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New Member – Cathy
Hello, new friends!
My name is Cathy Kniffen, and 6 months ago (in the dead of winter) I moved from Vero Beach, FL to Kansas City with my husband and my 16ish year old QH named Bandit. The timing was less than perfect, but that was when our FL house sold…
In January Bandit severely sprained his hock and has been on stall rest and now small paddock turnout (alone) since. With all the X-rays, we also discovered that he has severe hock arthritis from his former life as a ranch horse, and the small less mobile joints in his hock are close to fusing. He has improved dramatically over the last 6 weeks, but has a minimum of 2 months more before he can be turned out in the 17 acre pasture with the gelding herd.
After the move to KC, the injury, and the brutally cold winter, Bandit lost a considerable amount of weight. My vet suggested that I feed him pretty large amounts of senior feed to get him back to a reasonable weight. I did this for three or four weeks, but then began to rethink it. Bandit did in fact put the weight back on, but I wasn’t happy with the ingredients in the feed. I have always been a label reader…
This led me to The Horse’s Advocate website and podcasts. I had heard of Geoff Tucker and his feeding methods, but I had not researched it in depth. After listening to a lot of his podcasts, the whole thing really made sense to me. About two weeks ago I switched Bandit over to primarily a forage/hay diet with the addition of 2 pounds of soybean meal a day, 2 quarts of alfalfa pellets, and High Point vitamin/mineral supplement by HorseTech. (I know Geoff says you generally don’t need a vitamin/mineral supplement besides natural salt, but I had a hard time giving that one up. I don’t think High Point has any inflammatory ingredients in it. If I’m wrong about that, someone please tell me!)
Bandit is doing great so far with his new diet. He loves the soybean meal! And I’m sure the less inflammatory diet will help him in the short run and in the future. I plan to keep him on this diet permanently.
Sorry for the long email, but a lot has gone on in my and my horse’s life in the last six months!
Enjoy your horses! 😊❤️🐴
Cathy
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1 Reply
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👍🤠 Thanks for finding us, your horse, and becoming a member and supporting the mission here at The Horse’s Advocate! I’m so grateful and glad your horse is entering warmer weather with a non-inflammatory diet. Be sure to join me every other Thursday evening for the live Zoom meeting – June 6th. Doc T
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