[QUOTE=LMH;7070672]
Thanks for clarifying…I would be interested in what he was eating…not to make a suggestions (as you didn’t ask) but just for my own information.
Other common spring triggers can be vaccinations or deworming, new or different batch of hay, spring weeds, etc
Heck about anything that can create stress can trigger a response because of the change in hormone levels, etc.[/QUOTE]
Of course! I apologize in advance for the long post and I hope this isn’t hijacking the thread but I think discussing this stuff in any horse can be helpful when trying to diagnose a cause and come up with a long term remedy. “Baby horse” is an Oldenburg who I had gelded in January in case that’s of significance. He arrived at my place at 18 mos, he’s now almost 2 1/2. The abscessing occurred in March before his 2nd birthday and lasted through about the end of April.
At his old place he was on a grass hay plus pasture. I can’t tell you about the quality - I bought him sight unseen and what they sent on the van was gone when he got here. No supplements, hence the suspected (likely?) nutritional deficiency. Like I said, he was in good weight and looked well, but looks don’t tell the whole story as we all know.
He’s now on a high quality local grass hay, I really wish I had the test results handy to share. Generally local western WA hay is of lesser nutritional quality but this guy grows amazing hay. He had actually been trying to get my vet to buy from him for several years. He finally developed a crop that tested as good or better than high quality Eastern WA hay, which is generally considered far superior. Anyhow - he has free choice hay - bought last fall just before I purchased the youngster and he’s been on it since the day he arrived.
I started him on LMF Development G (NW formula) when he got here - 3lbs per feeding, twice a day (weaned onto that amount over time of course). That’s what he was on from the time he arrived through the abscess issue. I just recently (about 5 or 6 weeks after the last abscess blew) moved him over to Strategy Healthy Edge instead, 2lbs per feeding twice a day at the moment but I’m still adjusting slightly to find the right amount for optimal weight and now to account for another little growth spurt. I feed his grain with 2 or 3 pounds of soaked beet pulp pellets morning and night.
He also gets one scoop per day of Platinum Performance Equine fed with his evening grain. I started giving him the PPE about a week after he got here and he’s been on it every since. He’s now been weaned back onto the pasture and has access to the grass 24 hours a day but like I said, was still on the sacrifice area during the abscessing.
We are basically positive that his abscessing was caused by bits of sand/gravel working up into the white line - the fronts in particular were quite soft - but we think the thinness/weakness of the hoof was caused by the nutritional deficiency. What is interesting is that we had changed nothing nutritionally in the 9 months he’d been here and I can’t think of any stressors that occurred leading up to or during the chronic abscess period. He was completely fine through fall and winter on the same sacrifice area with the same exact footing. He’s also completely fine now on the same footing (he has access to the pasture but has to travel through the sacrifice area to get there and still spends a good amount of time hanging out in the sacrifice area). Didn’t do any vaccinations prior to the abscessing and no change in my worming routine. The only possibility in what you mentioned would be weed consumption if he reached through the fence and nabbed something or I guess something in the hay, but it’s the same hay he’s been getting all along. FWIW my retired horse is on the same hay and in the same turnout situation as the youngster, only difference is he’s always been on the Healthy Edge, not the Development G that baby horse was on.
I’m actually super interested to hear your thoughts. He’s been sound with no abscessing for a couple of months now but I’d love to figure out what may have caused it as we were never really able to come up with a hard diagnosis other than that my vet has seen this happen frequently in horses with deficiencies in about the same time frame.
