Weight Gain
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Corina Ryan
Hello,
Dr. Kellon suggested that I move my post to the ECIR main page. My mini has gained more than 4 pounds in a week, confirmed by weighing on a scale. She is on stall rest and remains too sore to turnout even with boots. She is now 335 pounds and is a 9/9 body score according to my vet. My vet says her ideal weight is 300. I tested my hay several ways, one way was multiple bales using a hay probe, one flake of a bale prior to soaking ( I mainly wanted to see the degree of NSC reduction after soaking), hay from this flake 30 minutes after soaking in hot water, and then the same flake soaked for 16 hours. Dr. Kellon has made the valid point that the moisture content has skewed some of the results of looking at the as sampled as the DE remains high. I am wondering if this hay is completely inappropriate for her. Furthermore, from looking at all of the results, the iron seems much higher than what google says it should be even after soaking, no? I have heard Iron is a concern with IR horses. I know this is a big ask! But I really appericate any feedback about this results as I am worried that I am not helping her by feeding her these hay in general and perhaps that is why she is still sore basically a month later. Here is the link for the hay test results that I uploaded to files. https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Corina%20and%20Sylvie Thank you! -- Corina Ryan New Hampshire Joined December 2022 Case History: https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Corina%20and%20Sylvie Photos: https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=282843 |
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I wouldn't feed her this hay and it's extremely difficult to balance. Get her on Triple Crown Naturals Timothy Balance Cubes, 5 pounds per day. Stop beet pulp. The only other things you need to give her is 500 IU vitamin E, 1.5 tsp of salt and an ounce of ground flax. You can feed the cubes moistened, which fluffs them up and increases the volume.
If she is a BCS of 9, losing 35 pounds won't get her down to a 5. She likely should weigh no more than 250. Also read up on cold induced hoof pain https://wp.me/p2WBdh-Yy . -- Eleanor in PA www.drkellon.com BOGO 2 for 1 Course Sale Through End of January |
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Corina Ryan
Thank you, this is invaluable! Do you think it is safe enough to feed to my other two horses? I am curious because my big horse, I had tested at the same time as my mini as his sire died from laminitis at 11, his grandsire also died from laminitis in his 20s, and than his uncle on his fathers side also died from lami at 15. He had high leptin, another member said he was considered IR by ECIR calculator, he is not fat. But I am suspicious of the iron because he is very itchy and has had chronic scratches since I bought him, but more of a rain rot texture than the cracking scratches that are typically seen. He has been on a lot of treatments including prescription for it, currently on a prescription ointment for months with no remission. I should probably test them all!
I will get some of these hay cubes tomorrow and set up a feeding schedule as I know she will eat them quickly!
Thank you for the information on the cold induced hoof pain, my farrier suggested this early on, she is a fan of this group as well and the one who recommended I join. But no matter what I do, blanketing, boots, leg warmers she still seems sore, and predominantly continuously lifting her right hind only in the morning. I have ordered some custom "leg warmers" so maybe these will help more than the socks and the fleece lined shipping boots. |
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Sherry Morse
Hi Corina, How tall is your pony? What breed? Do you have any recent pictures you can add to your photo album? That would all be really helpful to us (along with an an actual case history being completed).
Thanks, Sherry and Scutch (and Scarlet over the bridge) EC Primary Response PA 2014 https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Sherry%20and%20Scutch_Scarlet https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=78891 |
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Hi Corina,
Regarding whether your hay is safe for the other 2 horses. 500 ppm iron is considered the upper limit for toxicity for all horses. Often high iron in hay is from dirt contamination. Unless you can get the iron down below this number by shaking the dirt out, or washing the hay, I would not feed it to any horses. Even your soaked hay had iron very close to 500 ppm, too close IMO. AND it would require A LOT of extra copper and zinc supplementation to balance that much iron. I also think the ESC+starch (likely, it is even higher because we know NIR underestimates ESC) and the protein is also too high in the unsoaked hay for any other horses you have that are suspected of having EMS. Interestingly there was a study done looking at EMS in a herd of ponies and it found ALL the offspring of the only stud that had laminitis ALL developed laminitis, too, on pasture; whereas, the mares with a history of laminitis were less likely to pass that trait on to their foals. When you test soaked hays, you need to dry the hay in a microwave or air dry on a screen before sending it in for testing. The high moisture contents will skew the "as fed/sampled" results--which we can recalculate or we can use the dry matter columns for comparing hays with different moisture contents--BUT more importantly it will affect the accuracy of some of your other numbers during the actual analysis in the lab (NIR seems particularly bad when moisture contents are not within the normal range). Case in point being the dry matter starch value of 6.1% for the hay soaked 16 hrs...we know that's not possible, so that one is obvious, but other numbers could be less obviously affected and you wouldn't know. -- Kirsten and Shaku (EMS + PPID) and Snickers (EMS) - 2019 Kitimat, BC, Canada ECIR Group Moderator Shaku's Photo Album Snickers' Case History Snickers' Photo Album |
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If your mini is a choker or bolter, I would soak or steam the hay cubes. An inch of boiling water poured into some cubes in a bucket, covered with a lid for 5 min, makes a really nice warm, damp mash. If you can feed 4 meals every 6 hrs (not always possible, I know!), she won't go "too long" without food. Any more than 6 hours without food will put her in a fasting state. If it takes 2 hours to eat her meal, then you can go up to 8 hrs between meals.
If she's not a bolter/choker, you can try a hay cube dispensing ball and that will slow down her eating. -- Kirsten and Shaku (EMS + PPID) and Snickers (EMS) - 2019 Kitimat, BC, Canada ECIR Group Moderator Shaku's Photo Album Snickers' Case History Snickers' Photo Album |
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Corina Ryan
Thank you, Kirsten! I have been able to source some IR friendly hay that will be coming on Tuesday, oh happy days! the iron in that hay is 170 ppm. I guess my next question is how are people balancing the hay, I ordered California Trace but how is that customized enough? Am I buying straight powdered copper from some where and doing a lot of math?
very interesting on the heritable of Lami study you mentioned! I couldn't find anything on his mother's side but I had chalked it up to the fact that maybe there was less publication on the mare's in the racing industry but it could be for more of what you are saying! |
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I really recommend getting your hay looked at by one of our balancing people. Yes, there is a fee, but they can tell you if CT is a good fit and how much of it you need to feed (which may not match the recommended dose), or if there's a different commercial supplement that would be better. They might instead recommend a custom formula, which you can have made up at Horse Tech or Mad Barn, or they might tell you how much of specific minerals you beed to feed and you can buy them very cheaply and measure them out yourself. There is a list of qualified people in the Diet folder in our Files area, called Hay Balancers.
I've never shaken the hay but apparently it works. You might find a lot of sand coming off of it if you shake over a bucket. I'd be more inclined to rinse it thoroughly myself, but then the hay is wet, which is kind of a pain. If you're already soaking it though, a thorough rinse after should do the trick. -- Kirsten and Shaku (EMS + PPID) and Snickers (EMS) - 2019 Kitimat, BC, Canada ECIR Group Moderator Shaku's Photo Album Snickers' Case History Snickers' Photo Album |
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