Tess' status

[altivo]

She is doing better, but still halting about walking very far. Prescription is bute and isoxsuprene with her food twice daily, and replace the tiny bit of sweet feed (about an ounce) she was getting with Nutrena Safe Choice, which has no added sugars. Limited but enforced daily exercise, and close observation, but the prognosis seems to be good. I'm told the symptoms were very mild. I hope I never see a real serious case in any horse.

First day back at work was confusing. My desk is buried. It will take at least a week to unearth it all. I was chided for still having too much unused vacation, but when I offered to go back home that wasn't permitted either. When the Linux conversion is complete, which should be by the end of the month, I can take some more time off.

Comments

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

Is a sudden indulgence in green grass bad for most horses?

[calydor.livejournal.com]

It is. Keep in mind that during winter, most, if not all, horses are fed on what we'll call supplemental food - hay, grain, stuff like that. Their stomachs get used to this kind of food, and all of a sudden there's grass everywhere.

I've been lucky, the pasture the girls are in has managed to keep a bit of grass all through winter, so the risk of them getting sick now that it's growing like crazy is reduced.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Your climate is more moderate than ours, probably because the sea is not far away. Most winters the grass growth stops dead here and everything turns brown. The cold winds are so severe too that I'm reluctant to leave a horse in an exposed area. We would have to put up a shelter out there, which I'd like to do but it takes money and would probably raise our property taxes even higher.

I do turn her out on milder days when I can. There is probably some unpredictable factor at work this time. The vet thinks it may be a metabolic problem, perhaps associated with aging or other factors. Rather like adult onset diabetes in humans, I guess. She is going to run a blood test next week to check for that. It involves taking a blood sample in the afternoon, and another the next morning and doing some kind of comparison. I assume Tess will either be fed a specific amount of food or made to fast in between the samples.

I trust our vet. She specializes in horses and really cares about them, having several of her own. So we'll see what she comes up with, and do what she advises.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of variables that we've only come to understand in recent times. Grass grows quickly after a rain, of course, and while it is growing rapidly it has more simple sugars in it. After it toughens up a bit, those sugars have turned into cellulose and starches. The sugar content varies by time of day, as well, and is apparently highest in the morning on a sunny day, falling off as the day goes on.

There's more about when the sugar is in the roots and when it is in the blades, and so forth. And the species of grass matters as well.

Sugars are generally the culprits in dietary founder. (Founder can be caused by other things, some very unexpected. For instance, if wood shavings are used for bedding, black walnut must be avoided. Mere contact with the shavings can bring on founder.)

Horses who are out and foraging year round are exposed gradually to changes in vegetation, so their complicated gut ecosystem stays adjusted appropriately. They would normally live in dry and moderate climate zones like the American southwest, rather than in places where snow cover and killing frost completely stops the grass growth for several months. When we keep them under those conditions and feed them dried grasses (hay) the change to fresh forage can be upsetting to their digestion. That's why we try to do it gradually over several weeks. I have done this for years without a problem, but something different must have happened this time around.

The vet seems to think I caught it early enough, and that I was seeing symptoms most people would have missed until they became much more severe. They checked her over very thoroughly yesterday, and could just barely detect the problem with their diagnostic procedures.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

My wuffs to the invalid.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I think she will be OK.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

In other words its like someone who's on a sugar restricted diet for 6months then jumping into a pool of buzz cola and drinking the lot.

Horses must have their diet gradually changed I take it?

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Yes, horses, in spite of being large and powerful animals, are very sensitive about their diet. In natural settings (wild horses) there is very low risk of sudden diet changes but in their captivity, we humans can change it drastically for them and it can result in disasters such as colic or founder and laminitis.

Veterinary medicine is often cutting-edge and yet, with animals like horses, there are still many things not fully understood. The main thing is to change types of feet gradually, and that even included the time of day for feedings. One should not give grain at five am for months then suddenly change to eight am type thing.

I luv 'em tho. Dogs... well they seem to be able to eat just about anything they will eat at any time and immediately beg for more. Heh.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Horses have a very specialized digestive system. Curiously enough, the only animals other than the equines who have a similar setup are the rabbits and hares. Both can have similar problems with dietary adjustments, and the exact function of parts of their digestive system are still not well understood. The issue is related to something called the "blind gut" which is rather like our appendix, only much larger and actually serves various functions that allow the animal to break down cellulose and derive nutrition from it.

The process in rabbits is different because they pass the food through twice. This is why rabbit isn't kosher to eat. It is "unclean" because they recycle their droppings once as part of their normal digestion. It's somewhat equivalent to the way ruminants like cows and sheep bring up "cud" from their stomachs and chew it a second time.

Horses occasionally recycle their own feces too, but much less often and not as a regular thing. Their blind gut is huge, larger than their actual stomach, and complex bacterial processes go on in there. Sudden changes in the nutritional balance can wreak havoc, literally, in the blind gut, producing all sorts of bizarre results.

As native dwellers in semi-arid areas, their natural diet would be pretty unchanging throughout the year. Dry, tough grasses, supplemented by bits of fresher greenery would make up the bulk of it year round. That's why they can live exclusively on hay if necessary. Your analogy to a diabetic drinking a case of sugary cola is pretty accurate. Coincidentally, human diabetics also tend to have serious problems with their feet, though I don't think the reasons are at all related.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Now I've learned something and been grossed out at the same time.

I'm happy and ill all at the same time XD

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Well...

Have you ever been to a zoo or circus and witnessed, more with your nose than your eyes, a big cat like a lion or tiger do a number two?

OMG there is nothing on Earth that stinks worse.

Feeling better now? :)

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

No...not at all :P XD

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually the rabbit thing is very interesting and an example of how random evolution can get. They produce two different kinds of droppings. The familiar dark "raisins" have been through twice and are no longer useful. The ones they "recycle" are soft, shiny, and still quite green if they have been eating grass and leaves as they normally would. They stick together like clusters of grapes. I have only seen them once or twice, when I had a rabbit that was too sore or ill to reconsume them.

Rabbits don't get foundered like horses, of course, since they don't have hooves. But they suffer equivalent digestive upsets. Something very similar to colic in horses, with equally dire results; and the equivalent to founder causes their blind gut to fill with gassy fluid and swell up. It used to be called "water bottle disease" because if you picked an affected bunny up it would slosh like a half-filled bottle. Both problems are usually fatal to the rabbit. I have seen the colic but never the other, thank goodness.

Don't be grossed out by these things. There are far worse. Look up screw flies for an example. ;p

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I've just woken up and now I am ill too XD I know I shouldn't be grossed out, still it'll take me a little time to accept normal animal bodily functions without feeling queasy :)

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Besides his cutting wit, I have always loved Will Rodgers because he was a very kind and gentle man who loved his family and even more because he was an expert horseman who loved his horses as much as his children.

When he died, there was a huge endorsement of political and popular vote to elect him president. He would have been a great president. He knew politics and foreign policy and yet could also rope a calf from horseback.

Plus he had a indredable sense of humor. I have always been pissed, from the first I ever heard of him as a child, that he had died too soon in his era and time. I would have instantly voted for him.

Steed

[altivo.livejournal.com]

For those who wonder about the apparent non-sequitur, Will Rogers has come up in a related thread. :)

Yes, I agree, he was not just a sharp wit, but a wise man. My father remembered him from when he was alive and always talked of him respectfully.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

I sure hope Tess gets better soon. Poor lil' horsie...it must be awful for them when their feets hurt like that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, we can hardly imagine. She seems much better today, thanks. See today's post if you want details.