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Hi all - my name is Barb Edwards.  I recently adopted a weanling mustang 
colt who's now eight months old, and I'm new to horse ownership.  He was 
bred in the wild and born in captivity.

Here's my question.  When I had the vet come out and check him, he told 
me he has epiphysitis.  The research I've done says that this is almost 
always caused by diet and is particularly common in long legged breeds 
such as thoroughbreds (everyone who's seen him has thought he was a 
thoroughbred) but my vet insists that it's his conformation that's 
causing the problem (he's back at the knee).  Does anyone have any 
experience with this?  I adopted him as an endurance prospect, thinking 
that I'll need the intervening years it will take him to mature to learn 
everything I'll need to know as well.  I went back to the rescue ranch 
this last weekend and checked out his dam's conformation - she's back at 
the knee as well, is more than 10 years old and did have a successful 
run as a "wild" mustang on the range, with all that entails, so I'm 
thinking that being back at the knee isn't exactly a death sentence for 
a wild horse (and also thinking that she had to cover many, many miles a 
day as the herd roamed over the years).

I'm feeding Dancer Junior Equine (1 lb evening feeding), a flake of 
3-way morning and night and a half flake of alfalfa in the evenings as 
well.  My vet actually originally upped the alfalfa and Junior Equine 
ration when he told me about his legs and I've backed off both since 
then to the amounts stated above (from 2 lbs junior equine and one-half 
flake of alfalfa at lunch and another half flake at dinner).

Have any of you experienced a similar situation?  My vet did say that 
he'll make an excellent trail horse in any event, but I was hoping for a 
bit more.  He wants to wait until the spring to say anything more but 
told me not to lunge him in the meantime.  There is no swelling or 
inflammation present - just the line across the knee cap where the 
growth plates are overlapping.

Thank you in advance,

Barb


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