Barbara's Battle of the Bulge!

It's been a while since my last post and in that time we have passed through spring with a few weight worries! Mid April saw Barbara struck down with the early signs of laminitis. We first noticed she was slightly lame in the field so we caught her and gave her the once over. The signs of laminitis were not really visible-she wasn't standing like a laminitic pony would, nor could we find any pulses. We couldn't however see any other obvious signs of lameness either such as an abscess, so we thought it best to call the vet out. Looking back as exemplified in the picture below Barbara had become rather too portly.

As she lives out and hadn't been getting a feed we had not been too worried, but I think with the mix of mild weather and rain the grass has grown a little more quickly than we anticipated and the weight had crept on her rapidly. Once the vet came she was able to diagnose Barbara with the early signs of laminitis. She agreed her symptoms were not overtly visible and the pulses she managed to find were very faint. She explained there had been a really high number of early cases this year due to the weather. We were advised to keep Barabara on box rest for seven days and she was prescribed Bute twice a day to start with, then dropping to once a day. The vet would ring in a few days to check her progress. Luckily the treatment plan worked and Barbara lost weight and improved rapidly. One problem we faced however having her in on box rest was due to her small size she was unable to see over the stable door. We wanted her to be able to see out so she could see Star and Fella and have some fresh air and stimulation so we came up the novel idea of creating a 'pony peephole' if you will. Helen and I set to work upon cutting out a letterbox shaped peephole in her stable door, ensuring it was at her eye level so she could see out. When I say 'we', Helen did the cutting, I merely held the door in place whilst she cut! Our carpentry plan worked a treat as you can see in the picture below. 

Once she was sound again and ready to be turned back out into the field with Star and Fella the vet advised we use a grazing muzzle to ensure we were able to continue with her weight loss and management programme. The grazing muzzle is a great idea as it limits the horse or pony's grass intake, meaning it's a great piece of kit to help assist with and maintain weight loss. For Barbara this means she she is able to live out with Star and Fella and we can manage her weight to ensure she does not get struck down with laminitis again. It wasn't plain sailing with the grazing muzzle to start with however...........Barbara is a very clever little pony, so she soon figured out how to eat with it on. This was great as shown in the picture below. 

What was not so great however, was that she soon learnt how to get it off! We had initially turned her back out into the main field with Star and Fella, but within a few days she had managed to get the muzzle off. Once we caught her we decided to take a different approach, so we created a separate grazing paddock for her using electric fence, as we thought that way if she got the muzzle off again it would be easier for us to catch her to put it back on. This was very wishful thinking on our part as not only did she get the muzzle off,  but she also escaped from the grazing paddock, despite it being electrified with not just one but TWO energizers. Below is photographic evidence of the 'before' and 'after'. This was the third time she escaped..........

Barbara remained at large on this occasion as a wanted field fugitive for a couple of days before we were able to recapture her. She was then put on box rest for a day or so as we were worried about the amount of grass she had been able to consume whilst at large. We then turned her back out into the main field with her muzzle on as we felt after three escapes from the smaller paddock, it just wasn't working! Luckily for us we think Barbara was clever enough to work out that if she kept her grazing muzzle on then she was able to stay in the main field with Star and Fella. To date she is keeping her muzzle on and the weight loss programme is working with her losing over 10 cm at our last weigh tape measuring. The vet and farrier are both happy with her progress as are we, so long may it continue!