Common causes of weight loss in Off track thoroughbreds

Learn about some common causes of weight loss in off-the-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) in this excerpt from the book Beyond the Track.

Insufficient calories: If a horse is not receiving enough calories via a combination of roughage and grain, he will lose weight, especially as his "race-fit" muscling disappears. Over the years at New Vocations, I have found that insufficient feed is the number one cause of weight loss in adopted horses.

Parasite infestation: Horses should be dewormed every 60 to 90 days, and at the track, Thoroughbreds are on a schedule to ensure this. While you should request information regarding the horse's last deworming when you buy or adopt him, it may not be available. As a precaution, it is always good to deworm a new horse to help avoid problems with condition as you begin retraining.

Heat: In a hot climate, or during the very warm seasons, a horse that spends long periods in direct sun will burn more calories than a horse that is in a stall, run-in shelter, or in the shade. If your horse is turned out all the time, it is important to provide him a means of shelter and shade. Inside a barn, fans can be positioned to help cool hot horses.

Cold: In regions that experience extreme cold temperatures, or during bouts of cold weather, a horse that is turned out with no shelter to protect him from wind, snow, and rain, will burn extra calories as he tries to stay warm, especially if he's wet. As in areas that experience severe heat, it is necessary to provide adequate cover from the weather. In addition, horses with thinner winter coats or those in the coldest climates may benefit from a blanket or rug.

Fighting insects: Thoroughbreds hateinsects. They tend to be thin-skinned and especially sensitive to biting flies and mosquitoes, so expect the weight to "melt" off your horse if he spends too much time fighting the bugs--inside as well as out. There are a variety of products available, including sprays, wipes, masks, and sheets, that can help keep your horse comfortable. And, scheduling turnout for the least buggy time of day is recommended.

Pacing the fence: Running back and forth along the fence line obviously contributes to weight loss. This can be due to initial anxiety about being turned out, boredom, horses in neighboring paddocks, or a lack of company in one's own. I explain how to avoid or deal with this problem further in Beyond the Track.

Sickness: One indication of illness or disease is weight loss. Illness also weakens the horse's defenses against sudden changes in weather and parasite infestation, which contributes to the problem. If a horse is in poor condition and seems depressed, off his feed, or otherwise unwell, have your veterinarian examine him to rule out an underlying problem.

Teeth: Horses may have difficulty chewing and consequently digesting their food if teeth are sharp or in poor alignment. Watch the horse eat and note if he drops a lot of food out of his mouth while he chews. Other indicators of mouth discomfort can include issues with the bit, head-tossing, or poor behavior. A veterinarian or equine dentist can check your horse's teeth and "float" them--file down sharp and rough edges that may be causing problems.

By Anna Morgan Ford

Managing Carbohydrates in Your Horse’s Diet

Equisearch 


By Bill Vandergrift PhD with Elaine Pascoe

Learn how to maximize your sporthorse’s performance by managing his carbohydrate intake


Grain and forage meet your horse's energy needs by supplying a variety of carbohydrates. Understanding how your horse processes and puts them to use can help you make smart feed choices. The different kinds of carbs can be classified in several ways--by their roles in plant tissue, by the way they're digested by the horse and by the way they’re analyzed in the lab. Here are some important types:

Structural carbohydrates, such as cellulose and hemicellulose, make up the stiff, supportive cell walls of plants. They provide fiber, much of which is fermented by microorganisms in the horse's hindgut. (The term "crude fiber," used on feed labels, refers to structural carbohydrates.) Fiber is essential for the horse's gut health, and it's an important source of energy.

Soluble fibers are fermented more rapidly than structural carbohydrates. They include pectin, a component of plant cell walls that is converted into fatty acids in the hindgut. Beet pulp and soy hulls have high levels of pectin.

Nonstructural carbohydrates are the sugars and starches stored inside plant cells. They include simple sugars (glucose and fructose) and complex polysaccharides, such as starch and fructans, which form when molecules of simple sugars link up.

Starches are the main nonstructural carbohydrates in grains, legumes like alfalfa, and warm-season grasses, such as coastal Bermuda grass. Various grains contain different types of starch, some (oats, sorghum, corn) more easily digested by horses than others. Starches are broken down into sucrose and fructose and absorbed in the horse’s small intestine. If a horse consumes more starch than his small intestine can handle at one sitting, the excess spills over to the hindgut--causing a population explosion of microbes that ferment sugar and starch and setting off a cascade of events that can lead to colic or laminitis.

Fructans, which are made up mainly of fructose, are the major nonstructural carbohydrates in cool-season grasses such as orchardgrass, fescue and timothy. Fructans are not absorbed in the small intestine; instead, microorganisms in the hindgut ferment them into lactic acid. In susceptible horses, an overload of fructans may set off a cascade of events like the one that leads to grain-induced laminitis.

For horses with histories of diet-related laminitis, insulin resistance or PSSM, limiting nonstructural carbohydrate levels in feed and forage is essential. Most feed labels don't provide this data or much other information about carbs, however, and the only way find out what's in pasture and hay is to have it analyzed. Labs that do this work, such as Equi-analytical Laboratories in Ithaca, New York, use specialized tests and terms to distinguish carbohydrate fractions. For example:

• Water-soluble carbohydrates are those that can be extracted in water. They include simple sugars, sucrose and fructans.
• Ethanol-soluble carbohydrates, extracted in ethanol, are mainly simple sugars and sucrose--so a lab can determine the fructan content of forage by subtracting ethanol-soluble carbohydrates from water-soluble carbohydrates.
• Neutral detergent fiber is a measure of three structural carbs--hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin, which is not digested.
• Acid detergent fiber is a measure of cellulose and lignin; as ADF increases, overall digestibility of the forage decreases

Indelible image appaloosa stallion

Indelible image appaloosa stallion, By "The Secret"

With every breeding share:

 $1,000 will be deposited to the Promotion, Incentive, and Futurity account. It will be fully funded at $20,000. That money will be available for the syndicate members to decide how much and where we spend it. We have it before we spend it! There are no unknown surprises in the mail for added expenses. There will be an Indelible Image Futurity each year. It will be held during the World Show (similar to NSBA). Every Indelible Image foal or get in the designated classes are entered automatically. We pay back to 3 places. The first year will be current year foals. The second year will be current year, yearling halter foals and yearling longe line and Hunter In Hand. The third year; the members decide. We anticipate the payback will be $1,000 to 1st, $750 to 2nd, $500 to 3rd. You do not have to win the World Show class, but be placed in the top ten.

$1,000 will be paid back to the horse by Indelible Image with the highest number of open points at the end of the year. A minimum of 10 points will be needed to qualify. Every horse by Indelible Image will receive $100 for the first open halter point earned every year the first 5 years of the syndicate. At that time it will be decided by the shareholders. All advertising and training fees will be taken from the promotion account owned by the syndicate. Each share will be fully insured. All benefits are transferable with the sale of your Indelible Image foal.   

We want people looking for Indelible Image foals first.

Our goal is to breed good mares and reward the owners for the hard work. We are competing with ourselves and the promoting our own breeding program. If each share holder earned one point on their foals, we would move Indelible Image to the top of the leading breeders list which would be one more star on the resume for your foal. We have a very limited number of mares. The way we plan to expand the broodmare band is to offer breeding shares to a few good mare owners that share our philosophy, and want to own a part of the stallion they are promoting. We want to share the success along the way. We would love to see a crowd in the win picture!  He was test bred in 2009. He settled a mare on the first cooled semen shipment. His first foal will arrive in January 2010.  Watch the website. Let us know what you think! We think he is pretty special.

Breeding shares available for the 2011 Breeding season!

Two breedings will be available to the share 

holder the for the “life of the horse”. Of course, there are all those legal things in the “what if” category. The first year we will offer each share for $5,000. The cost of owning will be based on 20 shares. It will be minimal. Projected at $50 a month or less. That includes, vet, farrier, insurance, and promotion. All monthly fees will be deposited to the promotional account that will include training, etc. You can’t even feed a horse for that. 

The Indeliblie Image Syndicate is going to be a little more than your average syndicate. We will be a “marketing group”. We are looking for a few good breeders that share our philosophy. We have a couple of great mares that are consistent producers. We want you to own a part of the bragging rights, right up to the stallion’s name. 

Website:

http://www.anawesomesecret.com/IndelibleImage.html

Pedigree:

http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/indelible+image3

Shares available