Hi

Thanks for the replies and links.  I will do a case history.

I have been reading a bit since the first post.  I have found very few references to pregnancy toxaemia in horses.  I am a sheep and cattle farmer and we have to be very careful with cows and ewes getting this condition when they are fat in late pregnancy so I carried this concern to the horse.  Once set off it is a horrible and difficult condition to treat and often ends up in slow death. Fortunately it appears not to be common in horses so I can calm down a bit about that.

I live in the Snowy Mountains, near Cooma.  It is not a hay growing area apart from Lucerne, so hay is trucked in from a long way away.  I can get feed in bags from the produce store, it is the hay that is problematic.

The hay I have on hand is WHEAT (worse I think than oat).  It has unripe heads with little seed.  It is very yellow, no green at all.  The alfalfa is very green with fine leaf.  I have an 8ft bale of each.  My hay supplier has no other and is not getting any other until next year. 

Does it matter if I soak the hay for 12 hours instead of 1 hour?

I am not 100% she is in foal and, no, vet has not checked her.  But she is big, and her udder is starting to swell up quickly and change daily.  I have a Wee foal checker preg test kit but did not use it because I thought it was fairly self-evident.  If IR makes a mare go from no udder at all, to a rapidly changing one in a few weeks then it is theoretically possible she is not in foal.  My guess is she will foal in the next few weeks. 

She has had about 4 previous times in the last 7 years when she got foot sore and I locked her up.  I gave her Maxisoy and or Speedibeet and wheat or oat chaff with some Lucerne hay.  I limited the quantity of food then, which I do not feel I can now she is close to foaling.

She has been started on Maxisoy, Speedibeet and Prydes EsiSport.  I can change the amounts of each. 

She is fat, too fat.  She has a crest.  She does NOT have fat patches, just very even all over fat, and a lot of muscle. She is a QH.  The other horses here are not fat (yet).

We are in an alpine area and the season changes very quickly here from too cold to grow and desperately poor, to extremely rich and fast growing within a fortnight.  This is usually in early November but it was late October this year.  The pasture is short, bright green, thick with clover and high is sugars and protein.  The weight gain in all classes of stock this time of year is astonishing.

If Bute only masks symptoms I wont give it to her as it puts her off her feed.  Thanks for the tip about taping up her feet.  She is in a round yard with a soft base and seems OK but stiff at the moment.

Emma

joined Nov 2014

Snowy Mountains Australia