fractured just by pressing on it. It could well be possible that there are other things going on to do with his head. It is still bleeding every now and then and the accident happened 11 days ago. It did actually stop after 36hours but then has started again.
 
He has been restricted for some of the time but in my view 4 on 2 acres is restriction anyway for a big tb. he cribs and if stressed or restricted that has probably got worse, I would get him scoped for ulcers as he sounds a classic type to get them and they, if he has them, will have been made worse by the situation he is kept in, the skin condition may be part of the symptoms of something amiss with his digestive system.
Whatever you do he really needs more space if the field is so small there is not enough grass they will end up fighting over it, yours sounds as if he is coming off worst in every way, it could be worse next time.
 
Be positive
Yeah the skin condition started before he dropped the weight. If anything the skin condition could have been caused by his liver and this was checked and was fine.
Twiggy2: The vet my horse is currently under is on holiday but I will be speaking to the vet tomorrow. We were going to give him two weeks to see if his weight improved. However we haven't had much improvement and when we do his weight drops again. Were not doing the xrays , going straight to CT scan.
 
Oh! Because.. my horse isn't actually bothered by the accident wasn't one bit actually. So my vet said if he is comfortable and his normal self and its not bothering him then to leave it as it will heal by itself. However it is still bleeding down and again after.. 11 days. I did ring them vet on Friday but they didn't ring me back so shall be ringing tomorrow morning.
 
Jim Bob, I'm trying to see in your threads how much he is getting to eat. A 17hh Thoroughbred is going to need a lot! I see you say in one part about a hay net during the day and two scoops of alfaA. Am at the other side of the world so Alpha A is not something I know and two scoops, well that depends on the size of the scoop.

If he was mine, he would be getting ad lib hay 24/7 if the grass wasn't great. I would also be looking to a high fat feed for him and have a look at the quantities. My 15.3 hh 3/4 TB, 1/4 Clydie 3 year old in light work and on 24/7 turn out, with good grass gets 500 grams of Lucerne chaff, 500 grams of oats, 250 grams of hemp seed cake, just as an indication. That isn't a particularly big feed, and if she started to drop in condition I would certainly be looking to tweak that. Nothing is set in stone.

Pain, will also cause a horse to lose condition. Same as us, they don't feel like eating as much when it hurts and it maybe even though the vet isn't so concerned about the head injury, it hurts to chew, so getting more calories for less effort would be worth looking at. Oil is good for putting condition on horses without adding bulk to a feed. Just a thought.
 
Yeah. My horse is on 3 feeds a day. In them feeds he gets 500 gram of chaff (DE I around 11.5) ( one round stubb scoop ) a scoop of conditioning nuts which is around 1.5kg per round stubb scoop and 300 grams of linseed or oil. Unless I section him off he cant have adlib hay and when I do section him off it causes issues with other liveries on the yard. Eating wise. He doesn't seem to be eating any less then normal.
 
It does sound like the small field is part of the problem in so many ways. Firstly, there is almost certainly not enough grass on two acres to support four horses, one of which is a 17hh poor doer. (I have three on 2.5 acres and they have loads of additional hay - you can cope with a smaller acreage if you can feed hay in the field, but sounds like that is not happening). Secondly, four horses on two acres is bound to lead to bullying and it sounds like your horse is getting the brunt of it. Not only is he receiving injuries but he is probably being constantly hassled and not getting much of a chance to graze the little grass that is there. Also, the fact that he has been getting restricted grass/hay may have led to gastric ulcers, as pointed out above, which will make it even harder for him to gain weight.

Personally, I'd be getting him out of that field and moving to somewhere where he can either have good grazing or ad lib hay, and where is unlikely to get bullied. Also get him investigated for ulcers and treated if necessary.
 
I am looking at yards in my area but most are full... I can put him in the sectioned off bit of our field with adlib hay. he will be getting investigated as part of the unexplained weight loss.
 
I can't remember if you said if you'd had him tested for cushings...? It may be as others have suggested, that he just isn't getting enough grass. However, unexplained weight loss and skin infections can be symptoms of untreated cushings.
 
Hmm.. well I know his livers fine as we tested that straight away. And my vet took bloods from him.. last week I believe and they have come back completely normal.
 
Maybe just me but I'm not reading it as "unexplained " weight loss at all.

To me it's fairly obvious that he's;

On restricted grazing
On poor grass (I'm sure you said the grazing was eaten down to nothing in your last thread)
No additional forage
An ex-racer/been kept in less than ideal situations making him an ideal ulcer candidate
The ingredients in the conditioning cubes aren't known to be good for ulcer type horses
Bullied in the field/had a serious injury/box rested/ strong medication for skin condition - all contributing factors

I'm not sure what you and/or the vet are missing that the lack of condition and weight loss is presumed "unexplained"

As per the replies in your last thread you need to ensure that your horse has ad lib forage at all times.

I know it's hard but you need to find a yard that provides adequate average per horse grazing.

Can your horse come in over night to get admin hay?

Is he on a proper worming programme? It rings bells that your vet told you to worm. An assumption would be that the horse wasn't in a programme and/or hadn't been regularly worm counted.

Are teeth up to date? Is he able to eat the very short grass in your field?

Can you discuss the possibility of ulcers with your vet? I'm sure the statistics are something like 98% of horses in/from racing have them.

While you wait for scoping/treatment I'd treat him as an ulcer horse and manage him as one. Adlib forage, no cereals, low sugar & starch feeds.

There's a plethora of conditioning feeds that match those requirements. READ ingredient listings for feed and educate yourself as to what they mean. So many companies don't list ingredients so you have to find and read the attached white label on the bags.

Find out about feeds such as grass nuts, speedibeet, copra/coolstance, micronised linseed and rice bran.

Feed a good vit/min supplement as he wont be getting enough from the grass or what he's currently fed. Forage Plus, Progressive Earth, Equimmins, Equivita and TENS are all good places to start.

There are lots of good threads in here about feeding horses so search through existing posts and read up on equine nutrition, ulcers and management.
 
I would want to rule out worms first. Just 'worming' (what with?) does not ensure a worm free horse. What sort of dosing/testing has he had in the last couple of years? Have you tested for tapeworm with the new saliva test? My pony had tapeworm when tested despite being wormed for it.
It may not be a worm problem but it could be so find out with a worm count and tapeworm test.
 
TPO:
Nearly all the yards around here have more horses then acres. I think all of them do actually. He does come in on a night time and gets adlib hay however has only been eating around 5kg were as he normally eats 8kg if not 12kg. Our yard doesn't actually have a proper worming program but I continue to worm count every 3 months. I told my vet that in july his worm count came back clear yet my vet told me to worm him just to have that covered. It was equest pramox. I do feed my horse as if he has ulcers,he goes out as much as he can always has hay. He is currently on mirconised linseed.

Borderreiver: in the last few years, he was wormed from tapeworm, had worm counts and wormed when needed His worm count in both april and july came back clear he was wormed with equest pramox and the correct dose for his weight then, this was done in august.
 
Iirc he has only recently gone onto the conditioning mix so I do think this is quite likely to be a case of too little intake given the stockage level in your field.

How good is your hay? Is it this years? Is haylage an option?
 
You've had some good advice here and hope you manage to get it sorted.
Just to share my experience in case it makes you feel any better, I had a big WB who was embarrassingly skinny despite having tons of food shovelled into him. Moved yards as there were a number of things I wasn't happy about. New yard had a much more structured routine, better worming arrangements and he settled really quickly. For a few months he was on 4 feeds a day (Stubbs scoop each of chaff & nuts and extra oil) and ad lib forage of course, and I gave him a course of protexin. Thereafter his tendency was to be a bit on the porky side, if anything.
TBH I put it down mainly to the fact that he was happy at the new yard and hadn't been at the old one. Things that I had thought were just his personality turned out to be the result of him being unhappy in an environment that didn't suit him. You can shovel as much food as you like into a stressed horse and it will stay skinny. Not saying any of this is the same for your horse, but if yours is getting bullied in the field, something similar could be a factor?
With an ex racer, ulcers are an obvious thing to consider too, as others have said.
Very best of luck x
 
Here my plan weight loss tips

Breakfast - 2 pieces of 9 grain toast with no butter, 2 poached eggs and 100g of rindless shortcut bacon (not cooked in oil)

Snacks - Raw almonds, fruit, full fat yoghurt, 9 grain vita wheats with light laughing cow cheese & gherkins

Lunch - Lite n easy dinner

Dinner - Lite n easy dinner

(With the lite n easy i aim to have ones more based around veggies like the roasts, rather than the pasta based ones)

I also aim to get 10,000 steps per day.
 
I would definitely see about sectioning off a part of the field and getting him to consume as much hay or haylage as possible. Just a thought but Alfalfa caused a couple of my horses fairly bad skin problems...

My ex racers do really well on micronised linseed. Make sure he's not too cold but equally make sure he's not too warm. One of my boys needs keeping on the cool side as it stimulates him to eat fibre to keep himself warm.
 
Thought I would update you all on how my horse is doing.

Around 3 weeks ago, my horse went up to the vets, to find out the cause of his weight loss. He ended up staying in for 2 nights. He was scoped that day, having already been starved at home the pervious night. He scoped clear for ulcers. A belly tap was done, which came back normal. He fully belly was scanned which showed some inflammation of his small intestines. Bloods were taken on the first day also which showed some inflammation.

The following day he had a glucose test done to see if his body was absorbing all the nutrients from the feed. The glucose test came back normal as well. He was put on steroids and antibiotics to fight any last remaining infection, having had an infection only a week before he went to the vets. With the vets thinking he had inflammatory bowel disease.

The vets came out 9 days ago to take some more blood and see how he was doing. The bloods had improved a lot and it seems we are starting to go in the right direction. Specialist seems quite positive. Vets are coming back out in another week or so just to re bleed him again and to make sure he is putting on weight.
 
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