Calcification

Question
QUESTION: Hi, I have a 30 year old Appaloosa mare that has a bone spur on her knee.  The calcification is moving downward and I was wondering if there was anything that I could do to prevent it from moving further down and how to make it more comfortable for her to move around.  Or if possible is there anyway to get rid of the calcification through therapy.  We have gone to the vet and we are starting her on shots that will help with the pain but will not get rid of the calcified part.  She is a very special horse and I want her to live out the last of her days without this growth on her leg.  She also has a problem with her weight, we have tried weight builder and other types of grain but nothing seems to help.  Do you suggest anything?

ANSWER: Sarah,  

Geriatric horses are always interesting for me.  I've had several over the years.  One pony lived to be 37, I have a 24 yr. old who doesn't know he's 24, another one 23 who still does distance competitions, both endurance and competitive trail.  

As far as the calcification there really isn't much you can do except manage the pain at her age.  She's too old to do surgery on.  Too risky.  You don't say what shots she's getting, possibly Adequan or Legend?  You can also talk to the vet about injections directly into the joint of hyaluronic acid.  The extra fluid directly into the joint will add lubrication and some cushioning.  

At her age she probably doesn't have much left in the line of teeth so pretty much all the nutrition she's gonna get will have to be in her feed bucket.  Have you had her teeth checked regularly?  That's really important in aged horses because as the teeth wear down, my 24 yr. old's are nearly at the gum line, they need to be checked for soundness even though there's nothing left to float.  So she probably cannot eat much in the line of hay either.  

Suggest you hunt around for a feed that is based on beet pulp and is high in fat.  I use a Pennfield product called Fibergized but Pennfield is only available in a limited area.  I know Nutrena has a similar product in Legend.  The beet pulp will add forage to her diet which she needs badly.  If available get her some nice, leafy alfalfa/grass mix hay, preferably a 2nd cutting so it's not stemy.  I would also add some beet pulp, a couple of pounds dry weight to her feed.  Soak it in water first, it'll take about 2.5 gal. of water.  You can just mix her concentrates in with the dry beet pulp and soak it all together so she has a nice, moist not sloppy, mash to eat. I sue cold water in the warm weather and hot water (so they get hot dinners) in cold weather.  You can also add alfalfa hay cubes to this mush.  I feed a lb., again dry weight, along with the beet pulp and concentrates at night.  I would also suggest either stabilized rice bran (make sure it says stabilized otherwise you have mineral imbalance problems), or some vegetable oil (work up to about a cup in the feed).  There's a product by Nutrena called Empower that is rice bran and flaxseed based and is 22% fat that can be added.  Any 1 of the above can be used, the idea being just to add some additional fat calories to her food.  If you aren't already giving her a vitamin/mineral supplement that would be beneficial too.  Old horses' guts don't work as well as young ones and don't absorb nutrients as well so they have higher requirements.  Here's an example of how I feed my 23 yr. old endurance horse:

Morning          Evening
4 lb. Fibergized feed          2 lb. Fibergized feed
1 lb. Empower          1 lb. Empower
5 oz. aloe vera juice          1 lb. alfalfa hay cubes
         2 lb. beet pulp
         5 oz. aloe vera juice
         1 scoop Source
         6500 mg. garlic
         5 oz. apple cider vinegar
I use the aloe vera juice in conjunction with 2 oz. fresh papaya puree (given about 10 min. before he gets fed because he also has ulcers). The Source is my vitamin/mineral supplement and the garlic and vinegar are to help with bugs at this time of year.  When you stir the feed up before you feed it to them it smells very strongly of the garlic.  My feeds sit in the laundry room to soak during the day and it smells like a pizza shop in there!  

I assume you have her on a regular worming program.  It wouldn't hurt to have a fecal check done on her to make sure it's doing it's job.  

Basically you give her all the support you can nutritionally.  If you can find a homeopathic practitioner in your area you might be able to find help for her calcification with homeopathic remedies.  I'm not that knowledgeable in the field of homeopathy to make any recommendations for a case as complex as this.  

Keep in touch and let me know how things go and if I've offered any helpful advice.

Lyn

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: April is getting some kind of steroid shot directly in her knee and it seems to be working for now. She has also had worming regularily and we had the vet check for worms last time she was out which was monday 7/14 so very recently. Actually April has the teeth of a fifteen year old, she can graze, eat hay and hay cubes, any type of grain and is more than pleased to have apples, carrots, and other fun treats. Do you have a certain recipe for beat pulp mix, and is it hard to find at stores?

Answer
Sarah,

How wonderful that she has good teeth!  What a blessing!  Not too happy to hear that she's getting steroids injected into a joint because they tend to cause cartillage breakdown, but I have to assume your vet knows best.  Like I said, be sure to feed her a really good hay, an alfalfa/grass mix is about the best, especially if it's a 2nd cutting.  That I would give her free choice, as much as she wants to eat.  If she's on good pasture then her hay requirements will go down accordingly.  

As far as beet pulp goes, you should be able to get it at the feed store.  It is what's left after sugar is extracted from sugar beets.  I prefer beet pulp that has not had molasses added to it.  It can come in 2 forms, shredded is the most common but there is also pelleted available from Blue Seal.  It's more compact, comes in 50 lb. bags not 40 like the shredded, and is easier to store and handle.  But use whatever you can get.  For horses of April's size I generally use 2 lbs. (dry weight) of beet pulp and add the grain/concentrates to it.  I prefer to feed it soaked to get the benefit of the added water to the digestive tract but the shredded could be fed dry although I don't know how palatable it is.  Figure roughly 1 gal. of water per pound of dry beet pulp.  If using cold I try to let it soak at least 3 hrs., more is better.  I dump the water on my feeds in the morning when I make them up, before I go to work, and let them soak all day.  In cold weather, when I use the hottest water I can get out of the tap, I let them soak a couple of hours, covered with towels on a closed porch with minimal heat.  I like to give warm dinners in cold weather, the horses love them!  

I think you'll see the best results if you add fat to her diet.  Like I said, look for a feed that is at least 10% fat and preferably beet pulp based.  Soy bean hulls are another possibility, it all depends upon what is most readily available in your area.  Talk to your feed store and see what's available in the brands that they carry.  Add additional fat with either the stabilized rice bran (1 lb.), veg. oil (start with maybe 1/4 cu. and increase over a few days up to 1 c.) or the Empower (1 lb.)  I add one of these fat sources  to both am and pm feedings.  You may also consider adding another meal like lunch, at least for a while, until she picks up some weight.  I like the Empower because it's an extruded kibble-like feed that mixes readily with the morning grain and is very palatable.  The rice bran needs something to make it stick to the feed because it's sort of a fine, granular substance.  And the oil has the same problem.  I'm sure there are other feed additives out there similar to Empower that would work.  Main thing is you just have to give her some fat one way or another.  I add the hay cubes to give additional forage and for taste.  You could give her soaked beet pulp along with her morning grain that would help with adding either the oil or rice bran.  Just measure a pound out the night before, put it in a bucket and take it into the house and dump water on it before you go to bed.  It'll be ready in the morning.  

I've had to figure out ways to make the special care that's needed for my geriatric horses/ponies as simple as possible because I work.  I make up each  night's feed the day before in big, 2 gal. ziploc bags labeled with the horse's name.  Their breakfasts are in old supplement buckets.  I use the Fibergized so I can give them beet pulp without having to soak it overnihgt since I have several horses that I need to do this for.  Then in the morning I just have to dump the buckets of breakfast and when I collect their buckets I can just dump the night's dinners into them and take them to the house for the water.  It let's me get a lot done in an hour in the morning because I clean paddocks and shelters while they are eating.  It takes Ahab about 40 min. to eat all his breakfast so I get other stuff done in the meantime.  

Just be aware that it takes a little while for a horse's body to adjust to digesting fat for energy so give her at least a month to start seeing improvement.  I would also stronglyu suggest a vitamin/mineral supplement.  I don't care what the feeds say, old horses need more than average because they don't utilize it as efficiently.  

I hope this answered your question and gave you some help.  These old guys are just like old people, they need a little more TLC to help them enjoy their senior years.  Some do extremely well far into "old age".  I heard about a 37 yr. old Arab/QH cross that is still doing competitive trail rides and is approaching the lifetime record established by a Saddlebred of 20,867 mi.!!  My 23 yr. old National Show Horse (Arab/Saddlebred) doesn't know he's 23.  He just doesn't do one-day 100's anymore, I think that's too much.  Be he's happy to run 50 mi. endurance rides and do competitive trail rides.  So good luck with your girl.  I'm a mare rider and love mares to death!  

Lyn