Cob Jockey

While Aeres was at our barn, she had Connor's stall in the center of our 7 stall barn. When Connor came home, he went into the open stall at the end of the barn, across from a big warmblood fellow that Aeres positively hates. Like, she won't eat if he's somewhere she can see him, and she's broken the crossties after he pinned his ears at her. So obviously Aeres can't go into the open stall across from him.

Exhibit A: Aeres, with food in her stall, turned around to the corner facing away from this guy and not eating as long as he was in the crossties. For what it's worth, their only interactions have been in the crossties and he's never done anything to her!

I've left Connor in the open stall since she's been at Purdue, but I've been itching to move him back so I could hang a new hay feeding solution. Tired of the ulcer rollercoaster, I started him on a small hole haynet hung low (he doesn't wear shoes), knowing that when he got into his usual stall I would hang it on the frame I bought for it.

A couple of Friday nights ago though, someone finally hung it too low, and this happened (thankfully while someone was standing right there to free him, so it's okay to laugh at this picture, I know I did):

"Well, okay, this is my life now I guess."

Knowing after that that I needed to get his permanent/safe solution mounted, I superstitiously reasoned that if I moved Connor back into his old stall, maybe Aeres would make a miraculous recovery and come home from Purdue so I'd have to shuffle the ponies all over again. (She's able to eat a tiny bit of food as of Saturday, so maybe??)

So two Saturdays ago, my barnmate stripped Aeres' stall for me (she says she loves stripping stalls and I wasn't going to argue!) and then I proceeded to bleach the entire thing.

We're positive what Aeres has isn't contagious, but also you can never be too careful. And it looked pretty darn good after cleaning. Scrubbing doors and the outsides of waterers are things that don't get done much around here given our sort of co-op, sort of full board model we have going on.

The Nelsons clean up good! The "before" is the backwash from Aeres being unable to swallow food and then trying to drink 😥

Finally, the following day, I hung Connor's new hay feeder in his old/new stall. It's the Freedom Feeder day net on their rolling wall-mounted frame. My hope is that it will be easier on his teeth than the Savvy Feeder was (if he didn't also need a hard plastic muzzle, the SF would be fine, but I'm just anxious about what amounts to probably 18-20 hours a day of plastic against his teeth during the growing season), and this will also allow him to eat in a relatively normal head down position.

Loading position

Full position

So far, so good! The barn staff absolutely loves it and wishes all the horses had one of these - although for the guys with shoes, if they hung them high enough to be out of foot range, I'm worried I'd need a ladder to fill them!

And now my little buddy is back where he belongs, where he can see me coming through the door and nickers at me immediately <3

Let's talk about something happier, like a f****** miracle ulcer supplement I put the ponies on last month and want to tell the world about.

After I successfully treated Aeres for ulcers when she first got here in September, I immediately put her on Purina Outlast as a preventative/acid buffer.

But so slowly I almost didn't notice it was happening, Aeres started to get more and more jumpy. I put her on Nexium again, but it didn't have the same effect this time, and when she almost broke the crossties in mid-January because Mary petted her softly on the shoulder, I started looking for something else. Alice's trial was coming up, and I wanted her to try the real Aeres, not the in-pain Aeres.

(Also: I briefly tried doing UG with her but holy hell this horse is awful about getting paste shot into her mouth. Even at Purdue, the resident wryly told me it takes 2-3 people to get her GastroGuard into her daily right now! So yeah, that was not an option for my solo barn manager to do.)

Can't stop looking at 'before' pictures, ugh

 

Then I found a post on COTH titled "Newer" Liquid Gut Supplements, which led me to a peer-reviewed study by Hagyard (hip hip hooray!) on the efficacy of a "polysaccharide gel containing a blend of hyalruonan and schizophyllan" on gastric ulcers.

Their conclusion:

Our study reveals that a polysaccharide blend of 240 to 480 mg high-molecular-weight hyaluronan and 60 to 120 mg of schizophyllan administered daily for 30 days demonstrates ulcerative healing. Of the horses treated, 90% showed complete resolution and/or improvement in ulcerative areas, increased appetite, weight gain, and positive behavioral changes. Our study suggests that a polysaccharide blend represents a novel means to enhance gastric healing in the active horse. Additional investigations to further elucidate these findings and determine optimal protocols are warranted.

Not just symptom mitigation, but healing. One COTH reply from a commenter I respect noted "half a dozen" friends that started their horses on one of them with "really good and quick results, like a couple days". Quick results sounded good - I was desperate with Alice's visit just days away, so I ordered whichever of the three supplements on the market with these ingredients could get to me quickest, which ended up being Vitalize Alimend.

We started seeing a positive behavior change in Aeres within 12 hours of receiving her first dose on a Monday morning, and by Wednesday, she was a completely different horse, like, I was gobsmacked by her turnaround in just 48 hours. The barn staff texted me, "WOW that liquid stuff is working!" By that Friday when Alice tried her, she was back to her normal, soft-eyed, not-jumpy, no-ulcers self. 

Aeres 2 days after we started VA. I sent this to Mary and was like "Look at how soft her EYE is!!!" She had not been this soft and relaxed in a month.

 

She got one pump (which is 1oz) at morning and evening feeds, top dressed over her grain right at the time it's fed, which is both a pain in the ass and very important. It's an extremely viscous liquid and it needs to be in that form in order to be effective, not dried out (or frozen - must be stored at room temperature) because it works to coat the stomach. I reached out to the manufacturer for an official comment about how it works:

Yes, it has a high concentration of MHB3 Hyaluronan that gets passed to the stomach and works to coat the stomach’s lining. It does not buffer the stomach acid or hinder digestion. Many other products that do this actually can negatively affect the gut and interrupt normal absorption and digestion of feed (leading to gastric flare-ups or colic). Additionally, MHB3 is the only proven HA to have these gastroprotective properties due to its high molecular weight and high concentration.

 

Unlike PPIs such as UG, GG and Nexium, it's safe to leave a horse on this forever, although you can of course take them off of it as soon as the ulcers are healed. And while it may seem expensive when you drop ~$200 on a jug of supplement, considering a round of GG is four figures, $200-$400 for 1-2 months of this starts to not seem as expensive in comparison. Also, the manufacturer says it's safe to feed this alongside PPIs if you're wondering.

Fun fact, my bio major mom applied for a job here when she and my dad lived in St. Joe right after getting married

On my recommendation, one other blogger has tried this on her horse that definitely has ulcers with the same miraculous results (and a complete turnaround back to his ulcery self when the BO forgot his VA for a day!), while another blogger that was just guessing hers might have ulcers tried it and didn't see much change. I put Connor on it too just because I could, and also didn't see much change, but then again, he JUST got treated for ulcers at CGPs, so without active ulcers it probably doesn't do much for them. But I'm definitely keeping this on hand to feed before and after travel and to treat ulcer flare-ups in the future.

Bottom line: Where has this been all my life? No worrying side effects and it makes the horse immediately feel better, PLUS can actually treat ulcers for a fraction of a round of GG? I'm kind of in love with this supplement.

What: Vitalize Alimend (although Gut-X and Relyne-GI have the same active ingredients and should work the same way)

Price: VA is $157.87 for a one month supply for one horse at the maintenance amount before discounts at SmartPak, and that's middle of the road for the three supplements with Relyne-GI being the most expensive. I pay $149.98 after USEF and auto-ship discounts, and did not see a need to give the "high stress or exertion" dose, which would make this a 14 day supply. They also have a gallon bottle (2 months) which is slightly cheaper per dose.

Where: Smartpak

Disclaimer: I like this product so much I probably sound like a shill, but rest assured I am spending my own hard-earned hundreds of dollars per month on it and have received nothing from the manufacturer. Opinions are my own.

After she had had him for a couple of weeks and had really gotten to know him, CGP said she thought he might have ulcers, and asked if I was okay with her vets looking at him. She had gotten to know his baseline anxiety level and theorized that his mouth issues may have started with/may be related to ulcer-related pain. Of course I said yes, heck, upending his entire life and putting him in training is enough by itself to warrant a round of treatment. 

Still wearing his borrowed drop

 

I was expecting a scope for diagnosis, but the vet more suspected hindgut ulcers which can't be scoped, and he used the Succeed fecal test to diagnose them. I had never heard of it, and I have since learned that there are mixed reports on its accuracy, but it's cheap ($40ish) and doesn't hurt anything. Per the test, Connor ended up being a "strong positive" for hindgut ulcers (which he's never been treated for), which present differently in this test than foregut ulcers (which he has been treated for).

The vet recommended 2 weeks of omeprazole/misoprostol paste and 2-4 months of either Sulcralfate or misoprostol. I had only ever heard of sulcralfate to treat hindgut ulcers before, so CGP explained the differences to me and that she prefers misoprostol to sulcralfate for significant hind gut issues because there's evidence it's more effective - also more expensive, but the treatment length tends to be shorter than with sulcralfate. 

 

Like most equine scientific studies, the studies aren't the strongest things in the world, but they do exist and they support what she said (also three cheers for ACTUAL SCIENCE existing at all on this) so I told her to go ahead. He was on days 3-5 of treatment the weekend I took him home, and he was chill as could be all weekend and ate a literal record amount of hay on the trailer, so, so far so good?

It will be interesting to see if this changes anything, but one way or another, it's a good step to take for a generally anxious fellow.

I haven't been able to walk into the barn this week without people telling me what a change they've seen in Aeres already. "She is SO much calmer!" the BM said when she saw me last night.

"Ulcer meds, man," I said. I started her on generic Wal-Mart brand esomeprazole last Thursday, and by Saturday, there was a softness to her eye that hadn't been there before. The edge visibly started to come off her generally anxious demeanor.

Awwww look, she's starting to develop a cookie face...

...for no reason whatsoever, why do you ask?

By Sunday, when Mary rode her for the first time, she was stunned at the difference in her personality since she had last seen her the previous Wednesday. She's still the same reactive-but-not-stupid mare, but the general low-grade anxiety is gone. At least on the ground. Under saddle, anxiety will be a work in progress for a long time to come, I think.

Mary making her look good while me and baby Annie watch in the background

I started working on both her underdeveloped butt muscles and on her brain by taking her into the front pasture for hill work on Monday evening. Almost entirely at the walk.

Horses are back on day turnout, so after 5pm we can play on this big hill in one of the turnouts. It also gave me a nice, safe contained space to see how she'd react "out in the open."

I gave her 10 or so minutes on flat ground at the walk to warm up, and it was then that I finally felt her voluntarily slow her warp-speed anxiety walk. It became more of a panther-like stroll, and it was the first time I felt her relax under saddle, even a little.

Turning around to sniff my foot and ask why we stopped

 

Our first time up the hill, she tried to ping pong back and forth to make it easier on herself, and after I quickly shut that down and told her to go straight up the hill, she thought it was less fun:

lol, feelings

But she still clearly enjoyed it much more than being in the arena, and was an absolute star, even when cars and motorcycles zipped past, and the neighbor's English Mastiff came straight up to the fence and barked its head off at her. Curious to see how she'd handle that, I let her turn toward it, and she just stared at it with her ears up and without moving a single muscle. This...this I like!

Hopefully we can get out to some real trail rides soon, I think she'd be great at it.

When we last left off in my saddle fitting saga, I had decided to move forward with the Eq Saddle Science flapless Dressage, knowing that I would #1 take an extended trial of it, and #2 request a second trial saddle, this time the blocktester version.



The blocktester version exists to do exactly what it sounds like: allows people to test blocks of different sizes and shapes in various positions on the knee roll area.  It comes with three sets of blocks, and they're going to be adding a fourth in January 2020.

This saddle is an older model compared to the trial one, and it's a 17.5" instead of a 17.  Which...




...I gotta be honest, I'm digging.  And not (entirely) because I've finally gotten serious about hitting the gym consistently over the past two months and gone up a pant size since the saddle search began.  (Far more importantly, I tied my all-time back squat PR from four years ago this week at 175 lbs/115lbs body weight and my workouts are starting to feel easier!  Bring on the booty!)

And had a huge breakthrough in snatch biomechanics

I scheduled the blocktester to where I'd ride in it for both of my trainers - my home trainer tonight, and then I have back to back weekend lessons scheduled with my GP trainer this weekend before she leaves to winter in Florida.  And Jan is coming too!



The one thing that's going sideways right now is Connor.  My trainer has noticed it too, he's not lame, but he's unusually reluctant under saddle currently, both in terms of forward, relaxation and just general balance.  I don't think this is saddle related because he feels the same for my trainer in her saddle as he feels in my jump and the flapless, and he's not palpating sore at all.

We did this remote saddle fitting outside for cell signal reasons and Connor was like "...why?"

My best guess is that he's had an ulcer flareup, since he's been increasingly girthy over the past couple of months - with all types of saddles - and he's started spooking at nothing again too.  Either way, Carmi, the owner of Eq Saddle Science that has been doing all of my fittings, is encouraging me not to buy until I have some amazing rides again, so I can be 100% sure I'm making the right choice for both of us, which I totally appreciate.

For the first time ever (really), I was able to be at the barn for Connor's spring shots this year, which meant I got to pepper my vet with questions.  My vet is an eventer herself, so she's a great person to interrogate about the care and keeping of sporthorses.

One of my questions was about ulcers.  I told her how I had seen great results a couple of years ago when I treated him with Nexium, but that the symptoms had slowly crept back since then even though I've had him on a preventative this whole time - primarily head tossing and a worried look back while girthing, and unease under saddle.


I also told her about how a distant relative living the best life a horse could ask for had been asymptomatic for ulcers until it was too late - that's not at all to say Connor's relatives are predisposed to ulcers, just that the Welsh Cobs I know are generally very stoic compared to other breeds, so staying on top of things even when the symptoms seem minor is important to me.

I will take any excuse to repost this GIF.

My vet recommended doing 1/4 tube once a day of Ulcergard for 30 days and not scoping, partially because I had seen results with the Nexium.  I trust her so I didn't question that, but I did go online and do some more research into the quarter dose recommendation - would it treat the ulcers or just provide temporary relief?

That led me to a published study that compared the effectiveness of 3 different doses of omeprazole on 60 racehorses with clinically diagnosed ulcers.  (Yay legit science about horses!)  The conclusion was:

The results of this study suggest that, under the conditions studied, where omeprazole is administered before exercise and following a brief fast, doses of omeprazole as low as 1 mg/kg bwt per oss.i.d. may be as effective as higher doses. The proportion of glandular ulceration that heals with 28 days of omeprazole therapy is less than that of squamous ulceration.

TL;DR: If you give a quarter dose of omeprazole on an empty stomach, it may be just as effective as a full dose at treating non-glandular ulcers.

Success and failure rates of healing (as opposed to just improvement, which they measured separately) at various doses for the two different types of ulcers

To be sure, this is not enough of a study to draw definitive conclusions from, and there are some major differences between what I'm doing with Connor and what they did, the biggest of which being that they treated with enteric coated omaprazole (pop rocks) and I'm treating with a paste.  But he has to get his 1/4 tube at some point in his day, it may as well be first thing in the morning before he eats if there's even a shred of science behind that timing.



So far he's three weeks in and I've noticed a major reduction in attitude when I girth him up, and more relaxation under saddle, so we're doing good so far!  The true test will be whether or not symptoms return quickly after we taper off though.

One day about a month ago, I was walking around the barn and realized Connor was the only one without a haynet.

Now, I'm not going to get him a haynet just to fit in with the crowd, but given his probable successful ulcer treatment, I would like him to have hay in front of him for longer than it currently lasts. 

But...I don't like haynets.  In fact I would say I hate them.  It's just a personal thing.  I don't like the angle horses hold their heads at to eat out of them.  I don't like that you can't hang them low enough for optimal respiratory system health.  I don't like that they're rope, since Connor's gotten himself caught in one before.  And I really don't like filling them myself or asking the barn staff to fill them.

Haynets in trailers are a necessary evil though.

So I started looking into alternatives that would slow him down but allow him to eat as naturally as possible, with the enthusiastic blessing of my trainer (anything to cut down on hay waste!).

I did a ton of research before settling on one, and thought I'd use this blog post to help guide others looking for the same type of product.

High Country Plastics Slow Feeder Saver Jr

Product: High Country Plastics Slow Feeder Saver Jr
Cost: $189
What I liked: Easy to fill, nylon webbing, cheaper than others, good reviews, seemed durable, designed to be strapped to the wall
Why I passed: Reviews were overall fantastic but there was one thorough review that completely turned me off, saying horses ended up getting their noses through the generous webbing openings and scratching their faces.  One review also said the edges of the box were sharp from the molding process.  Several reviews mentioned that it was a great hay saver but not a good slow feeder.

Porta-Grazer

Product: Porta-Grazer XL
Cost: $259
What I liked: Easy to fill, plastic "lid" instead of nylon webbing, overall good reviews, you can either strap it to the wall or the horse can roll and play with it if they want (Connor would)
Why I passed: Horses have to stick their head all the way into the cylinder to get to the end of their hay, and several reviews said they noticed horses not finishing their hay because they didn't like that.  One also said the inside of the tube got hot and humid in the summer and her horses developed skin funk on their faces.

HayLo

Product: HayLo Horse Feeder
What I liked: It's similar to the Porta-Grazer but seems overall better designed and is slightly wider, hopefully eliminating some of the issues with the PG.
Why I passed: Doesn't ship to the US!

E-Z Feeder

Product: Health E-Z Hay Feeder
Cost: $37.95
What I liked: Leah loves it! You can hang it from the ceiling to really slow them down, the price can't be beat, easy to load hay in
Why I passed: Although the manufacturer says it can be mounted as high or low as you want, I didn't like the idea of it on/near the floor.  I am considering getting one for my trailer though.

And finally, the one I decided to buy:



Product:  Savvy Feeder
Cost: $299 (I paid $235.64 + shipping with a 14% off coupon and by buying a "factory 2nd w/minor scratches")
Why I bought it: I scoured the internet and could not find a single negative review for this one.  It ticked all of my boxes: won't scratch his face, won't damage his teeth, allows him to eat with his head down, slows him down, and won't make him put his face in a dark tube to eat.  It's also easy to load.  Bonus, it's light enough to travel well.

Tomorrow I'll review how the Savvy Feeder's working out for us.

A long while back, Karen wrote about putting Hampton on Nexium.  I got curious and started to look into it myself.

I've always wondered if Connor might have ulcers.  He's a nervous dude. He's also a stoic dude - I've seen many horses complain over far less than he'll put up with when it comes to discomfort.  He's always looked a a bit uncomfortable when I do up the girth, and then there's that constant quirky spooking.

"This horse is a worrier!" was the first thing JLC said when he saw Connor's face at that clinic.

After seeing the difference in Hampton with my own eyes, I discovered a huge thread of people on COTH that had similar good results with it.  The active ingredient in Nexium, Esomeprazole, is a Proton Pump Inhibitor (PPI) just like Omeprazole (the active ingredient in Gastroguard), and a whole treatment would cost me $43.  I decided to try it.



I put him on a course of three Nexium Clear Mini's every morning (so 60mg of esomaprazole) for one month in September/October.  I chose Clear Mini's because they're the smallest Nexium pills available, and ideally you want these to survive whole into the stomach.  I figured they had the best shot at making it without being chewed.



Within just a few days, I saw a big difference in him.  He no longer flicked his ears back and raised his eyebrows when I did up his girth.  And his whole demeanor just got more relaxed - he actually walked flat footed through the open field and stopped teleporting sideways after seeing invisible monsters when we went past the open doors of the indoor.

December 2016, still hilarious.  This has been this horse's MO as long as I've known him.  He was spooking at the tiny green light from the Pixio beacon that he'd gone past dozens of times at this point.  You can even see his ears slowly move forward as he realizes it's there and starts planning to spook.

After the month treatment was over, I started him on an ulcer preventative SmartPak (a story for another day), started giving him 5x1000mg tablets of peppermint Tums before each ride, and started weaning him off the Nexium, which they can't stay on forever.  After a month at 3 pills a day, he got 1 week at 2 pills a day and 1 week at 1 pill per day.

How I made sure he was getting the right amount of pills

Since then, he hasn't had any spooking incidents.  The worst he's done is give the Suspicious Spooky Ear to my quarter sheet hanging on the gate.  He got a bit girthy again after the Nexium course ended as I figured out which preventative was best for him, which has since gone away.  Overall, I'm super happy with how this worked out, and for $40, I'd do it again if I had to.