Good Horsekeeping
When things are good with a metabolic horse, they are great. But this is almost always followed by what I call a spiraling down period. It's taken me awhile to notice this pattern and each time it happens I'm reminded that these horses are affected by the weather (change of seasons), by hormones, and by what they eat.
My first metabolic horse was my mare, Bees. She was never really diagnosed as being metabolic. And she didn't fit the definition of being Cushings, as Bees had a normal hair coat and shed out properly in the spring. And when we tested her sugar levels, they weren't that bad. But she was one of those horses that fall through the cracks of having a clear-cut diagnosis of metabolic and/or Cushings.
Had I known what I now know about managing a metabolic horse, things might have turned out differently for Bees. I lost her about three years after she initially spiraled down and suffered a serious bout of laminitis. With the first onset she laid down for hours at a time and was on a deadly combination of Bute and Banamine for several weeks just so she could get up and down. After months of restricting her diet and an outstanding blacksmith (who set her front feet with pads and frog and sole support), eventually she stabilized.
With Bees, after learning that the carbohydrates and sugar in grass and hay can make horses (that aren't even metabolic) have sore feet, I soaked her hay. I did this for almost one year.
I still remember like it was yesterday (although it's now been 10 years) driving home from a breed circuit horse show (the first I had attended) singing my heart out to a song that I felt was "our song" (its lyrics symbolic to me that my mare was back!). She did well at the show and I was confident that we were managing whatever was going on with her.
Three weeks later, however, she spiraled down. I was devastated, and I felt that I had somehow failed her. The next two years every time I thought she was doing great it would be followed by another spiraling down, which always included a laminitic bout. Eventually her coffin bone in one of her front feet rotated enough that it dropped through her sole and we had to euthanize her.
With my mare, Lola, despite being on Cushings meds to help keep her hormonal and thyroid system regulated, I am seeing a similar pattern. We go from her being about the best as she can be—alert, eating well, moving great, and acting like the energizer bunny to moping around, being picky with her feed, and shuffling when she walks.
Now into my third year since she was diagnosed with both with Cushings, and with high enough sugar levels (so she is also metabolic), I'm concluding that there isn't much I can do to ward off her spiraling down. I feel with mares, hormones have a lot to do with things getting off kilter. Because in the winter she (like Bees was) is great. In fact, this past winter she was better than great. But it seems like when we get to what researchers of metabolic syndrome call "the shoulder seasons" (early spring and early fall) I see the change. First the shuffling starts, then it becomes more of a reluctance to move along with more periods lying down; and each and every time I kick myself for not seeing it coming on sooner.
This is about all that can be done to ward off and manage a metabolic episode:
• Restrict diet—especially high sugar starch feeds. No pasture whatsoever and no sweet feed. Treats (even carrots and apples) should not be fed.
• Give NSAIDs to reduce inflammation and add supplements that are known to help regulate sugar levels like cinnamon and magnesium.
• Offer hoof support. If the horse can tolerate shoes—shoe with pads can help buffer sore soles against hard ground and cement. Otherwise opt for boots, use hoof packing and deeply bed stalls.
• Encourage movement. Circulation helps reduce built-up lactic acid in legs and hooves.
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