#1 - Nothing with horses is every easy.
#2 - They seldom want to get better as they seem to enjoy making us worry, fret and lose sleep.
#3 - They are the pickiest eaters on the planet unless it is something they AREN'T supposed to eat like noxious weeds.
#4 - They are incredibly large animals that take an incredibly large amount of drugs (which are, of course, quite expensive).
#5 - Horses can't talk and tell you where it hurts or what is going on.
Our first thought was that China might have ulcers. You may be wondering how a person discovers their horse has ulcers. Well, let me explain a little of the back story. I'm learning a lot about ulcers, kind of a crash course in a subject I had hoped to stay in the dark about. For years I have watched on horse forums where people would post about their horse having ulcers and being silently thankful that I didn't have to deal with it. It sounded like an expensive and time consuming process. I was thankful that my horses lived a life that was not conducive to developing ulcers. They live on 24/7 pasture. Low starch/sugar diets. Lots of free range forage. Friends to play with. Low stress/low pressure training. Only a few shows a year. The list goes on. I associated ulcers with those naturally high strung horses, kept in stalls with little herd interaction and fed loads of grain. Turns out, that the most chill horse in our pasture, with the most chill life on the planet, was the one horse of ours to possibly develop ulcers. So far. (I say so far, because I live by and respect Murphy's Law and am not one to tempt fate.) I would love to say it happened all of a sudden, but the truth is I saw it coming for weeks, possibly months and I didn't trust my gut and do something about it back when I first became concerned.
It was a couple of weeks ago now when China's enthusiasm for her grain and hay started diminishing. It would take her longer and longer to finish her grain and she ate less and less hay. She stopped nickering when she saw me coming with her bucket and she stopped running up to her bucket. But her weight maintained so I just thought she was leveling off, done with a growth spurt or maybe the cold was dulling her appetite. I figured she didn't have anyone to compete with for her food so she wasn't "in a hurry" or worried about chasing anyone off.
However, the big red flag went up when we had the polar vortex hit us in the middle of the week. All the ponies ate hay like they were 18 hand draft horses on a binge. China picked at hers and it took her all day to finish her grain, leaving a little behind each feeding. Then came the big warm up just a few days later and China went completely off her feed. Other horse owners can relate to the pure horror of going to feed your horse and finding the previous meal still in their feeder. Non horse people may not understand that horses will eat grain until they literally kill themselves. For a horse to leave behind a ration of grain they previously loved is unheard of and a reason for panic. I'm sure my vet wishes she had never contacted me via her phone and given me her number because I sent off a rapid fire panic text on a Sunday afternoon. True to form, she responded back that she had put me in the books and would be over the next day. And then I started praying. Praying that it would be an easy fix, but I had a sinking feeling about ulcers in the back of my mind already.
The next day China was put through the ringer. She was sedated and had her teeth floated. It would have been the easiest fix if she had a retained cap or some big old nasty tooth issue. Unfortunately, other than a few minor hooks and some waves, she didn't really have any tooth issues. She had bloodwork pulled, vaccinations given, more bloodwork for coggins and a general work up from head to toe. Everything sounded good, which is a relief, she wasn't running a temp, and her bloodwork came back mostly normal. In fact, the only warning signs on her bloodwork pointed straight at ulcers. Low protein due to not eating and anemic due to the internal bleeding. Sigh. So we had a choice, haul to the nearest equine hospital and have her scoped for uclers OR start the treatment and if she got better we knew we had the cause. Have you ever hear the phrase, "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is probably is a duck"? Yeah. We went with that plan and started China on the treatment for ulcers.
Let's discuss the treatment for ulcers. According to vet science, you know, those people who went to college and stuff, the only acceptable treatment for ulcers in horses is the drug omeprazole. It's expensive and needs to be given for a couple weeks on an empty stomach. Not so easy for people who work and have active kids and aren't around all day to squeeze in that medicine. But when its your very best pony, you make it work. Snow days help too of course. And then once we are done with the paste we will have to have some kind of preventative in place. A feed on supplement of some kind that will help prevent her from developing additional ulcers because now she will be more prone to getting them. This is where you literally have a million options to choose from and if you ask a horse person what they think you will have a million stories of what works and what doesn't but they will all contradict each other. I honestly think it is some giant conspiracy by horses in general. Maybe they all get together on the weekends and try to come up with ways to drive us all batty and keep us all arguing on social media with each other. "All right guys, tomorrow I'm going to refuse to eat my grain with the Gastroplex on it. Previously I have scarfed it down because it is pretty tasty, but wait until you see Janet FREAK out when I won't touch the stuff tomorrow. Totally worth the hunger pains later. She will literally blow her entire paycheck on other treats to get me to eat it."
However, China didn't get better with the ulcer meds and in fact, got worse. She became lethargic and despondent and spent most of her day standing with her head hanging, or nibbling at her hay but not truly eating any. The vet came back out and this time we discovered a mild temp. Her bloodwork this time showed mild levels of infection and she was started on pain meds and a broad spectrum antibiotic. She got to spend a couple of days in a stall and here is what I discovered. She's impossible and trying to figure her out makes my head hurt. But she is a boss mare and boss mares like to boss. It helped to have her with a buddy next to her because when Mercy ate, China felt she needed to eat too. After a couple of days she finally finished a hay bag of hay and ate her grain. So China got to go out.
We decided to try something else new. let's give China someone to boss. So China went out with the pony mares. Low and behold, either it is because she is feeling better or because she has buddies but China is back to pinning her ears and moving the ponies out of her space to get her grain. Last night she even did her old trick of eating some of her own and then moving along and pushing others away from their grain to see if they got anything better. I'm NOT complaining. I made a solemn vow that if she got better I would no longer call her a cow or yell at her for eating. It's actually a huge relief to look out the window and see her at the round bale (even if it is only a grass round bale and not the good alfalfa stuff she was eating). So now we hope and pray that we got ahead of whatever it was and we try to add some good stuff back into her grain to see if she will keep eating it. Fingers crossed on that one. I'm terrified to try adding anything yet as she just started eating again.
So what did I learn about myself when China is sick? Well, for one - I'm entirely head over heels in love with this horse and can't and do no not want to picture life without her. I can and will cry over "just a horse" for days in a row. A person can survive on a remarkably small amount of sleep for several days in a row. I'm lucky to have a hubby who knows and understands that she isn't "just a horse" to me and holds me while I cry, all the while trying to reassure me that she will be okay and we are doing all we can. I care entirely too much about the eating and pooping habits of a creature that would gladly never see me again as long as someone was bringing her food and making sure her needs were met. I'm also lucky to have vets who respond to endless nervous/worried/frantic texts and listen to me describe the amount consumed at every meal and the consistency of every pile of poop. And lastly, I will never be cured of my anxiety as long as I care so deeply about 4 legged critters.
I think and hope and continue to pray that whatever was bothering her, we are on the healing side of things. She has lost a significant amount of weight in the last week or so that she has been sick. It will not be easy to put that weight back on right away as I don't want to add things to her grain that may make her stop eating it and I don't want to pull her off the round bale of grass since she is eating that as well. But she is eating! And that is a step in the right direction. For my sake and hers, that is what I'm going to focus on for the time being and hope the other things fall into line with prayer and time. Thank you for keeping China in your thoughts and prayers! And for the person out there who came up with the phrase, "healthy as a horse", shame on you - you obviously never owned one!
ETA: And now she's off her feed again. Hopefully will have a positive update soon. For now, continue to keep China in your prayers as we struggle to figure out how to help her.
