Thursday, August 28, 2008

Another Crisis Averted

This morning Freckles woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed and worrying about when his next meal was going to get there. It was hard to say no to him, but the vet made me promise not even an apple or molasses treat until after noon. Needless to say, as soon as the bell tolled at twelve o'clock, Freckles knew it was tolling for him and he dove into his food dish like he'd never seen food before. A far cry from the pitiful writhing hunk of freckled horseflesh he was just a dozen hours earlier.

I've spent most of the day today picking the brain of everyone I know that feeds a natural diet, to see what additives I can start including with his food to keep this from happening again, as well as to get some weight on him before winter sets in. We have three horses, him included, that are about 100 pounds underweight, and even though our Alabama winters are not as harsh as some (ok most) other parts of the US, we still have some pretty frigid days and nights.

One of the first things we learned when we started taking in rescues was how hard it is to put weight and muscle back on a severely debilitated horse. Our vet says we've done a good job at it, but it's taken a lot of research, a lot of work and a lot of fretting and worrying.

We have recently started getting more serious about including moistened beet pulp with our feed. Not only does this add moisture to their diet (which if you'll remember was the vet's diagnosis as to what caused poor Freckles' bad night) but it's a great source of easily-digested non-starchy fiber. Something else that keeps popping up in my quest for the ultimate weight-gain diet is fenugreek. I plan to order a pound or two and begin supplementing all of our underweight and older horses with it. I'll keep you posted on how it works for us.

One of the things that we have learned after turning our back on some of the traditional horse-keeping ideas in favor of something more natural, is that our horses stay healthier on a much lower budget than I hear some of our equine friends discussing. I purchase our herbs in bulk and create individualized diets based on plants that a horse could theoretically find in the wild where Mother Nature would point him in the right direction to choose something from nature's pharmacy to cure what ails him. Read the label on some of the diet additives you'll see in fancy tack shops and feed stores and think about what you're putting into your horse's mouth. In my opinion, I'd rather see individual leaves of herbs mixed in with our horse's grains and pellets and know what plant produced it and why it's in there, than to stir in a generic mixture of heaven-knows-what-and-why simply because it has a fancy label (and price tag).

I'm getting a shopping list prepared for my bulk herb order. We'll walk through it next time and make sure I haven't forgotten anything. Until then, happy trails!
PS: The photo is of Freckles on a trail ride, jumping across a swollen creek. His inexperienced rider almost didn't make it across with him.

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