This is an archived Horseadvice.com Discussion. The parent article and menus are available on the navigation menu below:
HorseAdvice.com » Horse Care » Equine Nutrition, Horse Feeds, Feeding » Rehabilitating Malnourished Horses »
  Discussion on Refeeding a starved thoroughbred
Author Message
Member:
yvettemb

Posted on Thursday, Feb 14, 2008 - 3:36 am:

Hi DrO,
On the evening of February 8th (Friday) I received a desperate call from a neighbor 1 and 1/2 miles down the road. He had been given a 4 yr old filly in October and having absolutely no horse experience had placed her in the care of a young man across the road who owned three horses. They each received one five lb flake of hay twice daily and lived in a paddock with a shelter built to house the previous owners 2 small arabs.There was no bedding. Here in Manitoba everything is frozen solid from Oct. til early April.Temps have been -25 to -45 quite consistently for the last 2 months. The filly's owners had added 2 litres of Front Runner 10% protein and 1 litre of sweet feed to her daily ration. Horses here need at least 40 lbs of hay a day to keep their summer weight.She was not allowed in the shed and was horribly beat up by the other horses and run off the little hay she did receive. She arrived at our barn with eyes cloudy and dull,gums pale and stocked up badly in the hind.The hay she had been eating was mostly bottom - very poor. I asked them to continue giving her the 2 flakes a day of crummy hay and 2 small flakes of good hay (that had about 20% alfalfa since I had no straight alfalfa in the barn}. I gave her 1 litre of beet pulp (soaked) and 1/8 cup of canola oil and added a red mineral salt lick to the corner of her stall.I instructed them to purchase alfalfa cubes and equine senior instead of the pleasure pellets and sweet feed she had been receiving. I asked them to feed the beet pulp mixture twice daily and said we would slowly wean her from the bad hay to alfalfa over a couple of weeks. I explained the dangers of insulin overload and related problems through abrupt over feeding that I had learned from your articles. Her original owner instructed them the next day to give her unlimited high quality timothy hay which they did. Monday morning I noticed she had a constant trembling motion in her head and asked them to have her evaluated by a vet. Her original owner sent his vet out on monday afternoon and the instructions he left were as follows;

1) 4 lbs complete feed and 3 lbs of whole oats divided into two feedings daily
2) NO beet pulp (IT ACTS AS A LAXATIVE)
3) Free feed timothy hay with 30% or LESS! alfalfa content
4) 1 tablespoon of blue salt mixed into grain mixture

Today she is listless, depressed looking and not eating her hay. She is standing slightly tucked under and urinated twice in three hrs with only a very small amount each time. Her manure was a very soft ball the first three days but is now cow pie consistency. I think the vet's current regime is harming her and am tempted to call my own vet but her owners say they have to follow her breeder's vet's instructions because he gave her to them. I personally think that any race track breeder who gives a filly straight from the track to a little girl with only a few hours of riding experience under her belt is not a very concerned person. I sometimes think I should just butt out and let the chips fall where they may but the little girl and her dad love the horse and I'd hate to see anything bad happen. Any advise on the feeding problems would be greatly appreciated.

Yvette
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Feb 14, 2008 - 6:57 am:

Hello Yvette,
Most important, if the filly has all of a sudden become depressed this is something that the veterinarian needs to address this morning.

Advice I have, a whole article full of it, but I am uncertain how that helps when a professional who is responsible for the care of this filly differs in opinion and will not listen. All you can do is try to explain the dangers of a too rapid a change in foodstuffs and increase in calories, particularly carbs. It sounds like the horse has gone from several lbs of concentrate daily to 7 lbs concentrate a day in just a short time, horses do better with slowly increasing and changing concentrates. Rapidly changing forages often upsets the digestive track. Besides the rather precise instructions in the article a simplified but safe way to improve this horses diet is to give the hay she was use to free choice and start adding in small amounts of much better hay and slowly increasing the better hay over the next 3 weeks until she is eating a high quality forage. Something similar should have been done with the concentrate.

Other important information would be what was the body condition score when first moved and how vital signs have changed over the past week.
DrO
Member:
rockin

Posted on Thursday, Feb 14, 2008 - 11:02 am:

Yvette, I am in MB as well and I am completely appalled at the idea of 10 lbs of poor quality hay per day for a TB! I'm also horrified that a vet would suggest such a rapid feed change, but I know a couple around my area who certainly would do so (and have done so)...

Two questions: what area of MB are you from (close to Winnipeg/Oakbank or more Northern)? And also, who are they using for a vet (just a first name is OK if you're closer to Wpg area)?

If they for some reason don't want to use your usual vet, and you're close to Winnipeg or the Interlake region, I can recommend a few really good ones who I know have experience with malnourished horses and with track horses.
Member:
yvettemb

Posted on Thursday, Feb 14, 2008 - 6:50 pm:

Hi DrO,
Thanks for responding so quickly. When the filly first came I visually scored her as a weak 3. The next day with more time and my gloves off I realized she was a 2 on your scale, even the muscle from her cheeks is gone and she looks like a skinny yearling. Her sclera is bright red,no swelling or tearing noticeable. Her gums are slightly darker today with a grayish cast. Her pulse is weak,it took several minutes to finally get a count (28 bpm) because I kept loosing it.She urinated once in the three hours I was there,about 3/4 of a cup and seems to be very stiff when getting into that ballerina squat horses do when urinating. She is in a large foaling stall but does not move around at all. Her hind legs are warm from the fetlock down but the barn has infloor heating (set at 2 degrees above freezing to lessen turn out shock in the winter) and she came from freezing cold and no shelter so I don't know how significant the warmth is. Her breeder said she has always stocked up, even as a foal. Her owner doesn't know if the vet took any vitals but said he spent a few minutes at her mouth. The vet did not draw any blood and instructed the owner to take away the hay that she had been used to getting.
I printed out your refeeding advice as well as all relevant published research that I could find and gave it to her owner as soon as I read the vet's instructions. Her owner faxed it to the vet but has not heard back from him. I am going to phone this vet but if you can let me know what specific areas of concern you think I should be pursuing I would really appreciate your advice.
Member:
yvettemb

Posted on Thursday, Feb 14, 2008 - 7:51 pm:

Hi Erin,
The barn is in South Winnipeg ,just inside the floodway. I live close to St Vital park in Wpg. and drive out there 2 to 4 times a day to care for my horses, a 25 km round trip.That makes it harder for me to monitor what someone else is doing with their horses and there seems to be always someone with one or two horses in dire need.( I'm a sucker for a sad eyed horse)If I don't get any cooperation from the breeder's vet the owner has finally given me permission to call in one of my own. I have usually dealt with three vets; Cindy kaspar,Norm Elder or Ken Johnson -depending on the problem. The vet that was called out was Luke, who practices in StoneWall I don't know anything about him.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Friday, Feb 15, 2008 - 6:11 am:

Yvette to put my concerns as succinctly as possible: rapidly changing feeds often upsets the digestive track of horses.
DrO
Member:
rockin

Posted on Friday, Feb 15, 2008 - 11:36 am:

I know of Luke (Versival; spelling might be wrong), but I only know one person who uses him, and I think that it's because he's inexpensive. She's never had an issue with him, but she's also never had any horses in a really bad way. I think that any of your vets, or Glenn Sinclair, would be better for this horse because it is so serious. I hope that they have a blanket on her!

I really wish you the best of luck. This is a horrible time of year here for working with a starving horse (-45 or less today I think!). You definitely seem to have a handle on the situation, but if you're looking for any resources or phone #'s around here, please feel free to ask! I keep a really extensive directory of vets, farriers, hay/feed suppliers & other kinds of horse healthcare workers, stables (if you can't keep her longterm), etc.
Member:
pbauer

Posted on Friday, Feb 15, 2008 - 2:23 pm:

Dear Yvette,


Another article to add to the plethora of information on this site! https://www.equussource.com/articles/nutrition/0507_marty_starving_horse.jsp


My Best,
Tonya
Home Page | Top of Page | Join Us!
Horseadvice.com is a BBB Accredited Business. Click for the BBB Business Review of this Horse Training in Stokesdale NC