Then we went about life. But life this spring got messy... Ben went through a few turnout situations then ended up at JT's where he tried a few more turnout situations and then ended up solo again. But solo at JT's is in a field that borders multiple other fields, all of which are fairly small, so he wasn't ever too far from other horses. Watching him solo, he would sometimes stand at the fence line nearest to another horse and sometimes he'd walk the fence once or twice. But generally he looked pretty settled. Since he had horribly sore feet and was living at JT's, he got on trailers a lot less, but compared to his baseline of zero, got a lot more NSAIDs. He spent a bit more time without forage; he usually spent 3-4 hours in the stall after finishing morning hay, before getting afternoon hay or getting turned out. He ate a lot more preserved forage (hay) vs more grass at the GY's.
So how did this all shake out? Well, over the past two months I'd noted he was cranky about belly lifts again. And this month I was going to run out of the ReSolvin EQ. We scoped him again, and things were... Okay... He had "a lot of acidic foam" and a few grade 1 in the lesser curvature under the acidic foam. His vet described that as enough to give him a painful heartburn feeling.
Plan this go round is two weeks of 1/4 tube of GG to reduce acid and then changing him to Hagyard Relyne-GI. In a shuffling of horses, Ben is also moving back up to the GY's, but will be full time with Ms. GY's 25 year old guy who he absolutely adores. He'll be hauling more, if he can stay sound, but hopefully with a few more shake ups in my friend group he rarely will trailer solo.
Ugh we have constant battles with ulcers too. Mae (ottb) is permanently on omeprazole unless we find another place for the horses that has proper turnout :(
ReplyDeleteUgh. It's such a struggle!
Deletepoor Ben... sounds like the new plan is solid and hopefully will help him have less stress. i've kinda come to the conclusion that beyond a certain point, so much of the success in training and in the show ring is basically a question of mgmt in the barn. gastric support, i'm convinced, is just a necessary component for the show horse. i've never scoped charlie, so everything i know is kinda anecdotal (or based off other horses i know who have gone through more formalized diagnostics processes), but i basically just assume we're gonna be treating 1-2x a year, as needed. new horse will 100% be getting a month treatment basically fresh off the trailer too.
ReplyDeleteIt's so hard to choose the maintenance product! I definitely don't mind the occasional treatment with the GG or using it when showing and shipping, but I wish there were a clear choice for prevention.
DeleteMy vet scopes for about a third the cost of a month of GG, so I find it well worth looking before spending the month of board money.
I hope he's feeling better again soon! I'm at the end of month two of treatment and she's feeling good but I think I'm giving myself an ulcer worrying about hers recurring :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, me too! It's such a pain figuring out the prevention part of things.
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