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[RC] Mare not eating...Depressed? - Ridecamp GuestPlease Reply to: Emily Teiper eteiper@xxxxxxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================== I was hoping to get some advice on an issue I am having with my mare. Sorry, this is a bit long... Here is some background on her: She is a 10 year old Arab mare, is current on all shots, worming, and dental and has never had any health issues. She is not a real nervous horse, has had no change in environment and her personality has remained perky. She has always eaten like a pig?been a VERY easy keeper, never picky and will eat anything and a bit on the heavier side. She is out on about a ½ of an acre of paddock with horses on both sides in separate paddocks (no grass to graze on though). She is only put in a stall at night when the weather is nasty. She was moved to this location about 8 months ago. This is her second year of riding endurance (very moderate LD rides and one 50). I have started conditioning about one 4-5 hour ride/week plus a couple of 1 hour rides in the arena/week?so nothing too heavy. Problem: I have always fed her nice Eastern Oregon Orchard grass. The place where I had been getting it ran out and I was forced to buy 4 bales of local Orchard (which almost looks like straw). I finally found a new place to buy Eastern Orchard, it looks really good?no weeds, mold, smells and tastes great and all of the other horses LOVE it. Now she is REFUSING to eat any hay. I thought maybe she was just being picky, so I bought 4 different bales from different fields (and different suppliers) to try to do a taste test. She will not eat any of it except pick through some of the crappier looking local Orchard. I even had some of my other Eastern hay (from the other supplier that she was eating from before) and she now refuses that as well. She will eat her beet pulp/rice bran mixture (I feed about a ½ a coffee can of beet pulp, ½ a can of rice bran and ¼ can of Cadence once a day with a complete mineral/vitamin supplement). She will also eat alfalfa, so I just started to give her one flake a day and try to mix it up with her hay?which she just picks through. I also noticed that she has decreased the amount of water she usually drinks (about a half a bucket a day), although her pee doesn?t look too dark. I have noticed this progress over the past three weeks. Another strange thing is that she recently started eating dirt. I have tried EVERYTHING to get her to eat. I have sprinkled rice bran in it, salt in it, watered it down, fed her next to other horses, so she has to share the flakes through the fence. Last week I finally got the vet out to look at her, thinking it might be ulcers. He did an overall health check on her. She has lost some weight, and is sucked up, however, all of her health checks came back fine. Her vitals are great, mouth/teeth/jaw bones look fine and blood/fecal tests came back normal. The vet thought the eating dirt thing was from her not getting enough iron. We decided to put her on Gastro Guard assuming that it must be ulcers. She has been on it for a week, but I have not seen any significant change in her eating/drinking behaviors. It doesn?t look like she has lost any additional weight, but I thought that I would have noticed a black & white difference. The vet is now saying that it could be a mental thing with her such as depression. I bought some Red Cell Iron supplement, but I didn?t want to start giving it to her in fear of messing with her diet even more. I just can?t figure out what?s wrong with her. I haven?t been riding her since she decreased eating. Does anyone have any suggestions or seen this before? I would appreciate any ideas. Thanks so much for any help! Emily =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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