Diet - learn from my mistakes - confessions of a barefoot trimmer!

The moral of this story is:  Find something that works and stick with it.  Do not be tempted to change anything without very good reason and unless what you have is not working.

But the biggest point once again is 'hooves don't lie', so listen to them before all others.

I have a rescue horse 'Grace'.  It was a while before I could really address healing her feet, we had other stuff which was higher priority.  Anyway, I was really chuffed this year when she became rock crunching in February.  It all went horribly wrong in April when she was wormed with one of those long acting wormers, she promptly went footy and we have struggled ever since.

Her footiness was made worse when she was let out of her dirt paddock onto lush grazing by a well intentioned, but uninformed person.

Normally a bout of footiness if caught early can be quickly remedied with appropriate management.  But unfortunately the long acting wormers sit in the liver and do their damage over weeks and months.

Equally unfortunately Grace also has EPSM.  So resting her is not an attractive or sensible option and tweaking her diet is more than normally complicated.

We moved her onto a strict routine of exercise within comfort levels 3X a day.  Turnout only in an arena.  Hay soaked for 12 hours and then thoroughly hosed off to get rid of as much sugar as possible and any traces of chemical fertilizer.

Her feed was forage based, very low sugar, (but high in oil for the EPSM) and the minerals fed made allowances for the high iron levels we have locally.  So we were doing the best we could with what we had, but were chasing the elusive rock crunching we had before spring.  (I am going to have 'there is no magic bullet' tattooed on my forehead).

There is no published data that I can find which firmly pulls together the damage caused by long acting wormers and how to fix it with a horse that is both prone to laminitis and has EPSM.  As you can imagine, it is a tough place to be.

Perhaps against my better judgement I tried a couple of new 'laminitic safe' products.  One of which caused very unfortuate negative behaviour changes and the other which made her EPSM symptoms surface quite badly.

So we have reverted back to our normal feeding programme of:

Soaked hay
Micronised linseed (from Charnwood Milling - less than £1kg)
Kwikbeet
Vit/Min supplement
Herbs according to need including lots of nettles and milk thistle
Probiotic

And from now on I will never use another long acting wormer, nor will I let anyone persuade me that they know better than my horse what she can or can not eat.

Touch wood, but slowly slowly her feet are improving and she is gradually returning to rock crunchiness :-)

Feeding a horse is actually 'farming'

Bacteria. The horse is home to an enormous vat (the Cecum) of bacteria and when you feed your horse its important to keep the bacteria in mind. Upset these little guys and your horse (and your bank balance) will pay the price. Here's why:

About the Cecum

The cecum is a blind sack approximately four-feet long that can hold up to 40 quarts (approx 10 UK gallons) of food and fluid.

The cecum is a microbial inoculation vat. The microbes break down feed that was not digested in the small intestine, particularly fibrous feeds like hay.

Feed will remain in the cecum for about seven hours, which gives the bacteria time to start breaking it down. The microbes will produce vitamin K, B-complex vitamins, proteins, and fatty acids. The vitamins and fatty acids will be absorbed, but little if any protein.

The microbial population in the cecum is somewhat specific as to what feedstuffs it can digest.

If a change of feed occurs, it takes about three weeks to develop a microbial population that can digest a new feed and maintain a normal flow through the cecum.

A general rule for safely changing feeds:

Week 1: Feed a mix of three-fourths of the old ration and one-fourth of the new ration.
Week 2: Feed a mix of one-half of the old ration and one-half of the new ration.
Week 3: Feed a mix of one-fourth of the old ration and three-fourths of the new ration.
Week 4: Feed all new ration.

Be aware that sudden switches between different feed qualities result in rapid changes to the bacterial mix and the sudden death of the less favoured bacteria.

Death of large numbers of bacteria will, in turn, lead to the release of large amounts of endotoxin from the bacteria.

If this happens your horse could get laminitis or colic which are the two leading causes of death in the domestic equine. So much unnecessary death, so easily preventable.

A future blog will have a look at the stomach and digestion more generally. And probably more about the evils of sugar! :-)