dRowe - 2018-06-28 10:40 AM I have two horses: 1) 11 yo 16h gelding hasn’t been in work for a year (injury). Started rehabbing him about a month ago 2) 5 yo 15h mare in moderate work Both are easy keepers and have bcs of probably 5-6 (may be a little too fat). For a year, they were each getting half a pound of RG, 1 pound of Timothy/alfalfa pellets, 1/4 cup of Omega Horseshine twice per day. One flake of alfalfa hay at night and then pasture or Timothy hay. They looked fine, but both looked better (bloom, shine) when I bought them. After speaking to someone at my feed store, I swapped out the RG for the same amount of TC 30% balancer. They’ve been on that for over 2 months. My mare’s condition has improved since the feed swap, but my gelding looks even worse. He looks as if he’s lost muscling even though he has been under saddle with vet written instructions. He’s been seen by 2 different vet practices about a month ago due to back soreness, but both vets felt that he would improve with the exercise rehabbing program. Second vet said that once he’s back in working shape, we’ll reinject his hocks. The decrease in his top line and muscling has me concerned. Do you think this is a feed issue since it started around the feed change (even though mare looks better), or from his time off?

dRowe - 2018-06-28 10:55 AM I have not - I’ll look into that......neither vet mentioned it at all. First vet put him on muscle relaxers but a month after those, his back is sore again. I did some magne wave treatments. Second vet thinks he’s compensating for some hock soreness but wants to wait until he’s in better shape before injecting to get the most out of the injections. I figured if it was something more serious, that one of the vets would have said we should look deeper into the issue. I’m going to read up on EPM and see if there’s more symptoms I’m missing. Thank you!

winwillows - 2018-06-28 11:03 AM Your original program should be just fine for most horses to carry proper bloom and condition. There was plenty of protein there, and adding more with the ration balancer should not have made a difference if they were already properly using the original diet. So, something in system was preventing proper use of the diet. Replacing a fat source with protein and having one horse fall off, if nothing else is wrong, would show that the fat source was being used and the additional protein is not. If you would like, give me a pm or call and I would be happy to go over the whole program with you.

Turnburnsis - 2018-06-28 4:41 PM

My experience: My gelding went thru this for 3-4 years. He was hurting and I didn't know nor did the vets. Once I figured it out He is blooming and muscling! I changed feed several times changed saddles several times and made myself crazy! You said you are rehabbing him so maybe he not ready to rehab or something else is going on. I had like 3 things going on why I missed a couple. Got tunneled vision. Not saying it that way for every horse , but pain will make one lose weight and topline super fast. Once they are fixed they can move right and the changes are fast!