MerryLegs, 2 years 8 months
| November 3, 2014 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
MerryLegs is looking quite….recovered.
Last week I turned her and Farley out together, figuring that MerryLegs could finally handle being pushed around exercised and be reminded of social niceties.
I think it will be awhile until I house them together again. There are both logistical reasons (medicated twice daily mashes) and herd dynamic reasons.
I really want to reduce stress/ulcers risk and promote weight gain. The latter is difficult when Farley’s hobby is to push ML around the pen. Nice to have the horses moving…..not so nice when trying to reduce the younger horse’s stress level.
I sorta wonder whether my quiet laid-back 2 year old wasn’t gaining weight as well as I would have liked over the last couple months because of low level ulcers from the stress of all the changes?
My compromise is to turn them out together regularly so that ponying remains a non-issue and I can use Farley as my secret babysitting weapon and keep an eye on the dynamics.
I have a feeling that as ML matures and gains some confidence and Farley ages more, ML won’t let Farley push her as much and a better equilibrium will occur.
Let’s take a look MerryLegs at 2 years, 8 months. More crappy cell phone pictures at weird awkward angles while ML eats her morning mash….
Her weight is finally starting to look darn close to pre-sick.
Shall I call this one “sunrise over pony” or “sunnyside up”?
It really does take as long for the weight to go back on as it did to come off – 2 weeks of being inappetent and/or critically ill, and now 2 weeks of her having a really consistent good appetite.
The muscle mass and definition is still lost, but the sacrum is smoothing out when you look at her from the side, the wings of the ilium are filling in and the sides of her hindquarters when viewed from the back are no longer concave. I’ll call that progress.
When comparing her to where she was 2 months ago, obviously this is a situation where we took 2 steps back and 1 step forward but I’m just happy to see the weight going back on and that we ARE moving forward instead of back.
So very glad to see a zoomy ML!! Curious as to whether you’re
feeding alfalfa in addition to the aloe, for gut concerns?
Also- any thoughts on CoolStance? Really made a difference
in my IR mare’s topline, and i’ve continued to feed to Willow, who doesn’t really need it right now….but- hey!winter is coming! And- she is not very cold-tolerant…
As I recall CoolStance is a dried fat supplement right? She’s getting a ton of fat right now, so don’t really want to add another fat source. I’m still seeing improvement but will definitely look at my options if things platuea and I’m still not happy with her condition. (Also, I’m having to be extra cognizant of $$ right now when it comes to the other-than-hay costs of supplementing. And with the volume of mashes/probiotics/antibiotics etc she’s recieving I’m having to prioritize).
Good point on the alfalfa. She’s not getting a ton of alfalfa. The aloe juice/pen change seems to be doing the trick and I have real concerns feeding substantial amoutn of alfalfa regularly because of the enterolith risk (and it’s not being fed at the barn right now so it would be difficult to coordinate). So, right now she’s getitng oat, grass, and a little bit of grassy alfalfa. To be honest, I don’t even know whether her not eating as well as I would have liked was even related to ulcers or not. After this is all done and she’s “recovered”, if I continue to have episodes where I feel like she’s just not diving into her feed, I will probably have her scoped and do a bit more diligence in figuring it out. Right now there’s just too many confounding factors for me to say for sure what was going on or what actually made the difference.