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  Discussion on Still Not Eating
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New Member:
jbandet0

Posted on Sunday, May 2, 2010 - 1:32 am:

Please help us !
We have a beautiful Standarbred 4 yr old mare , who last year as a 3 yr. old was one of the fastest pacers in North America . We raced her only 11 times last year and she won 8 of those races . Since Nov. 20th 2009 , she has been off and we started training her back mid January . In the fall however before she finished racing we noticed her appetite decreasing . We thought it was the stress of racing and doing so well in some very tough races and questioned ulcers and treated her with omeprazole . We thought she would just get better having the winter off . Despite being off she has continued to eat like a bird and the weight loss has continued . She has her teeth regularly cared for , she has been dewormed every 3 months . All vaccinations are up todate .
Within the past 2 month we have had endoscopy , bronchoscopy , fluoroscopy , blood work ..... all looking for is there a chronic issue / ? chronic pain . She has never been lame , never coughed ( until a recent likely viral infection ) . She looks at her food and then walks away , waiting for her hay . She will eat her hay but a race horse can not survive on hay alone . There were no ulcers seen and she is very clean legged . We questioned TMJ , because she did have a bit of a click with eating , but a massage therapist seems to have that under control . Her bloods with CBC , lytes, glucose,BUN , creat.,liver functions all fine except her platelets were 42 . Our Vet felt this was ok and maybe viral related . She has had a course of ACTH with the thought of chronic stress . She may have had one good day while on that .
If there is no hay in her stall but feed in the tub , she will pick through her sawdust rather than eat her feed !!!!!! Over the past few months we have changed her feed so many times to something we are told that she may like better only for her to do the same thing ....just walk away !!!!!!
We are at our wits end !!!!!! We did race her twice in the past month and she still got a first and a second but we just can't continue to race her like this !!!!!!
Please help us !!!!!!!
Member:
rtrotter

Posted on Sunday, May 2, 2010 - 7:21 am:

Hi Elizabeth,

Welcome to HA! As a fellow standardbred owner,trainer and caretaker, I can understand your frustration, having dealt with some non-eating issues over the past 35 years. So, first some questions:

What is your mare's eating environment like? Is she in a big barn ( lots of horses and activity at feed time). Does she have access to turnout and if so how much?

What volume of hay ( poundage) is she currently consuming? What types of supplements are you giving her in her food?

When she was off from November to January did her appetite get better?

What do you feed?

The answer could be as simple as not liking a specific additive you are putting in her feed, the trick is to find out which one? (And it may not be the one you think it is if any).

It could be she just does not like the environment in which she eats( noise, horse next door).

Could be she wants some competition when she eats( needs a goat or another horse( I know seems strange).

Many years ago, my dad had a horse with a very well known trainer, who had an eating issue. She had the track record at one of the east coast tracks for aged trotting mares for many years. She was a small mare and she hardly ate anything at all, until one day when the hay guy left part of a hay delivery he couldn't fit in the feed room right next to her door. Although she had hay in her stall, she preferred the hay she could "steal". and she ate quite a bit of it before everyone came in the next morning. When the trainer saw this, he told the caretaker to start putting her grain and hay on the outside of the stall so she could"steal" it every day( She had a stall guard and not a gate, so her getting to the feed/hay was not a problem. It worked! and she started thriving. Also, she did not eat it all at one time but ate all through out the day, but over the long haul actually ate more than if getting fed 2 or 3 times a day( this way of eating usually does not fit well in a training barn, but is probably healthier for the horse.

I've had horses refuse to eat because I started a new batch of garlic with a very pungent smell. I even had one horse refuse to eat if anyone was watching her.

If all the physical issues have been looked at, it just might be an emotional one that may require a bit more investigation to figure out.

Good luck
Rachelle

By the way, what's your horse's name, your post intrigued me?
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Sunday, May 2, 2010 - 10:23 am:

Welcome Elizabeth,
We face the same problem you do, you present a case where no cause for the inappetance is apparent and your post suggests you have done all reasonable diagnostics to find a medical cause without success. First it is important to realize that the current viral infection if influenza may effect the horse for as much as 6 months before the horse is 100%. Rachelle's suggestions above have merit and could be tried and you should look carefully at supplements and the possibility of toxicity.

Consider that two months off may have not been enough time or possible the type rest not helpful. A chronic tired race horse synDrOme has been often described and I don't know any good work that says ACTH administration is 100% effective. Time and rest on good pasture is the only real cure with the horse telling you when he is ready to return. Lastly has the TMJ possibility been investigated with radiography so as to rule it out. Many TMJ issues would not be particularly responsive to manipulation or massage.

We could hypothesize possible problems in the brain affecting the horse's mentation with respect to her appetite but this is a dead end for which I have no diagnostic nor therapeutic recommendations.
DrO
New Member:
jbandet0

Posted on Monday, May 3, 2010 - 12:06 am:

Wow , Thank you both for responding so quickly to our dilemma!
There are a few holes in my story that I will further expand on and hopefully answer your questions .
Our mare is at our own training farm with my husband as trainer /blacksmith and also mainly looks after the feeding . The barn she is in has a total of 8 horses , all standardbreds at varying levels of training . When the horses are fed , we go to the house and have our own meal . We do not board other horses , so if we are not in the barn , no one is . She has pretty regular turn out and more so when she is not being jogged or trained .
Her hay consumption averages about 6 - 8 flakes a day
( ? 10-15lbs ) She definitely prefers the second cut .
Her grain has changed so many times from inside track to podium pellets to mature horse to 13% sweet feed to extruded and I think it's purinas tri-max . Combining some corn and vegetable oil and sometimes a mixture of two or more of the grains . She picks at her breakfast through the day and her supper through the nite and occasionally may even eat all of it eventually . Some of the pellet feeds she just pulverizes and we have to clean the 'dust ' out of her tub . She eats carrots but not apples and will leave a full tub of feed and carrots for a serving of second cut hay ! In the mean time every horse around her has inhaled their feed and is playing with the tub looking for more !
Her appetite the time frame she was off was the same , maybe just a tiny bit better .
Any supplements we were adding to her grain was stopped in the fall as there was no doubt that was adding to the problem . She sniffs everything before eating it .
On Friday just past ( April 30th ) even after deworming with ivermectin on March 19th we dewormed her again but this time with quest plus (moxidectin/praziquantel) . This was prompted after I read an article on the Horse advice site about deworming programs , etc . She was last dewormed with quest plus in mid December . We also have been speaking to others in the area who tell us they deworm their racehorses every month .
Please let me know your views on that . We have been regularly alternating dewormers but only every three months for our adult horses ( we do the babies every month )
It may just be a coincidence but in the fall of 2009 when her race season was really peaking ( and her appetite starting to go a bit off ) , the horse in the stall next to her was sold and moved to another stable . This horse however came from the same auction as she did and they were stable mates and paddock mates until the other filly was sold . My husband thinks I'm crazy but I truly wonder if there is a connection . Your thoughts ?
On Friday, aside from the deworming she has now been turned out in a paddock . We put another mare in there with her who is not racing and waiting to be bred . They seem to have hit it off and most times that I look out at them they are grazing .
Could it be as simple as this ? I'll keep you tuned .
Once again I thank you for your response and look forward to any further thoughts you may have .
Elizabeth
New Member:
jbandet0

Posted on Monday, May 3, 2010 - 12:15 am:

Oops ,
Almost forgot ..... re the TMJ .... there were no xrays done . The massage therapist did instruct us with some massage maneuvers which we do try to do daily and I really don't hear that clicking noise so much now when she's eating .
Thanks ,
Elizabeth
Member:
rtrotter

Posted on Monday, May 3, 2010 - 7:20 am:

Elizabeth,

Never underestimate the power of another horse, Hopefully your mare's appetite will improve and you will have your answer. But, you said something in your post above about adding corn oil to her feed.

A few weeks ago, I decided to add some vegetable oil to my 2 year olds feed, I did not add much. This colt is normally a very aggressive eater. He took one sniff and refused to eat, out I threw this and replaced it with his regular feed without the oil he gobbled it right up. Remember what I said above about it being something you do not expect it to be. I did not expect this reaction to a small amount of oil.

As far as the companionship issue goes in the late 70's early 80's we raced 2 horses a mare and a gelding for a number of years. Both of them were very good racehorses and made us a lot of money, with the mare setting the track record at Freehold. This pair was always together. When we retired the mare to take advantage of a breeding we had won in one of her stakes races, within a period of 1 week the gelding started to go backwards to the point we had to retire him too. He just lost all his desire to race. The only thing we could attribute this too was not having his lifelong pal around.

I wish you a lot of luck, and I hope it is either the oil or the companion issue that straightens your mares appetite out.

Rachelle
Member:
scooter

Posted on Monday, May 3, 2010 - 8:05 am:

My horses (pigs) will not touch anything with oil in it. I also have had oil go rancid and didn't realize it, in the heat it will do that quite quickly.
Member:
mrose

Posted on Monday, May 3, 2010 - 2:50 pm:

In reading through this I see you menton "feed" and I am assuming you mean pre-mixed feeds, pelleted feeds, etc. I have had horses that wouldn't eat this type of feed, but that loved straight grains instead. They were fed triple cleaned crimped "race oats" which are heavier per pound than "normal" oats and are dust free. I mixed a these with cocasoya liquid vitamin/oil/mineral mix (sorry, have forgotten what it's called) or with some corn oil and powdered vitamin/mineral mix, depending on the horse. The horses gobbled this down. Hard to believe a horse wouldn't like a mixed feed, but I've owned horses that won't eat molassas or anything else "heavy" or sweet tasting. Might be worth a try. Though, like Rachelle, I also believe horses can really miss their friends and changes in the barn or in their routines can affect their eating. Good luck!
New Member:
jbandet0

Posted on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - 1:43 am:

Thank you everyone for your comments . All angles are being covered and I think her 'new friend' is making a difference . She has been so picky for so long now , I guess it's a bit of a habit that won't be dramatically changing over nite .

Can I ask your views on worming programs for the adult racehorse? Does anyone agree with this every month program or do you think the 3 month rotation is fine ? I can see the point with the monthly concept that the racehorses are under more stress and subsequently more apt to picking up infections in general , but in the adult horse ( with a negative fecal float ) would you not be setting your horse up to become immune to the products being used .
Thanks in advance for your thoughts and will keep you updated on how our girl is doing .
Elizabeth
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - 9:19 am:

Elizabeth I would follow our recommendations in our deworming schedule article, HorseAdvice.com » Horse Care » Worms, Deworming, Parasite Control » Deworming Schedules. I see no reason that it would not apply to race horses.
DrO
New Member:
jbandet0

Posted on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - 10:50 am:

Thank you .
I am printing it out as I type for my own reference and for others .
Elizabeth
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