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Soft Tissue Injury
Hi Doc T,
Our 3-year-old colt has what our vet believes to be a soft tissue injury and our protocol is to rest him for 6 weeks with hand-walking and rehab exercises over poles, mostly to keep him moving and keep his mind busy during this time. Then we’ll reassess. He’s about 950 lbs and gets 1lb SBM daily + soaked alfalfa and grass hay at 1.75% of body weight. On this diet and 5 days a week moderate exercise he has remained lean and healthy looking and continued to put on muscle. Would this be a scenario that extra protein (in the form of increased SBM) could help facilitate healing, or do you think that’s unnecessary given his size, age, and light workload?
As a side note our vet has been very happy with his body condition on this diet, especially with his mother’s history, genetics, and the need to keep him lean and active.
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1 Reply
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Thank you for having your horse on a non-inflammatory diet, plus added protein. This diet will help your colt throughout his life.
Soft tissue injury occurs as acute trauma (a direct blow) or a chronic injury from overuse (common in working horses such as racehorses). If from trauma, the injury usually heals quickly, and the diet he is on now should be fine. However, if it is from chronic overuse, the tendon is already poorly made and will need more protein to help repair plus strengthen the rest of the tendon. In other words, the horse needed the addition of high-quality protein before the injury occurred.
I’m glad to hear your vet is on board with this diet. Seeing is believing! Doc T
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