Treating foal with Adequan

[Lingkra]

Need a little advice, have had three different opinions from vets on how to continue treatment with a foal who had his joint flushed after a small cut caused an inflammatory reaction and minor infection. Foal is 8 weeks out from treatment, growing and sound with excellent x-rays.

1st vet said loading dose one month than done. (7 shots, once every 4 days for 28 days.) Up from a single shot per week for 1-2 months.

2nd vet said treat with 7 shots, once every 4 days for 28 days then a month off. And again 7 shots, once every 4 days for 28 days. Continuing like this every other month until yearling year.

3rd vet said 7 shots, once every 4 days for 28 days, and then 1 shot every month after until yearling year.

What would you do? Anyone been in this position? Are medical studies published to support one treatment vs. another? When it comes to the expense I would rather treat than have a moment of “I wish I had known this in hindsight!”

Thanks and Happy Holidays to everyone!

[mvp]

I believe that the medical literature supports the 7 shots/1x/4 days for 28 days treatment plan, only. I suppose you could do more.

But my anecdote about this: In the pre-Adequan era, I had a colt who, at 4 days old, got an infected hock. There was fibrin in it, the vet-- get this— cut it open, installed a drain and we flushed it every day. Yes folks, you read right: The hock joint on this baby horse had no fluid in it and was really, really not a sterile space.

We lay him down and flushed that joint daily for a week or so with antibiotics (and I don’t think HA as a joint levage existed yet) and then let it heal up.

The horse had a useful career and that hock was never a problem.

Crazy! And my sample size is 1. But my take-away from this is that foals are growing so fast and laying down new cells for things like joint capsules (and everything else) so fast that you might not have to worry a ton about how that joint recovers.

If you want to go in the other, expensive interventionist direction, ask your vet about the new stuff just coming out that encourages the regrowth of “correct” cartilage in joints rather than the fibrous stuff. That might be what you want in a direct, physiological sense.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

With most of my foals…I do the 7 shots every 4 days typically twice a year starting as weanlings when they have NO issues. In your case…I’d probably do 7 shots now and then again after we wean. And I continue that while they are growing.

I might also a colt like yours on Conquer gel. It is an oral HA and not expensive. I’ve had good results with it.

And most of mine get put on Rejuvenaide when old enough.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=bornfreenowexpensive;8989519]
With most of my foals…I do the 7 shots every 4 days typically twice a year starting as weanlings when they have NO issues. In your case…I’d probably do 7 shots now and then again after we wean. And I continue that while they are growing.[/QUOTE]

Wha?

In physiological terms, why do you think these babies need Adequan while they are growing?

That sounds very, very high end and/or maybe some of the big, tall WBs we are breeding now don’t do growth very well? Are you trying to prevent OCD?

I don’t mean to be critical, rather, I’m just clueless about how best to raise a foal in these modern times.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Yes…I would say I have higher end horses…and several Very Big tall WBs and 1/2 TBs…and yes, trying to prevent OCD as well as epiphysitis. In the balance of all things, the cost of a box of adequan and Rejuvenaide is really not much.

The Rejuvenaide is quite beneficial—it only gets expensive if you have to continue it in a 2- year old + which I generally only do if there was an issue. It is also NOT uncommon for high end TB farms to us Adequan. And a lot of the research was done with TBs (who are significantly more valuable as young horses than our sport horses).

I have extremely good vets and have discussed much of the research to come up with a program for my own horses. It is proven that for sport horses…use of Adequan is best if done BEFORE you have issues and they have seen long term benefits with weanlings on up. My own competition horses are also kept on a similar schedule even if they do not have an issue as we are trying to prevent issues…and it is similar with most high performance horses.

Do you NEED to do this…probably not. But for top end performance horses, it is not uncommon.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

I would say that we USED to do the once a month shot of Adequan for performance horses (after the loading dose) but more current research seems to show it is better to just do the loading dose once or twice a year. But for performance horses you do what seems to work best for the individual horse. I have one that does better on Legend more often than Adequan (no real issues but I can feel a difference in his performance).

But for my youngsters…since we are doing it as a preventative, we stick with Adequan as that is what has been tested in research.

And while I think diet is most critical (and we try to not over grain etc). Some horses just are big and grow too fast. I have two 2 year old both over 16.3 even though I was TRYING to not get so big. And the current weanling is the size of most yearlings in terms of height…even though his sire is 16H.

[mvp]

@ bornfreenowexpensive.

Thanks for filling me in! So glad to here that there are some options in the way of prevention for both boney problems. So much better to prevent OCD in particular than to try and wait for it (while spending money to feed 'em) or fix it later.

[cheektwocheek]

If I had been informed about Adequan in youngsters, I probably would have used it.

My current results…I’ve fed Rejuvenaide to my big WB X baby since day one. I did have a full set of radiographs done last week. He’s a coming 3yr old & there was nothing on 32 films.

I do swear by Rejuvenaide & and a quality well rounded diet. Also pulled blood about once a year, just to make sure he’s not lacking anything.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=bornfreenowexpensive;8989624]
Yes…I would say I have higher end horses…and several Very Big tall WBs and 1/2 TBs…and yes, trying to prevent OCD as well as epiphysitis. In the balance of all things, the cost of a box of adequan and Rejuvenaide is really not much.

The Rejuvenaide is quite beneficial—it only gets expensive if you have to continue it in a 2- year old + which I generally only do if there was an issue. It is also NOT uncommon for high end TB farms to us Adequan. And a lot of the research was done with TBs (who are significantly more valuable as young horses than our sport horses).

I have extremely good vets and have discussed much of the research to come up with a program for my own horses. It is proven that for sport horses…use of Adequan is best if done BEFORE you have issues and they have seen long term benefits with weanlings on up. My own competition horses are also kept on a similar schedule even if they do not have an issue as we are trying to prevent issues…and it is similar with most high performance horses.

Do you NEED to do this…probably not. But for top end performance horses, it is not uncommon.[/QUOTE]

“trying to prevent OCD as well as epiphysitis”

“It is also NOT uncommon for high end TB farms to us Adequan”

Interesting. I don’t think there is much if any research as to its effectiveness for this purpose.

I talked to a couple of my KY breeder friends. Managers and or farm owners. They don’t use it and don’t know any that do. That’s not say there are that do.

There are much less expensive possible “preventive treatments” . 2 meds sold under a trade name that escapes me, I think Glusosamine and something else.

I have never breed, foaled and raised the numbers that my fellow TB breeders work with in KY. Ours are not raised nor fed based on a “rocket science” feed program that is often suggested in the forum. We and most TB breeders keep it pretty simple. Have only had the odd OCD found when doing surveys on our short yearlings. Most resolve by sales time. The odd ones were easily addressed with surgery as a precaution.

It is my understanding for a while some breeders were “experimenting” with Tildren to either prevent and or resolve known OCDs. I think it was kept on the QT.

For what ever reason research seems to indicate that the use of Tildren or others of the like had a detrimental effect when used in horse under 4 I think was the suggest age.

Brittle bone development for lack of a better way of putting it.

I have only used Adequan on some horses in training. Like the OP there seems to be several different schools of thought about “loading dose” and timing and how much to give monthly.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Gumtree you are thinking of Pentosan I believe. We use that for some of the competition horses. If it works for the individual horse, it is definitely a cheaper option. But all the research on OCD prevention was down with Adequan.

The research with Conquer (an HA oral supplement) that I know of was for when an OCD lesion was found. This was done with TBs. I saw significant difference in a small sample with 3 horses who had similar lesions in the ankle removed. The two we treated with conquer post surgery had significantly less inflammation an recovered better (cleaner and tighter) than the horse not treated. It was interesting.

I had one yearling colt (now gelding) with a huge lesion in his shoulder–possibly as a result of an injury. Dean R. did surgery on him…and my vet followed up with Irap injection. Shoulder healed extremely well and follow up xrays were much better than expected and continue to improve. He should have no limitations as a performance horse.

10 years go…he likely wasn’t saveable. It really is amazing how far things have come.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Tildren is a whole different kettle of fish. Definitely much worse side affects and not something I would want to put in a young horse. It does much more with remodeling of the bones. I have use tildren on older horses…but that is no cheap and not without risk. There was a time some were trying it to see if it helped with mild KS…but at least in my experience it did not really make a difference.