--
Joy and Willie (PPID/IR)
Nevada County, CA - 2019

Case history:  https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Joy%20and%20Willie
Willie's photo album:  https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=242526

Trisha, if the buckets are like small heated muck buckets, I tried them and found them too small for my needs.  I am going through much of what you are now.  I’m used to soaking hay for two little guys but, depending on how my testing comes back, I may need to soak for a large horse as well.  

I have a drain to carry the soaking water away from the barn, just need to get the water from the tub to the drain.  I’ve put spigots into the side of the muck buckets I’m now using to soak but the fittings apparently weren’t suitable for round tubs and cracked the muck bucket.  I have ordered spigots designed for round tubs such as rain barrels for the next set.  I also installed a small hoist (as per Cass) to aid in the draining.  Still have some other ideas cooking which include a 75 gallon Rubbermaid tub and a pump which has apparently already clogged.  

It was 14 deg F here Friday night which is cold enough that I wish I’d figured this out already.
--

It is OK to feed soaked hay to your other horse, but it does mean soaking more volume, which will be more work for you.  Soaking hay reduces the caloric content a bit (as expected given that some sugars are soaked out) and if your other horse is a hard keeper they may need a little extra caloric supplementation once a day, like a bucket of beet pulp or some pre-fab horse feed.  If your other horse is a bit heavy and also a breed prone to EMS then he/she will benefit from the soaked hay, too.

I keep my EMS horse on a parallel track next to his buddy, but because their diets are different they are always separated (unless it's play time and there is no food out).  My EMS guy would not be able to stop eating hay if his buddy is having a rest from eating, so there's no way his caloric intake could be controlled without keeping them separated.  Plus I don't want to have to soak hay for 2 horses if I don't have to.

Whether or not a horse does well with added Mg depends on whether or not they need it.  Gotta test the hay to be sure!  :)

Lack of energy from the round bale could be due to hay quality, or it could be due to elevated insulin....ask anyone you know with metabolic syndrome or unmedicated diabetes if they feel lethargic, I bet the answer is often yes.  Glucose is struggling to get into the cells and if blood glucose is high, too, then they just aren't metabolizing it for energy. 

Your rads from August are probably still adequate given that the trim hasn't changed dramatically.  New ones are always so nice to have of course, but oh so expensive and IMO not a priority right now if funds are limited.  Minerals balanced to hay, new insulin-glucose bloodwork now that she's eating soaked hay (+/- Lyme multiplex if you or your vet feels it necessary), and figuring out how keep Echo off all grass/weeds (and even how to to separate your 2 horses if they have feeding different needs) would be how I'd spend my money and time before new xrays.  Just my opinion though.

--
Kirsten and Shaku (IR) - 2019
Kitimat, BC, Canada
ECIR Group Moderator
Shaku's Case History  
Shaku's Photo Album   

thank you, that makes sense.
--
Rose Miller in Arizona 2020

Hi Lj and all

This might be a good time to revisit this very instructive 2005 message from Dr Kellon

It has always been helpful for folks struggling with the learning curve.

***********************************

I was searching for something for another member recently and came across a 2005 message from Dr. Kellon regarding nutritional concepts used here.

At the time the message was originally posted I was like a lot of you.  I had moved from the emergency diet and had been having Beau's diet balanced by Dr Kellon. With no nutrition or science background, I didn't really understand most of what we were doing. But I knew I was seeing progress. Terrific progress in fact. This message filled in a bunch of learning gaps for me and got me really wanting to understand in more detail.

Most of you know that the list guidelines for nutrition balance are based on NRC
Nutrient Requirements of Horses.

<http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11653>

There will be more of these concepts in the messages that follow and Dr Kellon goes into them in great detail in her NRCPlus course.

<www.drkellon.com>


For new members, for those members who have begun making changes but aren't really sure why, and for longer term members who are having a hard time with the group guidelines, these messages are great ones to glimpse into the power of understanding what truly balanced nutrition can mean for all horses. It's especially important for our compromised horses however those who have taken the diet balance to their whole herd will tell you it does wonders for all their equine friends.

*********************************
Message #64928 of 148602
Sat Jul 9, 2005 9:08 am

Just to pound this home again briefly, because it can't be done
often enough, the key to the best control possible is:

D - Diagnosis
D - Diet
T - Trim

If the horse has/had laminitis, you can have the best metabolic
control in the world and he'll still be lame if the trim is not
correct. If the horse has Cushing's, diet alone won't be able to
control insulin resistance. This is why accurate diagnosis is so
important. There are also some horses that have Cushing's and
develop laminitis even without detectable insulin resistance.

Moving on to diet, this is the one thing that is completely within
your power to control, but it takes some work and commitment.
Limiting the soluble carbohydrate portion of the diet (sugar and
starches) greatly alleviates the strain on glucose metabolism, and
with it the risk of laminitis. It works, and it works fast. We've
even had horses here with lingering foot pain that improved
literally overnight just by starting to soak their hay (a trick one
of our long time members, Barb Peck, gave us!).

Most people see obvious results shortly after starting the emergency
diet, to the point they hang there for months and months. The
emergency diet is *not* mineral balanced though and there is more
you can do on the mineral end to improve the insulin resistance.

I'm going to post a series of studies over the next few days that
will show you how minerals and vitamins impact insulin resistance.
Before doing that though there is a very, very important concept to
understand.

Deficiencies can come about in basically two ways. One is that the
mineral (or vitamin) simply is not present in the diet in adequate
amounts. If you need 20 grams of something and the diet only has 10,
the horse will be deficient because he can't manufacture it out of
thin air. This is called an "absolute deficiency". The other way
deficiencies come into existence is if there are high levels of one
or more minerals that compete with the one in question for
absorption. These are called "relative deficiencies". In that case,
even if you have your 20 grams of mineral X in the diet, the horse
often won't be absorbing enough. Picture balls in a lottery drawing
machine. If you have 9 black balls and only 1 white one, all
bouncing around at random coming close to that chute, it's not too
hard to guess what color ball has the best odds of being drawn. In
the intestine, there are also some mechanisms for active (not by
chance) absorption of minerals by attaching them to "carriers" that
take them directly inside the cells and move them out again into
capillaries. These carrier systems aren't necessarily specific for
one mineral - may work for others that are similar. They can be
either turned on or turned off, depending on the level of the
minerals inside the body. This can end up making overall
deficiencies even worse both by inadvertently absorbing more of a
mineral that is already in excess, or by shutting down the acftive
carrier systems when levels of a mineral in the body get too high or
even are adequate. The active absorption pathway for any other
minerals in short supply using the same carrier is then shut down
too.

What this all means is simply that you can't just throw minerals at
the horse at random. The key to successful use of mineral
supplements is BALANCE. It's extremely rare to find a hay that is
in good balance. Unfortunately, and perhaps not coincidentally, the
minerals most critical to proper insulin functioning and control of
inflammation are usually the ones in shortest supply, while
potentially toxic ones, like iron, are present in high amounts. What
balancing the minerals does is in essence change the profile of
those balls in the lottery machine to give all the minerals an equal
shot at absorption.

(NOTE: Also check out "Why We Balance Forage" in FILES folder 6 Diet Balancing. 1. Diet Balancing - KFGs View From the Soapbox.pdf   ~ Nancy C)

The recommendations in the emergency diet are based on some of the
most commonly encountered scenarios but that does not mean they'll
be a good fit for any individual's hay, and they're definitely not
comprehensive.

Controlling Cushing's and insulin resistance is tough. If there was
an easy answer, a quick fix, we wouldn't have over 3000 members here.


DDT is the single most important concept to learn. Keeping this "big
picture" in mind at all times will help prevent you from focusing on
just one aspect and overlooking important things elsewhere. On the
diet end, it's about both limiting starch/sugar AND mineral
balancing. Halfway measures get halfway results.

Eleanor

*******************

To bring this up to November 2020 - We now have 12,586 international members.

If you continue to move forward, taking a bite at a time, pretty soon you'll be amazed at where you are.

--
Nancy C in NH
ECIR Moderator 2003
ECIR Group Inc. President/Treasurer  2019-2020
Join us at the 2021 NO Laminitis! Conference, August 12-15, Harrisburg, PA

Please let us know you re-test results, Tucker.  I recently had 4 wet chem ESC+starch tests for the same sample of hay: 2 tests on a dry sample and 2 tests on a soaked sample that I dried out in my oven.  The ESC and Fe numbers are so different that I am wondering how reliable testing is...was there a problem with sample splitting for the 2 results, or is this much variation normal?.  There is no visible dirt, although I haven't tried collecting sediment from the soaking and rinsing water to confirm that. 

I am reporting dry matter numbers below for easier comparisons, but all samples were 9-15% moisture.

Average ESC, starch, and Fe from multiple bales (the ESC + starch were very similar to a prior hay analysis I used to make a purchase decision):
8.4%, 0.1%, 120 ppm

ESC, starch, and Fe from 1 bale, unsoaked:
-result 1 (644 analysis) = 6.8%, 1.4%, (no Fe done)
-result 2 (603 analysis done on new split of same hay sample) = 4.5%, 0.7%, 272 ppm

ESC, starch, and Fe from same section of 1 bale as above, soaked 1 cold and dried in oven:
-result 1 (644 analysis + Fe) : 4.0%, 0.8%, 181 ppm
-result 2 (603 analysis done on new split of same hay sample): 3.2%, 0.5%, 163 ppm

Still need to post the complete analyses in my Case History folder but nothing else had enough variation to be hugely concerning, although EVERYTHING but protein decreased a bit (K dropped a lot of course, but Mg and P were HALVED in the soaked sample).  It's hard to know how much decrease is due to soaking and how much is due to sample variation though when results 1 and 2 differed so much (esp within the unsoaked sample).

--
Kirsten and Shaku (IR) - 2019
Kitimat, BC, Canada
ECIR Group Moderator
Shaku's Case History  
Shaku's Photo Album   

Hi Linda

You can read about Dr Kellon's courses here  http://drkellon.com/

--
Nancy C in NH
ECIR Moderator 2003
ECIR Group Inc. President/Treasurer  2019-2020
Join us at the 2021 NO Laminitis! Conference, August 12-15, Harrisburg, PA

As far as I know, no studies have been done comparing the two.
--
Eleanor in PA

www.drkellon.com 
EC Owner 2001

The best way is to test the food. It's not just about deficiencies of each individual nutrient. Imbalances can, and do, interfere with absorption.
--
Eleanor in PA

www.drkellon.com 
EC Owner 2001

The only way to balance properly is to know your starting point with an analysis - recognizing this is going to change with each different load.
--
Eleanor in PA

www.drkellon.com 
EC Owner 2001

How would one balance properly if Horse for example is eating Timothy hay, Orchard Hay, and Timothy pellets,?  I certainly know the percentages etc. so assuming id 603 test all three?
--
LJ Friedman  Nov 2014 Vista,   Northern  San Diego, CA

Jesse and majestic ‘s Case History 
Jesse's Photos

 

I’m not thrilled about making food changes unless I can prove a deficiency. Are there any easy blood tests I can perform or other test to reveal what a deficiency might be? any specifics? thanks 
--
LJ Friedman  Nov 2014 Vista,   Northern  San Diego, CA

Jesse and majestic ‘s Case History 
Jesse's Photos

 

water is from a well i havent tested   , ( moved here in april) i can look at the iron
my custom supplements are based on 603 test from 2018

--
LJ Friedman  Nov 2014 Vista,   Northern  San Diego, CA

Jesse and majestic ‘s Case History 
Jesse's Photos

 

Rose, as far as I’m aware, the Cloud pads have always had a slight wedge. They seem to be well accepted by most horses, however, and they squish down to confirm to the individual hoof shape. I always marked the boots left and right so that I would always use the same boot on each hoof. 

You could substitute any of the usual flat pads for the Cloud pads, but the Cloud pads last much longer than most other pads.

Does your horse not like the pads in the new boots? It could be because they haven’t conformed to his feet yet. My horse took a few days to get used to hers when I changed old pads to new ones.

--
Maxine and Indy (PPID) and Dangles (PPID)

Canberra, Australia 2010
ECIR Primary Response

https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Maxine%20and%20Indy%20and%20Dangles 
https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=933

 

Dr. Kellon,

My vet tells me that Surpass has a carrier ingredient that penetrates horse skin better than Voltaren does. That sounds significant. Is it? It causes her to feel that Surpass is superior to Voltaren for horses. The cost difference is also significant (like nearly $60 different). Do you know if this difference really matters for skin penetration?

--
Helen Connor and Blessing (IR/PPID)
Scappoose, OR
Member since May 2017
Case History:  https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Helen%20and%20Blessing
Photo Album:  https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=6847

I'm not sure which buckets you are referring to (are they water troughs?) but if you can easily drain them where they are without creating an ice hazard sounds like a good option.  Pre soaking is not much of an issue in the winter because the risk of bacterial spoilage of soaked forage is much lower.
--
Eleanor in PA

www.drkellon.com 
EC Owner 2001

Before doing anything you should have a formal lameness exam with nerve blocks.  Vague hind end issues are often coming from a pain focus in the front and shifting weight behind. The actual cause can strongly influence the therapy for it.

Yucca is contraindicated with metabolic horses. There are safe Devil's Claw products but please get a real diagnosis first.
--
Eleanor in PA

www.drkellon.com 
EC Owner 2001

Dapples are generally believed to be a good thing - but without any actual evidence to back that up. In the horse that was under discussion the "dapples" were actually areas of lost pigmentation and he had other discoloration as well.
--
Eleanor in PA

www.drkellon.com 
EC Owner 2001

I have no idea what this is all about!

--
Linda  CA  in 2020

Mary,

You need to let me know when you're ready for your second course. Drop  me an e-mail and we'll figure this out.
--
Eleanor in PA

www.drkellon.com 
EC Owner 2001