Ace came in with filled legs this morning, though his pulses were low and he looked fine on his feet. As a test I took him down a stony track close to home and he was completely unable to cope with it, much worse than when we tried it a few days ago. On the strength of that, I have muzzled him again tonight, with a headcollar under the muzzle to hold the clip and ring that were rubbing him away from his face. I think he was probably getting worse with the muzzle on and then improved a lot with the charcoal that held it at bay for a few days when I took the muzzle off.
Worse than that, I took Jazz down the same path, which he would normally stomp along without noticing. Although nowhere near as bad as Ace, he still did not cope with it well. I'm gutted. He has been rock crunching for over two years on that path - what's gone wrong now? He will be on charcoal from tomorrow. I should have given him some tonight but I have only just thought of it.
There are two options that I can see. One is the loss of the brewers yeast, about a month ago. Perhaps there is something in it that they really need? The other is the intermittent rain and sunshine with warmer temperatures this week.
I am going to buy Radar and Jazz muzzles tomorrow. There is no problem with Radar, but Jazz will not have a muzzle left on if Radar doesn't, and I need to feed them both together so they both need less grass at night. So that will make four masked marauders in the field!
If muzzles don't work then I will have to start soaking forage and trying to get hay from somewhere, though that's a pretty forlorn hope at this time of year after last year's poor harvest. Plus very risky to buy it not seeing where it was grown, because there is so much ragwort around this area and I have seen it cut and baled.
This is very disturbing, after having had so few problems in the last few years :-(
C
Interesting thought about the brewers yeast....I ran out of linseed meal a few weekss ago now, and there has been a marked downturn in Fidges behaviour when ridden.... I think there is definatly something in those B vits that they really need.
ReplyDeleteSounds suspiciously like the effects of the brewers yeast have worn off to me. Are you able to get any from anywhere else? I have given the haylage balancer a try previously and wasn't impressed, had better results from pink powder, although I have no idea what effect that had on Ru's hooves as I was still totally shod at that time.
ReplyDeleteThat and the grass is possibly a little stressed due to no rain earlyer in the year when it should have had it.
Oh, my, what a worry. This it one of those situations where you the blessing of all that rich grass is actually a curse. I've never really had a horse with issues like that, but I have also never had really lush pastures--even when I boarded. Grass enough to keep them occupied, but not enough to actually feed them.
ReplyDeleteI certainly hope you can sort it out sooner than later. I've no advice, just plenty of empathy and my good wishes to send your way.
"Brewer's Yeast (extract) acts in two ways - it lowers pro-inflammatory cytokines (particularly IL-8 for fellow scientists!) and increases anti-inflammatory ones (IL-10?). Secondly it prevents bacteria from binding to the gut wall (epithelium)."
ReplyDeleteThere's your answer! Now I can see why stopping the BY has had an effect. They have been without for four weeks, and this has coincided, worst luck, with a sudden 10 degree temperature rise and alternating rain and bright sunshine. The combination couldn't be worse!
Muzzles on everyone tonight!!!
C
The science came from a poster on horse and hound online, by the way.
ReplyDeleteC
:) Nice science, I hope you see a quick result bringing back the yeast, but looking at the grass, its really flushing again round here again....
ReplyDeleteAce was good today on the road. Jazz I didn't test so I don't know.
ReplyDeleteC