Jaycee

Really, is she limping again? It's possible the horses were horsing around and she twisted her ankle or was kicked but if any one was going to do the kicking, it would be her. Bailey, the husbands horse, loves to pester her. Unfortunately the signs are all too familiar, with a closer examination I could feel the stiffness in the crest of her neck, indicating her EMS (Equine Metabolic Syndrome) is flaring up. 

Man she's been doing so well, almost a year has gone by without any symptoms of the disease.  The disease she was diagnosed with three years ago.

Equine Metabolic Syndrome is basically horse diabetes. 

With the diagnose comes a strict and cumbersome diet. Strict for her, cumbersome for us.
The sugar content in pasture grass is too rich for her system so her daily dose of nutrition is a blend of hay carefully weighed to insure she gets exactly what she needs. Nothing more, nothing less.

After the hay is weighed,  it has to be soaked in water to extract the sugar.

 Once it's been soaked and drained she can eat. 

We have the system down to a science so her morning and evening feed is timely and ready to go.

It's all well and good if I keep my end of the bargain. It's when I get lazy and not as careful as I should be is when her health suffers. For instance, soaking the hay once a day instead of twice or not being diligent with the blend of hay, giving her more of the grass/alfalfa mix and not enough of the teff. 

When I'm not diligent she ends up lame, stiff and in pain and I end up feeling like the worst horse owner in history. 

Recently she had a flare up, obviously because I was slacking. Normal insulin levels for a horse range from 10 to 30, Jaycee's was tested at 130. 

It's such a bummer because she has been doing so well. She's an excellent riding horse and when I see her in pain and unable to walk it breaks my heart, especially knowing I'm to blame.

Because of her tender hoofs I keep her confined in a stall where she has soft bedding, I also give her an anti-inflamortry called Butte. 

It really bothers Bailey when his girl is confined. He tries to free her by pulling the pins out of the paneling that encloses her stall. It would have worked if I wasn't on to his tricky ways but I know that horse all too well. I beat him at his own game and secured the panels by wrapping a bungie cord around the poles. So since she couldn't come out and play, he tossed her his ball.

Anyway after about a week of confinement I noticed she was walking better and decided to let her out for a trial to see how she tolerated the hard ground.  The girl didn't waste anytime and rushed out. It made me feel good to see her feeling better but I still wasn't convinced she was completely healed.  I left her out for a bit to mingle with Bailey,  but when it was time for her feeding I wanted her back in her stall.

She was willing to go back in to eat but as soon as I shut the gate she became agitated and anxious. It was her way of telling me she had enough of being confined. 

I went ahead and opened the gate. This time not only did she bolt out of the stall, she kicked up her heels, farted and bucked some more. See I'm all better!

She definitely made her point so I took the hay out of the stall and put it in the trough. As soon as she saw the hay she came over and began eating. I rubbed her neck and told her I was glad she was back to her ol' self.

As I was walking away I heard her sneeze. Taking it as a thank you, I turned and and told her, ' Your welcome'.