No matter how badly I wrote that post, it is obvious if read in its entirety that I am asking questions including the amount of hay. 10 pounds was a random number I threw out there just like 2 pounds 4 quarts
If others grabbed on to that, that is on them and you.
I have been nice and only asking questions and voicing my concern over Honey.
My pearls have been put away in the jewelry box for years
Right - I was not accusing you of saying something mean. What the poster asserted was “if it is true that honey is getting 10 lbs of hay”, which is what another poster ALSO said, and I searched the whole thread to find any mention of 10 lbs, and found only your post, which is where THEY got it.
That was the correction that I made - I said “it’s in Maria’s post”. Which it was.
That’s EXACTLY what I’m talking about. The OP shouldn’t have to say “I’m not feeding 10 lbs of hay” because someone misinterpreted a post. Because then the COTH hive-mind would say “oh now you’re being defensive” and on and on it goes.
It reminds me of high school. One person would say “did you hear that so and so did x” and the next thing you know, the rumor mill has the person sleeping with the whole football team. It’s not good and it’s rampant on the internet.
OP is a beginner - I wouldn’t expect her to catch it. If I could tell you how many things vets have missed in PPEs with the horses that I’ve seen over the last 30 years, I could fill a book.
The latest was a horse whose hocks were 100% fused as a 6 year old. Vet who did the PPE completely missed it. Horse was given to me as unrideable and about to be put down. And this was a very expensive sporthorse vet. I certainly didn’t fault the owner for being uncaring because she’d been riding the horse. I took the horse in and as it turns out, he’s fine. Hocks are fused. No pain. Horse is a pain in the rear and has some behavioral issues from being worked in pain for awhile, but he’s cleared now.
Let me see if I got this right - It is OK to ignore that this horse is not improving because the owner is a beginner and there are other situations in the world that the horse is less loved and more poorly taken care of - Is that what you are saying on purpose?
I have no doubt that the OP LOVES this horse. That is very clear. It is also very clear that this is a very sweet horse.
Something simply needs to change. Because Honey is not thriving yet.
Many many years ago I had brought back two mares who were in worse shape than Honey.
It took TIME. It took a lot of patient riding at the walk at first, A LOT OF WALKING.
It took a lot of grain–oats, corn, and alfalfa pellets for the one I owned. The one I did not own, the barn owner upped her feed situation as the mare got better.
These were literally throw away horses who lucked out by ending up being owned by people who were willing to go out of their way to help them.
It took TIME. A LOT OF TIME.
IF I had tried to fatten up either mare in 90 days the mares would have foundered. If I had tried to feed either mare enough to build a “satisfactory” top line in 90 days the mares would have foundered (note that the blacksmith said Honey’s hooves showed signs of previous foundering.)
The improvements first show up in the horse’s eyes, at the point that the horse is convinced that she was not going to starve to death with the mare I owned. After the eye change it still took TIME. And the mares I had this experience with were Arabians, and I imagine it would have taken a lot more TIME to get an ASB with a decent coating on her ribs and more muscle on her back.
My fear is that the next person with this problem will read the whole thread here and end up foundering their poor horse because people on-line want instant changes, like overnight, presto, miracle, look what I did! type of thing.
It takes TIME to bring a horse back from near starvation, and lots and lots of good feed over MONTHS, many MONTHS, not just 90 days.
Okay but that’s… not what that post said. If you quote the whole thing:
Italics are mine. @Sdel was saying maybe the posters questioning the vet have a basis for such questions. These are the same people who’ve been accused of being mean, and also being told to hush and leave everything alone since there’s a vet on hand.
Maybe if we are going to go back and forth about tone, intent, and reading comprehension, we should read the whole post and quote the whole post for clarity. At least on this thread.
The knowledgeable and experienced people here have not endorsed a quick turnaround. They have said the would expect more change in a 90 day period. They have advocated for the slow track and acknowledge it takes time. They/I say there has been no change in weight in the 90 days and feel there should be some change for the better
Everyone here wants only the best for Honey and the OP. Facts and advice given from people with decades of experience are not “claws.” Whether one wants to hear or accept the advice is on the person receiving it.
No one was asking for justification. People need to know what the horse is getting in order to provide feedback on what needs to change in the horse’s diet in order to see some improvement in the horse’s condition.
After three months, she needs a second opinion on the whole program she has this mare on. It is not working. Period. Any vet who told me to ride this mare, at any pace, would be losing a client.
Not claws. Just advice from someone with 50 years of experience with horses.
Yes. Exactly. If there was a PPE, why did the vet miss all of these physical things like arthritis, teeth issues, club foot/possible founder, etc that are now having to be worked through? Is that not the point of having a PPE done, to identify possible concerns before you buy them?
For the record, the physical condition of the horse, the comments about possible founder, and the pickiness about feed make me think PPID at a minimum. I also suspect Honey is a lot older than 14.
And brief personal history that colors my thinking. I had a mare with a health crisis that left her in comparable condition as Honey. My attempts to ride her, even for just 10 minutes of easy walk to help build muscle, clearly affected her neurologically. The weight of a rider, even with a well padded saddle, was enough to compress her spine and affect her balance. Aka: she was clumsy, accident prone, and unable to find her feet for up to a week after each little ride and she acted a lot like Honey is described as acting at the mounting block.
Ok, but maybe you didn’t understand what I was saying either.
No one is saying hush - I certainly didn’t say it. What I am saying is to be gentle. The owner is doing what her vet told her. Internet strangers are, to her and others’ reading, including my own, very harshly telling her something different and accusing her of being unkind, demanding amounts of feed etc.
It all has tone. Which is why the accusation of the 10lbs of hay started to run. A person trying to be kind would say “oh, that couldn’t be true, I suspect it’s not”. A person who wants to say “see, Honey is being treated poorly” spreads the rumor.
Similarly with the vet - I can see why someone believes their vet. After all, it’s someone with a degree. Heck, I have battled trainers who “trusted their farrier” and had my horse’s heels so contracted in two shoeings that took months to fix.
Again - it is not any of the advice that I am arguing about. It’s the tone. It’s the pile on. It’s the insistence that she has something to hide. That kind of thing indicates to me that posters are not being as well-meaning as they purport.
Regarding PPID, it’s a definite possibility. And I also suspect that she is an older mare. I appreciate the color of your thinking - our own personal experiences all color how we react to things. That’s what makes this whole horse thing hard. We all have such vastly different experiences that make us think this is one way when it could be completely another. (And I’m sorry about your mare)
A for instance from my recent experience, we have a horse here who is a late twenties thoroughbred (not mine). I have tried to feed this horse using every trick in the book. I’m rotating feeds, I’m feeding him pellets and high calorie feeds and corn oil and everything I can possibly throw at him. He is free-fed hay. One day he eats, the next day I can’t get anything in him. It’s the most frustrating thing as a barn owner I can possibly face. I personally think it’s time for him to go to the light, but his owner isn’t facing that possibility.
His top line is crap. His butt, omg it’s horrible. I worry every day that someone is going to accuse me of not feeding this horse but I have a ton of other horses that I’m fighting to get weight off of, so that makes me feel a tad better.
I don’t think that’s the same as Honey’s situation, but he’s the first horse I’ve cared for in 35 years that I cannot get weight on, and it makes me sick. Heck - I put weight on the 47 year old totally toothless, blind horse more easily than this one (whose owners did finally euthanize, but not until the dang horse was falling over).
If I don’t couch things kindly and carefully, the horses are liable to never ever get the care they need. People don’t react well to strong statements. They do react well to genuine concern, which I have seen some of in this thread, but I’ve also seen piling on behavior. Which is what I was addressing.
It’s funny really that a bunch of you think piling on is going to help Honey. It won’t. OP needs support and guidance. No that doesn’t mean only cheerleading. It does mean stop calling her cruel. That’s what bothered me. Everything after that was self righteous keyboard indignation. And you wonder why she left this thread?? Educate. Educate Educate. Without the preachy crap.
Ask for info. Educate. If you think you can jump on the OP and expect her to listen you’re a fool.
Stop trying to be right. Help this OP. Jeez.
How exactly in this situation? We’re on the internet. We only have words with which to apologize. If anyone of us were geographically close to OP, many would probably pop over to see what they could do to help in person. That is not the case, thus words.
How can we educate someone who is refusing to share what the current program (which doesn’t appear to be working) actually is so that people can educate about where their experience suggests something can change?
Every suggestion has been met with “I’m already doing that” (or some variation of that which isn’t actually the same thing) so what exactly is anyone supposed to do here?
The tough love starts when someone isn’t receptive.
Nobody expected the horse to be obese in 90 days. But some change should be evident, no founder required.
This is the first pearl-clutching I’ve seen in this thread. People have apologized where appropriate, people have offered many sound recommendations, everyone wishes Honey and OP well.
Now can we please stop critiquing the input and intentions of others on the thread? It’s exhausting.
The words were rather empty. Changing cruel to unkind really didn’t change the meaning.
What about helping to calm the other people who jumped on the bandwagon and continued to pile on?
What about saying, I know you weren’t trying to be unkind or cruel and that you’re doing your best with the information you have, but I’m suggesting that maybe it isn’t best?
I mean - those are words too, yes, but the intent is so different!
You’re welcome to not participate in a conversation you find distasteful. But it seems that you feel called out. Perhaps you should evaluate that.
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