From: Debbie
Dear Jessica:
I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your newsletter. It is so wonderful to have someone like you out their and available for questions. I really need some advice!
I have owned horses for 20 years. In that time I have never had one like my 7 yr. old reg.paint mare with Poco Bueno and Hank-A-Chief bloodlines!!! She is lightly worked. Due to health problems with my little girl, my riding time has been greatly limited these past 3 -4 years. I grain with a sweet feed that our local coop mixes up for me. It consists of a horse pellet, cracked corn, rolled oats, and liquid molasses. I also feed alfalfa hay twice a day, plus they are out on pasture during the day.
Last fall I rode my mare pretty hard for the first time in her life. I had 60 days of professional training put on her the previous fall. With my daughter in preschool I finally had some time to try to get her working well and just trying to put some miles on a green broke 6yr old! She usually sweats up pretty easily and hasn't learned to settle down and relax while I work her yet. One night 3 -4 hours after a pretty good work out, I noticed her pacing around in the paddock. I went down to check on her and thought she was colicy. I tried to feed her apple and she took it immediately and chomped it down. It was then that I noticed the muscle twitches and spasms on the left side of her back where the saddle sits. I put absorbine on her and called the vet. He thought it was a mild colic and told me to keep an eye on her. She was fine an hour later.
Since last fall she has had these muscle spasms 3 more times, that I have noticed, in different areas and muscle groups. Twice this past spring, before I even started working her she had them in her lower gut area, just below the rib cage. I called the vet out, and he treated her for colic and tested her for worms. There was no parasite problem found. He suggested that my mare might have a Selenium deficiency. No official blood testing was ever performed. So, we started her on a vitamin supplement high in Vit. E. I thought our problem was solved. However, just today, on a cold, wet rainy evening she had another spell of cramping and spasms. This time it was in her left shoulder. I hadn't ridden her for a week and a half! You could just see the large muscle in her shoulder all knotted up in a welt and just twitching. I rubbed some DMSO into her shoulder and she came out of it within a half-hour or so. Is this a Selenium deficiency? Is there some other nutrient missing in her diet? I am scared that she might have some rare muscle disorder! Please help us! Thanks.
Debbie
He'll also probably need to run a urine test to check her electrolyte excretion. If she's lacking selenium, you can supplement it, but don't supplement it until you are CERTAIN that she needs it. Selenium toxicity is just as dangerous as a lack of selenium; overdosing selenium is just as bad as undersupplying it. TALK TO YOUR VET -- you need information and advice, and you need to have some tests performed.
If your vet isn't familiar with tying-up syndrome, ask whom he would recommend for a second opinion. No good vet will be offended by this, and you need all the information you can get so that you can do what's best for your horse. In the meantime, I can give you some ideas that may help you talk to your vet and to the second vet.
What causes tying-up syndrome? A combination of factors. It would be easy to point the finger at selenium deficiency, but any good vet will tell you that there's much more to it than that.
Diet is a factor. If your horse is fed a lot of hard feed even when she's not in work, you might want to re-think her diet. Grain is a supplement, and if your mare is in light work or no work, she might do best on a diet of hay and pasture, with access to salt and water at all times, and ONE vitamin-mineral supplement that's formulated for your geographic area. Feeding grain during rest periods -- times when the horse isn't being worked -- is considered to be a predisposing factor for tying-up.
Exercise is another factor: if a horse is not worked for some time, then is suddenly asked to work for several hours, you're asking for trouble. Sudden exercise, or sudden increases in the horse's excercise level, have also been implicated in tying-up syndrome. Horses that are insufficiently fit for the work they're asked to do will often develop this syndrome. Work has to start slowly and build up gradually so that you can condition the horse's muscles, bones, and support structures to handle the demands that you're going to place on them.
As a general rule, horses prone to tying-up syndrome seem to do best when maintained on a forage (hay and pasture) diet with free-choice salt and water, and supplements AS SPECIFIED by your vet. Optional supplemental electrolytes -- in a separate water bucket or trough -- can help, but the horse needs constant access to plain fresh water. These horses also tend to do best when they are kept on permanent turnout so that they keep moving around. When you ride, be sure to perform a slow warmup and warmdown, and avoid stressing the horse unduly during the exercise period. And be SURE to keep the exercise regular -- a long session of heavy exercise once in a while is NOT the same as short daily periods of exercise. If you can't manage more than half an hour every other day, so be it -- ride your mare for that half-hour, and turn her out for the other 23 1/2 hours. Don't try to create wet saddle blankets on occasional rides; if you take it slowly, the mare WILL learn, and then someday when you have time to ride her longer and more regularly, you'll be able to increase the distance and difficulty a little at a time, and end up with a trained and SOUND horse. I know it can be difficult to be patient, but even with a corrected diet and exercise plan, you'll always have to keep the tying-up problem in mind, and be extra-careful with this mare.
Good luck!
Jessica
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