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Belle and Snickers, the EPSM mare divas

12K views 173 replies 5 participants last post by  Oldhorselady 
#1 ·
So, I decided to start this thread for the beginning of this journey with my two EPSM mares.

My first mare is Belle, my EPSM Type I pos percheron. She was severely neglected and possibly abused for a long time before I adopted her. I adopted her at the age of appox 16 year old. She had not had human interaction, hoof care, vet care or turn out from her 50 foot paddock, that she shared with her 3 year old filly, who was larger than her, for at least three years. Simply watered and hay thrown.

My second mare, you may know from previous threads. Her last journal was:

http://www.horseforum.com/member-journals/snickers-noodle-legged-pinto-180945/

Snickers I adopted at the age of 2. I was concerned with the way her hind end moved, but she was a young, growing, butt-high 2 year old draft cross, so I went with it. As time went on, it was the mystery hind end saga with vets, chiros, massage therapists, farriers and trainers. Started to look at EPSM and was in contact with Dr. Beth Valentine with tons of video and she agreed. Tested for Type I, which was neg, but not ruling out Type II. Started high fat diet and she improved. However, with her being an extremely easy keeper and not losing any weight despite following the diet correctly and daily exercise, I began to get concerned for her future becoming IR or worse. The diet DID help her, although, not completely. I was happy with how she DID improve and if she wasn't such an easy keeper and overweight, I probably would have left it that way. But with there being an exact opposite alternative with the fat with Dr. Kellon, I decided to try her way and see what it gets me. How will I know if she wouldn't improve more or lose weight this way, if I didn't try.

So, this is where I am with both girls. I am treating for EPSM with easy keepers.

I have found someone to help me with hay analysis and getting the vit/min correctly established, along with doing it with simple ingredients not using commercial grains/feeds. All being done with low Non-structural Carbohydrates (NSC) = low sugar, low starch and with low fat.

I am also interested in starting to trim my mares with the Pete Ramey method and for them to be barefoot. I am not posting this for criticism. Snickers is barefoot and has very nice feet. Belle has been a rehab project, possible founder, possible laminitis, slipper toed with a crack to her coronary band and abscessed for two months after her first trim. I have had farrier troubles. Belle has now been shod in front for a year. This has kept her comfortable enough to walk off of her extremely thin soles. However, I'm not certain the angles are still where I want to be to make her more sound and walk heel first. I'm concerned with her heel bulbs now starting to pinch, frog getting narrow and longer, sole stretching etc. So, I will be pulling the shoes.

I am creating this journal to not only help ME remember my journey, but to help anyone else out there in the future that may need help. I am being your guinea pig so to speak.
 
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#2 ·
Today I:

Fired my farrier
Moved my horses to a paddock that will not include grass turnout
Began to get things together to make a Freedom Feeder for the horses to slow graze their hay
Began to order the necessary vit/min supplements to change their diets over completely.
Found a recommended barefoot farrier to start a 4 week cycle trim until I can take over later, after all of the overwhelming diet changes.

I would say it was quite productive.
 
#3 ·
Snicker’s Diet​

Uckele-Thompson Custom 11/12 (1 105g scoop daily)
• Phosphorus 7g
• Zinc 1056mg
• Copper 354mg
• Selenium 1gm
• Magnesium 3g
• Manganese 1041mg
• Biotin 30mg
• Flaxseed Meal 60g

Gateway Su-Per Psyllium Whole Blond Husk Powder (daily)

Anti-Carb

Alfalfa Pellets (only ¼” sun-cured)

3 Tablespoons iodized salt

4000iU + Vit E (d-alpha or dl-alpha)

Beet Pulp (shredded, no molasses)….no need to rinse.
 
#10 ·
Yes, such a simple, cheap design....just add a board and eye hooks, secure with zip ties! On pipe corral, just attach with zip ties. I did my 'flood emergency' pipe corral yesterday with my regular nibble net and zip ties. It would definitely help you with soaking!!!
 
#11 ·
When I started taking Snickers off of her high fat diet, she became extremely cranky. So much so that I didn't recognize her attitude. Very scary, different horse, but understandable. I was leading her, asked her for a trot to check her legs, and she was resistant and bit my arm! She was also doing a lot of kicking at her belly and more nuzzling of her barrel than usual. She is very sensitive, wanting me to rub and scratch her all around her barrel and belly.

I hadn't been able to work her for a few days, not that she could do much anyway since her relapse. Her attitude was much better and seemed back to normal. I decided yesterday to take her on a trail ride, at the walk only, and ready to get off at any time to lead her. She seemed fine. The junk in her trunk was maybe a little more exaggerated and loose, so we took it slow on the two inclines we faced. She seemed to adjust her hind end along the way, not unusual, just a little more often maybe. We only walked, so I did not see her trot or canter yesterday.

I am interested in putting up their Freedom Feeder nets and try and get them to slow their eating down and eat more all day. I'm wondering how the glucose ups and down may be a part of this.
 
#13 ·
Girls are all moved into their new paddock. Just waiting on the Freedom Feeder nets in the mail for their hay.

Since I wasn't aware about the iron being so high in CA, I never paid attention to iron. So, who knows how much extra I have been feeding mine with their feed AND the nice himalayan salt lick and natural mineral salt lick I bought for them. Would never have even thought about iron in them too! So, I've been pretty much ODing my horses on iron.

I read a quote from Dr. Kellon saying the following about iron toxicity:

"The outwardly obvious symptoms {of iron overload} are often caused by secondary deficiencies of copper and zinc, compounded in many cases by actual primary deficiencies too. Bleaching of coats/manes/tails, "rings" of light colored hair around the eyes of horses with dark faces, low grade chronic skin problems, easy loss of hair under areas in contact with tack, unexplained (by level of work) joint fillings or tendon and ligament insertion site problems (e.g. high suspensory, sesamoiditis, extensor process proliferations, calcifications at insertion sites of the distal sesamoidean ligaments, collateral ligament calcifications, ringbone with no obvious conformational or trim cause), poor hoof quality and white line issues, exaggerated inflammatory responses to minor injuries. If you have all of these rolled into one horse, be highly suspicious--I've seen this. The individual problems though can have other causes. If you really want to know, test."

I am curious to see if Snicker's mid-line 'sweet itch' goes away once her iron levels go down.

Ordered the min/vit supplement today. Takes about two weeks.
 
#14 ·
Apparently it's not only iron what is responsible for sweet itch, it's a general mineral imbalance and too rich feed. Sweet itch occurs mainly on so called robust breeds.... ponies, some drafts, Arabians, all those with origin with poor vegetation. So,I think feeding them" simple" is already if big help. The two I had improved greatly when fed nothing processed, very little grain, and had the possibility to stay away from the bugs dusk and dawn. Greatly means from no mane and tail to full mane and tail within one year.
 
#15 ·
Awesome....I hope this getting their diet straight helps. Funny, she came from this place that was horribly run down and gross and wasn't fed anything special. I really don't remember the sweet itch....I could be wrong, and just wasn't paying attention, but I don't remember it as bad. In Lemoore, we had a very bad problem with several horses, a few of them much worse than mine. We thought maybe neck thread worms. But nothing ever worked. Then we thought all the crop duster chemicals. A couple of those horses moved away, and their problem disappeared. Snickers isn't as bad now, but it's bad enough. Only time will tell now.
 
#16 ·
Well, the itch is triggered by the saliva of the gnats,. which are most active dusk and dawn, and like a certain environment also. My one mare came from pasture on a creek, was always very round in summer and rather thin in winter. No bugs in winter there,so.... The other one from flat open land, but also water nearby and not kept clean, and rather tight with hay and grass, but generous with sweet feed, because she was constantly pregnant and/ or lactating. Both had dark sheds available, just like they had at my place.
You will no by next summer, if there is a change with the itch.
 
#19 ·
Soooooo, new farrier came out today....poor thing, she tried so hard with Belle. But, she is simply scared of her and not strong enough to trim her. If it wasn't for my friend Maren there to direct her and help her....it never would have happend. Just getting the two shoes off took forever. But, she is done and I'm very happy.

Snickers is easy, her feet are easy.

Needless to say, I will, for sure, be doing my own trimming now.
 
#27 ·
Yes, they were MUCH better than expected, after the shoes finally came off...NOT an easy job. The laminae looked pretty in tack. Only one small area at the toe with a little fungal pocket. Found a little area where the sole was growing around a piece of gravel. Frogs in decent shape...could be much worse.
It was only the past few months that I started to notice the heel bulbs starting to pinch. Toe was waaaaaaaaaaay long. I got before pics (not very good ones), but forgot afters with all the commotion. I'll get some.



 
#28 ·
The ex farrier did a pretty good job on that horrendous crack, tho. See how she" rolled" the toe of the shoe? My old farrier told me 25 years ago already that a horse shouldn't have to do that and worked the break over in the shoe. I guess he was way ahead of time..... He also did a pasture trim that was pretty close to a" modern" barefoot trim.
 
#29 ·
Actually????.....No....her shoe was not made with the rocker toe....Belle created it from walking toe first. Her shoe was the same thickness all the way around. A friend and I were just talking about that today when we were looking at it ourselves.....paper thin worn out in front.

However, this farrier did the best of anyone around here and I was quite happy with it, for shoes.
 
#34 ·
Today I am sooooo happy. It has been a couple weeks of diet change and ALCAR. Snickers is totally back to her sweet, calm self.
I lunged her to see how her legs were doing since her relapse and she did AWESOME!!! The transitions are sooooooo smooth. As usual, it's is hard to get decent video while actually holding the camera and asking her to go forward....but at least I got one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL38icxE1MA
Since she did so well in the round pen, I rode her at w/t/c in the arena and she was awesome again. So we went on a short trail ride....where she was.......AWESOME! So relieved.
Belle was a little sore today, but not as bad as I thought she would be. We walked around our 1/4 track, which is the same sand as her paddock. I also put down pea gravel where her water is and where she stands at the hitching post by my tack room. I took a couple pictures, but they aren't the best, because I didn't want to mess with her feet and just let her rest after yesterday.



 
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