Grass restriction begins

(Buttercup asking me to please take off the grazing muzzle so she may eat some high sugar grass – fat chance, pony!)

First thing's first: taking Buttercup off the grass, or at least limiting her intake. If she is not in the dry lot, she'll be modeling her grazing muzzle. Horses can still graze a bit through this muzzle but nothing that will hurt her hooves. When she's in the dry lot, she'll have access to hay so she doesn't drop weight.

This is the second step toward staving off the hoof problems we experienced last year. The first one was putting her on ProAdd Ultimate, a multi-purpose supplement that is low in sugar and is also great for building hooves.

The third step will be sorting out her daily diet. Right now she gets 50/50 Horseman's Edge and Horse Chow 100. Neither are low enough in sugar for the sugar-sensitive horse. In my last post I talked about moving her to a beet pulp-based diet but we may end up with another low-sugar pellet instead. We are taking care of a few steps first and won't be changing her all at once (never a good idea with horses).

It feels really good to be able to pinpoint a reason behind some of the drastic changes we've seen spring/summer time. Wish we had discovered it sooner but that happens. I may need to change the title of the blog to Chronicle of the Sugar Sensitive Horse!

The vet will also be out later this summer to pull blood to see if Buttercup is actually insulin resistant (think diabetes) or just sugar sensitive.