brighteyes
Pooh-Bah
My friend's old pony nearly died of liver failure several years ago. She's beginning to wish it had.
The pony was a normal-looking Section A and throughout has never had laminitis. She is 19 and looks like a whippet - dainty in the extreme and recently has been unable or unwilling to eat. This pony has been capricious in its eating to say the least, but of late is barely eating anything that they can see. She will go out on any lushness of grass you like and simply pick then lose interest and come to stand by the gate. She refuses to eat bucket feed, no matter what tempting morsels are put into it, turns her nose up at hay and haylage but remains, very perky and bright and enthusiastic.
It is a mystery how it remains alive. We don't know how she doesn't get colic, she isn't constipated and hyperlipaemia would have killed her by now as this pony has been existing of nothing for weeks, and only slightly more than nothing for months, if not years. Bizarrely, it has a large crest and is a tubular shape with the fat pads on the loins which are indicative of some sort of metabolic disorder.
Over the last few days, she has been digging up her bed, as if searching for something and rubbing her face, down each side from just above her eyes down to her muzzle. My friend thinks it's along the tooth line. She's not itchy anywhere else.
Since it is in one's make-up to nurture, this hopelessly optimistic but anorexic pony is driving her insane. The vet can't really do much as otherwise, the pony isn't ill.
The dentist is booked but in the meantime, this exasperating creature shows every indication of wanting to eat, getting to the point of taking a mouthful and then looking round as if to say 'I don't want this stuff'. They have tried everything, but for many years it has had fads and whims and then decided all food is poison. Why is it not dead?
Have any of you any ideas at all? She is really desperate.
I've got a Cushing's pony and (now) am well up on all the stuff needed to keep her going, but none of it applies to this other pony.
The pony was a normal-looking Section A and throughout has never had laminitis. She is 19 and looks like a whippet - dainty in the extreme and recently has been unable or unwilling to eat. This pony has been capricious in its eating to say the least, but of late is barely eating anything that they can see. She will go out on any lushness of grass you like and simply pick then lose interest and come to stand by the gate. She refuses to eat bucket feed, no matter what tempting morsels are put into it, turns her nose up at hay and haylage but remains, very perky and bright and enthusiastic.
It is a mystery how it remains alive. We don't know how she doesn't get colic, she isn't constipated and hyperlipaemia would have killed her by now as this pony has been existing of nothing for weeks, and only slightly more than nothing for months, if not years. Bizarrely, it has a large crest and is a tubular shape with the fat pads on the loins which are indicative of some sort of metabolic disorder.
Over the last few days, she has been digging up her bed, as if searching for something and rubbing her face, down each side from just above her eyes down to her muzzle. My friend thinks it's along the tooth line. She's not itchy anywhere else.
Since it is in one's make-up to nurture, this hopelessly optimistic but anorexic pony is driving her insane. The vet can't really do much as otherwise, the pony isn't ill.
The dentist is booked but in the meantime, this exasperating creature shows every indication of wanting to eat, getting to the point of taking a mouthful and then looking round as if to say 'I don't want this stuff'. They have tried everything, but for many years it has had fads and whims and then decided all food is poison. Why is it not dead?
Have any of you any ideas at all? She is really desperate.
I've got a Cushing's pony and (now) am well up on all the stuff needed to keep her going, but none of it applies to this other pony.
