howdy ~ i'm the gal who adopted the old, very furry, chestnut mare
last month. just wanted to say that she is just the best. my little
nieces are trotting around the yard on her and we are so thrilled to
have found her. and STILL grooming!

she was dx with cushings. and she needs to gain weight. how best to
put weight on a cushings horse?

also, i want to buy a fish scale to weigh my bales of hay. which kind
is better, digital or spring?

thanks in advance.

nancy
who's yard is littered with red fur

Nancy,

If I'm off, someone will correct this, but I use the spring kind from Walmart. It's not a gram scale, but close enough! It's much easier to hang the hay from a net (which if you chose you can weigh empty to determine the generally minuscule weight) off the hook on the spring scale.

Carol and Blue in Maine

I found that scale to be just perfect for this purpose.


I am a member of Rural Area Veterinary Services. See what we do!
www.ruralareavet.org

http://www.sportshorses.com/cases/rollinslinda.Peanut.htm

Hi Nancy,
Thats grrreat that your Cushings mare is doing so well! The best thing to add weight would be, more low nsc hay, r/s/r beet pulp, or the ODTB cubes or Blue Seal Carb Guard.

You are going to have some happy birds lining their nests with red fur!

I got my hanging scale at the fishing department in Walmart. I put a flake in a polyhaynet, weigh it then soak. Get a double end snap hook to make hanging it up to drip a breeze.
Mandy and Asher in VA

ok, yes, i saw those at walmart but they had a max of 50 lbs. i didnt
buy it because i thought that the hay bales may weigh more than that(?).

so i was looking on ebay for ones that go up to 100 lbs.

i'm in south florida and the bales i get typically have between 12 and
20 flakes depending on the cut.

how much do hay bales typically weigh?

thanks,

nancy


--- In EquineCushings@..., Larson <seahorses3@...> wrote:

Nancy,

If I'm off, someone will correct this, but I use the spring kind from
Walmart. It's not a gram scale, but close enough! It's much easier
to hang the hay from a net (which if you chose you can weigh empty to
determine the generally minuscule weight) off the hook on the spring

scale.

Carol and Blue in Maine

Well that depends on the type of hay and your farmers' preference. If you are going to soak hay, you want a flake that you can pick up wet! Water is heavy.

Why are you interested in weighing a whole bale? Do you plan on soaking a whole bale at one time? That would be ok if you had several horses. For one horse, its safer to soak one or two times a day so you avoid mold and sour smelling hay.

Its better for the horse to have hay 24 hours a day...so feeding several meals of soaked hay benefits the horse. Are you feeding 1.5% body weight a day? That would average out at 15# a day for a 1000 pound horse.

Mandy

Nancy,
You don't weight he entire bale. Just what you intend to feed. A #50 scale is more than adequate. Peanut eats 20 pounds of hay a day, in 3 meals. Then it gets soaked/rinsed. It's not about the flakes either. Take a muck bucket (mine weighs #5) put hay in it, hang it, subtract the weight of the bucket and VOILA!
Linda



I am a member of Rural Area Veterinary Services. See what we do!
www.ruralareavet.org

http://www.sportshorses.com/cases/rollinslinda.Peanut.htm

I've got an antique hanging balance-beam scale, it does the trick, as it goes up to 100# without additional counterweighting.

Paul.

(who's got a house full of neat and sometimes useful stuff).

luckycharmfarm wrote:

Nancy, I don't weigh whole bales - first, I don't want to lift a bale more than once - if that - and of course, one doesn't feed a whole bale at a time (no matter how much my horse begs me to) because here bales weight between 35 and 45 pounds. Flakes from the bales vary hugely! Some farmers make bales with 2 - 3 pound flakes, yesterday's bales had huge flakes that were closer to 10. The compactedness (word?) also makes a difference, along with the type of grass/legume that makes up the hay. All of this is why weighing is important - and of course, you weigh it dry, not soaked. Hay nets are cheap, so it's really easy to set up a day's worth of hay in nets, soak appropriately, drain and serve!

Carol and Blue in Maine (where soaking is a nightmare right now)

"luckycharmfarm" <LuckyCharmFarm@...> wrote:

howdy ~ i'm the gal who adopted the old, very furry, chestnut mare
last month. just wanted to say that she is just the best. my little
nieces are trotting around the yard on her and we are so thrilled to
have found her. and STILL grooming!

Nancy,

I just wanted to say that I'm so glad she's working out for you! I had a feeling she was a keeper, just from pictures. It was wonderful of you to give her a good home. I am also curious about her bloodwork. I don't recall if you mentioned what tests you did and what the numbers actually were for this mare...

- Cindy and Alf (and entourage) in NY

hi ~ thank you everyone.

the thing i was going to do was weigh the bales from 3 of the places i
buy (t & a) hay from (depending on if and what they have on hand).
they all charge about the same but it seems like they do not always
seem the same weight wise. i know i could tally up the individual
flake weights but thought weighing the bales would help me determine
which place i should try to buy from more often than the others? no?

i know, i know the quality is very important too, right? i'm working
up to that!

i just got home from taking my cushings mare out to a new riding place
where my niece lives. she is SO kind and SO willing. my niece riding
her all over the place and saying "i've been wanting to do this my
whole life." absolutely priceless...

more later,

nancy




--- In EquineCushings@..., aptly_asked <aptly_asked@...>
wrote:

I've got an antique hanging balance-beam scale, it does the trick,

as it goes up to 100# without additional counterweighting.

Paul.

(who's got a house full of neat and sometimes useful stuff).

--- In EquineCushings@..., "Cindy L. McGinley"
<cmcginl1@...> wrote:

I just wanted to say that I'm so glad she's working out for you! I had
a feeling she was a keeper, just from pictures. It was wonderful of
you to give her a good home. I am also curious about her bloodwork. I
don't recallif you mentioned what tests you did and what the numbers
actually were for this mare...
- Cindy and Alf (and entourage) in NY



cindy ~ yes, i posted them awhile ago but here they are again...

ACTH 61.5
Insulin 3.93.

any comments appreciated about them...

nancy
and angel

"luckycharmfarm" <LuckyCharmFarm@...> wrote:

ACTH 61.5
Insulin 3.93.

any comments appreciated about them...

I'm sorry I missed that the first time. I seem to be missing a lot of posts lately...

Since you asked for comments: the ACTH is higher than normal but not too terribly high, *if* it is in the units I am used to. (What are the units on that?) As a comparison, Alf's was 199 pg/ml just before I put him on pergolide (though he was on CTB at the time). Are you getting the pergolide capsules that we all prefer? What dose? Did you only get insulin from that blood draw? (Units?) Not glucose?

Just trying to keep up with Angel (what an appropriate name!), as I have a soft spot for older horses. I'm sorry if you discussed all this before; as I said, I have not been getting all the posts.

- Cindy and Alf (and entourage) in NY