One of my mares has been dropping weight very very quickly in the past few weeks. She is an Arabian and will be turning 21 in a couple of weeks. I have had this mare for many years and she has always been an easy keeper to the point of being obese when on mediocre pasture and no grain. In the past 2-3 weeks she has gone from having a nice layer of fat over her ribs with a nice topline to a prominent backbone with ribs visible and her hips are becoming prominent. Her flank area is very sunken looking. She has been wormed regularly, is not dropping feed and eats everything in front of her.
Over the winter she has had 20 lbs of russell bermuda hay a day along with 3 pounds of beet pulp/safechoice/BOSS mix which is divided into two feedings daily. In the past few weeks, I have been switching the feed mix to ultium and beet pulp. There is some grass in my pasture, but not enough to really count for anything. I have my other two horses on a similar diet. The one that is working gets more ultium but that is the only difference. They look fine.
The vet will be coming out, I was wondering if any of you had experience with horses doing this and if there any special tests I should have him run on her.
Thanks!
Mel
Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. Play now!
