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Hi From Lake Stevens, WA
Hi there. I have three horses here and am excited to see where this journey takes them. I would like to introduce them and their current photos and then hopefully will have some amazing transformations to share in the future!
The first is Reba, the dark bay. She is a 19 yo Friesian X (TB x Perch/Morgan) barefoot mid level eventing mare. I owned her from ages 4-8 and then sold her to a veterinarian who gave her excellent conventional care and nutrition. Through twist of circumstances, I got her back 2.5 years ago and did not like what I saw in her topline at all. She has been severely wasted on her spinous processes and we have investigated body work, saddle fit, etc without change. She has been getting orchard grass, seasonal pasture, and Triple Crown 30 ration balancer, which I thought was an excellent diet. I am now suspicious this is a severe protein deficiency and I found this page when researching amino acids. I do mostly flat work with her and a little jumping. In the winter we have fox hunted first-flight the past two seasons, and we do an eventing derby or two in the summer. She has some age related general arthritis and was put on Equioxx by my vet a couple years ago. I keep her mostly on it, but I don’t like the concept of her being on chronic medications. Her legs fill and she is generally a bit stiff to start after a couple works in a row. I am interested and hopeful that we might be able to stop Equioxx after some time on a new diet.
A week ago she switched to: 2lbs soybean meal, divided, 5 lbs alfalfa, 5 lbs orchard grass overnight, daytime grass pasture.
The gray is Gio, 2 yo Lusitano gelding. We play on the ground now and then, but he is still growing in the pasture for the next year. He has been on no grain other
than 1lb Triple Crown ration balancer since not long after weaning and
orchard grass hay. He has also never been described as thin. He will be having some alfalfa added to his diet to provide more amino acids in addition to a pound of soybean meal. He is on pasture in the day and has orchard overnight. I am unsure on a horse of his age and growth if he needs more minerals than Redmond salt provides. We are selenium deficient here in WA, which has been drilled into us my entire life by conventional veterinarians.The third horse is the lighter bay, Dusty. He is an upper 20s gelding who has been boarded with me for 4.5 years. His owner is absentee, so he is the bonus fun case study for a diet change. He has had horrendous muscle wastage and swayback since he arrived at my place. He has most of his teeth, but they are very smooth. He held weight last winter on 9-10 lbs of Haystack Special Blend, which is a regional hay blend and fat unfortified feed that also has canola, rice bran and flax. He also received 2 cups of canola a day and he chews on somewhere between 5 and 10 lbs of orchard hay a day. He was receiving much more than the minimum calories for a sedentary horse of his size and has a good fat covering, but his muscles have never come back.
A week ago he began the following diet: 2lbs soybean meal & 6lbs alfalfa pellets divided into two feedings, 5 lbs chopped orchard grass overnight, daytime grass pasture.
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1 Reply
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Hi LisaE – Thanks for joining us and for this comprehensive report on your 3 horses. There are indications of protein deficiency and we all look forward to your updates.
The images show horses with nice shiny hair coats so overall, they look healthy. I am impressed with your ability to look through this to see underlying issues before they become catastrophic (lame, obesity, IR, etc) and to be proactive. I am also glad to see people searching for answers and am glad my information is coming up in searches.
Did you know I floated teeth in WA for the past 6 or so years? Yup! Traveled from way down here to your neck of the woods every other month for 2 weeks each. I was there in Everett when the earthquake struck at 3 am (a year or 2 ago) and missed the high speed train derailment by a day. Due to employee changes here, I had to stop going to WA. Sorry we missed! Doc T
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