The Uk vet that has been giving me help and advice about Anky is over on a 3 day visit. He's here to liaise with one of our local French vets, seeing a few horses and giving a talk to our horse group, which is always very interesting and informative.
Yesterday he came to see Anky, we chatted about her progress, he examined her and seemed to think that we'd turned a corner and she's well down the road to recovery. I hope he's right. He said she felt supple over her back which bodes well for when I start riding her again. Her droppings are still very heavy and very acidic, it's obvious she's not absorbing the nutrients as efficiently as she should be and her droppings are too wet. We feed her alfalfa nuts ,as, apart from being a good high fibre feed, it is also a good buffer for stomach acid. He did say, however, that some horses can't tolerate alfalfa and having examined her droppings he felt that this may be the case here. I've already done quite a lot of investigation with a view to changing her feed regime to something which would help her in the long term. I'm now in the process of changing her feed and some is on order,hopefully to reach us in the next week or so. Rob agreed that in his opinion the new feed would be good for her. It has a blend of fibres, proven to extend eating time , to slow gastric emptying and deliver balanced hind gut fermentation, maximising digestive health. So, I'll go with that.
I'll have a look in the ether for intolerance to alfalfa, see if I can get any more info.
He had a quick look at Remy and thought that he had a lot of growing to do. Hmmm, he's done so much growing in the last 6 months, he can't possibly be that strong. He agreed that I should do very little with him this year, perhaps back him, but , just back him and then leave him until next summer. That's what I intended to do anyway, no riding until he's 4. So we'll continue to do the walking out and in-hand in the school.
He said that Bonbon is a lovely filly, (what!!!) no, really he thinks she'll turn into a lovely horse ( we knew that anyway :-)). I told him we bred for a medium sized, compact horse and as we already know, he said we'd failed in that respect!! ( she's 16.2h at 2 yrs)We've bred a heffalump. So, a reassuring day, positive feeling for Anky and looking forward to getting back on.
5 comments:
Glad there's some options for Anky's feed. Remy looks like he's going to be pretty big already - you're very smart to go slowly with his riding. A lot of people seem to think riding horses (and even competing in strenuous disciplines) at younger ages is OK - they win competitions but the horses don't stay sound and are discarded. Good for you!
Strange about alfalfa - virtually 100% positive press. But I excluded it last year after mystery skin problems with Bruce and Zeffy (neither had had AA before coming to me). Tried everything else 1st but bingo! No more hives!
After looking in the ether, it seems that there is a well know allergy to alfalfa which produces various skin problems. I suppose it's like anything else,however beneficial the feed, there will always be certain individual intolerences.
He sounds a great vet and obviously has good taste in horses!
He's obviously very very good, he though bonbon was lovely!! ;-)
Post a Comment