Hold the Gravy

After filling the garbage can with uneaten $23/bag horse feed this weekend, I was beginning to crack.  What is wrong with my horse?  Is anything wrong?  Harley keeps smiling at me and acting like his cheerful self, but eating less than half of his normal ration at mealtime just cannot be good.  I rode him for fifteen minutes on Monday and he seemed totally normal, but I felt guilty wondering if I was working him while hydrochloric acid was sloshing in his gut.  According to the advertising of exorbitantly-priced ulcer medications, ulcer horses often "suffer in silence".  I was starting to feel panic set in.  I read and reread the SmartPak supplements list, which is not a good idea for my wallet, researched the likelihood of horses developing ulcers, poured over my notes from his last vet visit and a recent Purina seminar that I attended, and started searching for answers on forums, another bad idea, but this time for my psyche.

I kept checking and rechecking my SmartPak order like it was a magic potion.  Only two more days.

Just like the last time I checked.

Five minutes ago.

This is what happens when I have time off.  Normally, my job would prevent me from going totally neurotic about Harley and something going awry.  What am I going to do if I have kids to worry about some day?

Upon further inspection, the impulse-buy Neigh-Lox did not appear to be to Harley's taste.  After eating some from my hand initially, now he was leaving it in the meal trough with his uneaten slop.  I started to fret that the antacid was turning him off his dinner even more and removed it from his menu.  I also reduced his grain again, fearing that a building colic was inevitable.  The barn owner called me and politely questioned my feed changes.  When I explained that I didn't think he would eat anymore than 3/4 of a scoop, she offered to give him a little at a time so that she could keep track of how much he was actually willing to consume.  I thanked her profusely for her help and apologized for making so many changes in such a short time.  She knows that I worry.  I think that I can keep it together much better for other horses (I think), but when it comes to Harley I can get lost pretty quickly.  I just want him back to normal.  Now.

I received an evening text from the barn owner with good news: Harley ate all of his dinner.

Really?

I was happy, but still confused.  I learned of the solution the next day when I visited the barn to check on my big, quadruped child, and I immediately had flashbacks of being a cat owner.  There were certain flavors of wet food that my cat would eat happily without complaint, but I didn't dare buy the "turkey with giblets"!  According to the feline palate, that stuff was not made to specification and you could not get my cat to put his nose anywhere near those brown lumps in thick gravy.  Give him the mashed up food or dry crunchies and he was fine, but no giblets in gravy!  No, no, no!

Turns out, Harley has decided that he does not like gravy anymore.  Sure, he has had his food watered down for years and eaten it without fanfare.  Yes, he used to receive generous portions of beet pulp and ate them wet and soupy with his Ultium.  We had stopped wetting his food temporarily this winter, because he did not want to eat "cold" dinner, at least that was what we thought was the problem.  We started wetting his food again when the vet saw him two weeks ago and he scared me (again) with what appeared to be belly pain.  Everyone is always concerned that he is having trouble chewing, so we started soaking his grain again.  He ate it fine until this weekend.  When the barn owner fed him piece-wise she did not soak each portion and he gobbled them up.  She tried it again the next morning and he ate 1 and 1/2 scoops without hesitation.

Like my former beloved cat, it appears that Harley is not a "turkey with giblets" fan.  Since wet feed made his trough a sloppy mess, I cannot say that I am disappointed, although I did like getting some extra water into him.  I am breathing a little easier knowing that he is eating his meals again, but I am also wondering what will be next.
Mr. Particular is getting even more-so with age.

Love you, Harley, but sheesh.  Pass the Neigh-Lox.

Innocently, "Who me?"

A Question of Feed

Harley is backing off his grain again.  Needless to say, I am perplexed and worried, but a part of me is wondering if I should really be rejoicing.  Allow me to explain.

Harley has always been a very hardkeeper.  He has seldom scored a body condition score above a four, although always with good muscle tone and a shiny, healthy coat.  This winter, under my vet's instructions, we tried a couple things to get some bulk on him.  This was partly spurred on by the fact that he contracted a virus in December, which compounded the weight issue.  A blanket, alfalfa pellets, and finally a large increase in grain were in order.  Fast forward to the spring and he looks AMAZING.  I get feedback from everyone, including the vet, and their sentiments are the same. 

Harley looks great!  The best in his life probably. 

Now the problem is that he is starting to refuse to eat all his grain.  This started a few weeks ago with a possible low-level colic.  This is very atypical for Harley.  The vet came out and did an exam, we reduced his grain and he was fine up until this weekend.  Now, he is backing off his grain again.

The ultimate guessing game.

I went out yesterday and hand-grazed him for about 40 minutes.  He seems totally normal.  Alert, eager to eat and friendly.  I cannot say that he is displaying a "poor appetite".  He really wants to eat, but he is more interested in hay and grass than he is grain.  I brought him in for dinner and breathed a sigh of relief when he immediately began chowing down on his dinner.  Less than 15 minutes later, he was standing as his door ready to go out for his hay.  I looked in his bucket and he had left about half of his grain.  Hmmm.  I looked into his eye and stroked his nose.

"Are you okay, Harley?"

He stared back at me with bright, social eyes.  He did not look sick.  Did I fill him up on grass?  I think he knew that I wanted him to eat more, so he walked over to his food and nosed the wet grain around a bit, but then returned to his door with the same expectant look. 

"Time to go out!"

I got out the stethoscope and listened to his gut.  Noisy and easily heard without the physician's instrument.  I tried rubbing his belly and even drumming on it a bit to see if he would kick his stomach or show any signs of discomfort.  Nothing.  He really did not look sick at all.  As per my vet's instructions, I gave him a low dose of Banamine by mouth, just in case, and he proceeded to put on a comedy act putting his lip in the air and turning away from my hand when I offered him a cookie to chase the medicine.  The more his audience laughed at his antics (some friends were nearby), the more he played up the dramatics.  He was not acting like a sick horse.  I decided to put him out with Cisco and he immediately dove into his hay. 

Back at the barn I checked his unfinished dinner and estimated that he ate about 3/4 of a scoop.  If we have a 3-quart scoop, which I believe we do, then he ate about 2 1/4 scoops of Ultium.  If Ultium weights about 1.25 lb/qt, then he ate about 2.8 lbs of grain.  Ultium is a high calorie feed at about 1900 cal/lb.  The protein, fat, and fiber ratios are 12%, 12%, and 19% respectively.  I have not been riding him lately, it is no longer winter, and his body condition is about a "6" according to my vet. 

Is it crazy to think that Harley is meeting his energy requirements with much less feed? 

Most other horse owners would probably balk at how much he was eating before.  I sure did!  He was consuming two full scoops at each meal during the winter.  I have already mentioned that I would never have given him that much grain without my vet's instructions.  For years, he was eating a full scoop of Ultium and a full scoop of beet pulp at every meal.  I was not comfortable with giving him anything more than one scoop of grain, but he also was not able to maintain above a 4+ body condition score.  This weekend, I tried substituting some beet pulp back in his food and he turned his nose up at it, eating all around it and leaving every shred behind.

So I have all these questions going through my mind:

Is something really wrong with him and that is why he is backing off his feed?
Does he have ulcers?
Has all that grain caught up with him and caused a problem?
Or is he finally able to maintain his condition on a "normal" grain ration?

I have been shoving food into him for so long that now my perspective on what a horse should be eating at each meal is skewed.  I never liked giving him tons of feed.  Forage is healthiest for a horse and many horses sustain themselves on high quality forage with minimal grain or a ration balancer.  We did just switch to a new hay shipment: orchard grass and timothy.  The hay looks much finer then the coarse stuff that we had before.  It looks good.  Is he getting more calories from the hay now, too?

I bought some Neigh-lox (an equine antacid, everyone gets a chuckle out of the name) at the local feed store, as per the vet's instructions.  He ate it out of my hand at first, but I think he is leaving it behind now.  I have ordered Ulcergard, which I will try when it arrives in a few days, and SmartGut pellets.  The SmartGut pellets seem to use the shotgun approach, with antacid, prebiotics, probiotics, and herbs.

I have been reading up on ulcers, because poor appetite is a symptom, but he does not seem to display any other likely symptoms.  He is not stall bound.  He has 24/7 turnout with a buddy.  He is not traveling or competing.  His coat is shiny and healthy.  He is not irritable or resistant to work and, for the first time, he is not thin. 

Harley, the happy enigma.

There are a few factors that could be making him ulcer-prone or disinterested in eating.

1. His busy, high energy personality
2. He is only fed twice daily.  (Free choice hay is not an option.  Neither is a lunchtime meal.)
3. He has allergies.

The allergies are new in 2012.  I have not written about them yet, but Harley is being treated for allergies.  Is this the likely stressor?  He is not on steroids and the treatment he is receiving should not be causing digestive upset.  The vet is pretty adamant about that one.

I have wished a thousand times over that he could have free choice hay.  I tried to make it happen last year with the Nibble Net, but that was an abysmal failure.  He could not eat efficiently out of the net, probably due to his overbite, and he subsequently lost weight.  It is really tough when you board your horse.  I want my own farm some day, but I do not see that happening in the near future and probably not in New Jersey.  Besides, my husband and I work full-time.  We would not be around during the day to keep an eye on him (or give him lunch) and we would have to buy a second horse to keep him company.  Oh yeah, and we would have to win the lottery.  ;)

Did I ever get to the rejoicing part? 
Maybe Harley only needs the amount of grain that he is willing to eat at mealtime.  Can a hardkeeper get easier?  That would certainly be something to celebrate.

Buttermilk Buckskin: Changing Colors

And a ride!

Since I was absent from the barn last week, Harley's coat changes have nearly gotten away from me!  His light, cream-colored fur is being replaced by more reddish tones, which should lead to dapples on his rump and shoulders.  The new red hairs are visible along his cheek bone and behind his eye in the photo below. 

I have always enjoyed watching his color changes, but this is the first time that I have tried to document the changes gradually.  His spring transformation seems to be picking up speed!

More red hairs on his nose.  The red and cream together give him that golden look.

Can you see the star on his forehead?

Red hairs on his hip points, croup, and...

...withers.  Sometimes he almost gets bands here, but I think that is in the fall.  The lines that you see are just shadows.

Check out the black patches above the backs of his knees.  Those were not there last week!

The fronts are just about there.  I guess knee-highs are always in fashion for Harley.

A lot more light hair has left his hind legs.

The good old-fashioned grooming block is the trick for helping the short hair shed off the front of his hing leg.

This is a totally insane picture of his mane.  The "frosting" is nothing new, but has grown quite long on top of his dark mane.  The lower section is growing in for the first time since I have owned him.  This is thanks to some foal fencing that I paid for and helped put up in 90 degree weather.  I was happy to have his mane grow in, but I was even more happy to not have him contorting himself through the fence to eat grass.  I do not think that he is as happy with the arrangement.  He would rather have the grass.

"Enough pictures already!"

Sorry Harley, but just look at that blue sky.  Unreal.

We did go on a trail ride after this long never-ending grooming session and photo shoot.  He was extremely pleased to be out and about after a week of waiting around and trying to amuse himself.  Although I am still getting over the cough and I do not sound great, I am feeling better, too.  We kept the ride to lots of walking and some trotting here and there.  I tried to keep Harley slow in trot for the sake of our company (we are always faster than our company), but he was not having it.  I got to feel some beautiful lengthened trot along a sandy trail and he rounded up into an equally powerful collected trot as we navigated a winding path around trees.  The path was cut to slow horses down on the way back home.  I guess no one told Harley that!  It was very, very fun to ride in sitting trot, changing the bend around each tree and feeling him push off his hind legs.  Dressage is beneficial even to trail riding!

Once we got back to our property, I let him canter along a wide path leading to the paddocks.  He did this beautiful collected canter-right and when we approached a gentle bend to the left, he lifted up into an expression and exciting flying change.  Totally clean and totally awesome.  I did not ask him for it deliberately, but I am sure that I shifted my weight and that is all the encouragement he needs for his favorite trick.  The left lead afterward was so full of excitement and joy that I could feel the power beginning to overflow and I could see what he looked like in my mind's eye: arched neck, flared nostrils, expressively articulating knees and hocks, and flying mane and tail.  Harley may be beautiful on the outside, but his true beauty is this fire inside of him.  The desire to show off his energy and spirit.  I feel completely honored that he chooses to share it with me.