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[RC] Selenium/Tying up - Julie FullerJeanie,Years back, I had a mare who tied up a few times, and I had a hell of a time figuring out what was going on and trying to fix it. It turned out to be a combination of things, and everyone on ridecamp helped me sort it out and fix it. (Namely Tom Ivers, Heidi Smith, and another woman who is no longer on ridecamp, but Susan Garlinghouse is the Goddess Of Nutrition, and can give you some awesome help) I'm trying to look up stuff in the archives to send to you, so I get the numbers straight. Go here to see the post, and chase threads : http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/archives/past/00/6/msg00568.html In a nutshell, she went from 75 to 60 to 99 to 49 ppb of se over the course of a couple years. I played around with oral supplements, adding Vitamin E and Methionine as well. I finally kept her at 14 mgs of se, 5000 E, and 2800 Methionine daily, AND..... I STOPPED getting her se level checked! (Too much stress on ME!) For Rayna (my mare) it was a problem with low selenium, too much grain, not enough roughage, trailer stress, and training in the mountains then riding fast on the flats. You can see from that list why it took me a while to figure it all out! Listen to Heidi when it comes to selenium....... living here in the NW, she's really up to par on that area. I found that the easiest and cheapest way to supplement larger doses of selenium without going broke was to give my horses loose sheep salt. A couple tablespoons a day. I mix it with mineral salt too.... that way they get everything, and I don't have to worry about them licking (or not licking) the blocks which are in the field. I keep FOUR blocks out there..... one plain(white), one selenium (green) one mineral (dark red) one iodized (lighter red). They still lick them, in spite of the loose salt in their feed.... and it's the plain one they lick most. ( There was a good article on salt in Equus magazine. It stated that about two tablespoons of loose salt would be a good minimum...like the RDR. More wouldn't hurt, as it is "peed out") I worked with a woman in Texas to set up a feed program for Rayna.... getting the calories she needed without resorting to so much grain. I cut her WAY back, added oil (which I have now replaced with BOSS and Flax) She was on pasture 24/7, but I added tons of hay too. I also fed her beet pulp daily..... I figured the roughage and water was a good idea at rides, where she couldn't always graze as much as at home, but didn't want to change her diet just at rides. I packed it with me on training rides, fed it to her o the trail, and back at the trailer too. (Can you say "covering all the bases"? (Or maybe just being obsessive? *grin)) I was never sure if this had anything to do with anything at the time, but I also did a 5 day purge on her, then wormed her with Quest from then on...... Made an ENORMOUS difference in her weight! I visited with Tom Ivers quite a bit (he lives not far from me) I used his Carbo Charge stuff.... on hard training rides, and at races. I hauled Rayna loose in the trailer, except for VERY short hauls, (say 30 minutes) If I hauled her with other horses, she rode backwards.... I have a three horse with NO partitions... those horses rode every which way, switching places as they saw fit! I never knew who'd be where when I went back to take a look. I diversified my training rides to include more fast cantering, as well as fast trotting on FLATS. Rayna was used to working exclusively on hills, and I think this created a lot of muscle fatigue for her on the flat fast ride as she simply wasn't used to working that way. She had TONS of training miles, but it was ALL hills, rocks, mud, water, logs, etc. Training like that means she was constantly changing gaits, speeds, tempo and leads. On a flat fast ride, you go maybe two speeds... fast trot, fast canter, and there is nothing to break it up. It was a huge difference for her. So, you can see that there IS no simple "one size fits all" cure for dealing with this. It takes time, and detective work. In the end, I prevailed, and had an awesome season on Rayna, which was MY goal to meet before heading to TEVIS the following year. I didn't get to go..... I lost Rayna to a serious hoof puncture, and had to put her down. Seemed quite an injustice after all we'd been through, and all the miles we'd shared over the course of our five plus years together. I'm still looking for a horse to replace her...... DON'T give up! Read everything you can get your eyes on, both in the archives and on the web. Ask everyone for opinions. Do your homework.... only you know your horse. Good Luck, Jeanie, And my best wishes go with you Julie ============================================================ They're athletes! This is a partnership between horse and rider - we don't have any jockeys out there, just pals and partners. We'd allow a rider with a broken foot, a sore back and a nasty cold to compete - but we would never let a horse in a similiar condition hit the trail. ~ Dr. Barney Flemming DVM ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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