Lazy horse, could it be a heart issue? **UPDATE**

[J and I]

I'm looking for suggestions, so I have an idea of what to have the vet look at.

Here is a quick background on Cam.
3 1/2 years old
Standardbred
Diet- 2 gallons of oats, 2 cups of corn + supplements + unlimited hay
Turnout 8 hrs a day

The problem - He is very lethargic. It is a fight to get him to anything but walk. Even in the field when the other horses run and play, 3/4 of the time he just walks. He has been off for a year to grow up. Now I would like to get started for this race season, so I have been attempting to jog him for the last 3 weeks. We jog 1 or 2 miles a day, 1 out of 5 days he is great, alert and moves nicely, the others I have to be after him constantly to keep him above a walk. The other day we went 1 mile at a very slow trot, and he came in soaked head to toe with sweat. This was at the beginning of his 3rd week and until then he had only gotten a little sweaty around the girth (even on the days he was going at a better pace).

I also finds that he breaths heavily when it is sunny. Like he is out of breath even though he hasn't done anything other than stand in the field and eat.

Do you think he is just really lazy, or could he have some kind of issue?

[adcooper]

No, I don't think he's just lazy. This sounds like something that must be seen by a vet. I'd call ASAP.

[coyote]

I don't think he's just lazy either. In addition to calling the vet, I'd change his diet.
There is a lot of room for error in your diet. I'm not an expert in horse nutrition, but many years ago I decided to not ever feed corn to horses. Your supplements may be off, too.

[Big Tee©]

SOunds like he has breathing problems for starters.

Change that diet somewhat, keep the oats, although it WOULD be nice to know how much a gallon weighs, and you may have to up that to three feeds of oats a day. I would be adding alfalfa as well as a good supplement and 2 ounces of loose salt per day. You just cannot feed plain grass hay if you are going back into training, you need the protein and calcuim in alfalfa to build muscle and tendons and keep bones strong. He should be getting half his hay ration in alfalfa (10ish pounds or so) and the rest whatever. There are reasons why we feed oats and alfalfa on the track - oats are cheap, nutritious, easy to digest, but you must feed alfalfa to balance the high phosphorous content of the grain. Ditch the corn, no need for it, especially if you have good oats.

By this time of year, assuming a March/April qualifying date, he should be doing 5 miles a day without hardly turning a hair. I would suspect he is anaemic (us old farts feed dry molasses for the copper content so they can assimilate free iron in the feed but Red Cell should help some). If he was mine, I would be pulling a blood panel yesterday, preferably a couple of weeks ago, and have him scoped. He may also have allergies but that is for a vet to determine. In the mean time, get some good supplements into him, add straight alfalfa to the diet, add salt, and you may want to try ZEV or WindAid to see if that helps - it certainly won't hurt as either has nothing harmful in it, and both increase appetite. Also weigh that gallon of oats....it sounds like he is nutrient starved even if he is in good flesh for the time being.

[animaldoc]

Could be anything from airway, to sore somewhere to heart, etc. Needs a good workup......

[J and I]

Thank you for the replies.

Where I am located the vet isn't able to deal with anything other than shots and basic lameness issues. He is coming out on the 17th to do the coggins and health papers so I can get to a vet in Michigan. I've never had to bring a horse to a vet like this, and I have no idea of what to tell them when I book the appointment. Any suggestion on what I should have looked at will be greatly appreciated.

Coyote, I will work on his diet. These are the supplements he is on, Dumor's standard vitamin supplement, and D-Mac which is a joint formula. I bought him a few bags of Purina 14% performance feed that I will start to add into his diet slowly, as I add that I will reduce the oats. The reason he was on just oats was me being cheap. When he was off this summer I had oats so instead of buying sweet feed I used a cup of oats to mix his supplements in. Then when he started back to work, I just increased the oats because I had lots left.

I give him dried corn on a cob as a treat. Do you think it will hurt him?

I thought that maybe he was tying up. Does that sounds reasonable?

[J and I]

Thank you for the suggestion. Our hay here is horrible, but I can get alfalfa cubes I will grab a bag tomorrow and add them into his diet.
The track re-opens in April but I don't expect him to be ready by then with the start we are having. I'm hoping to make it there by the middle of the meet. I think if I tried to get him to go 5 miles right now he would either die, kick me out of the bike or lay down. Poor horse.
For the blood panel the vet will know what to look for right? Or do I have to request what I want checked? The guy I would like to go to is a standardbred vet.

[coyote]

BigTee's advice will be solid. I've always heard the cal-phos is balanced if you feed oats and alfalfa properly, but for many years I fed my qh mare (there's a difference, too) oats and just phenomenal pasture supplemented with excellent grass hay in the very short winter, with a vitamin supplement and minerals. (This is the mare that convinced me to never feed corn or corn oil) Oats are, of course, lower in protein also. And the alfalfa can balance that out also.
Supplements need to be the right ones for your area and even for your pasture, but I'm not an expert on that - a local vet should know. For example, horses can get too much selinium or too little and the simptons can be similar. I can't supplement with selinium at all because of my area, and many horses need such a supplement.
Why do you think he's tying up?

[diane]

with all the good advice you have received I just want to add.. tons of Jingles and please keep us updated. maybe a pic?

[J and I]

Thanks for all the input.

The reason I was considering tying up was the sweating and the way he acts. We had a standardbred stud who would tie up and it wasn't very noticeable other than he was more pleasant to deal with and not a little sweatier than usual. Then after a couple weeks he would be back to his normal ignorant studdy self.

Thanks Diane. I will definitely keep everyone updated There are pictures of him on the main board. My post was looking for a lameness vet in MI. nhrexracers.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Main&action=display&thread=32051

[Big Tee©]

Yep, get those cubes, and feed them. A large coffee can is roughly 4 pounds, so start him on that, split into two feedings, then work it up to two cans a day. You don't have to work up slowly either, just enough so he gets the idea of handling cubes. If you are stuck for vit-min mix, get McIntosh's, Bob formullated a good generic mix to go with track style feedings, but I still say get him on some copper supplement as well, and try Zev or WindAid......Zev is probably cheaper and you can use it for your own coughs

Any track vet will know what to run on a blood panel if you tell him the horse is dozy, sweats easily and tires fast.

[animaldoc]

You don't have to tell the vets what to look at - just give them a good history and they should start with a good physical exam.....

Good luck and keep us updated!

[ZenRider]

It does sound like your horse has an issue outside of being lazy.

OK, so all your local vet can do is give shots and draw blood? I'm always confused when I hear such things. Much as taking a horse to a clinic or college has it's benefits, as tests can be done right there on the spot and has several vets/interns that can confer with one another on a less then usual case, your local vet should be able to do a physical, have you work the horse so they can hear the breathing issue, draw blood and know what he/she is looking at and have and idea as to what your horses issue could be. Even if the horse then needs to be sent to a clinic after the preliminary diagnosis.

Good luck figuring it out and hope it's nothing that can't be corrected.

[J and I]

Hey Guys!

I have the appointments booked for Cam. My vet only comes to "town" once a week, so I couldn't get him out until the 24th to do my coggins and health papers. So I booked an appointment with Pleasant View Clinic in Big Rapids MI on the 19th of March. This gives me enough time to get a passport and make sure that his health papers come in.

I'm from a small city, and there is only one large animal vet within 4 hours of here. He is a really nice guy, but not great with lameness and things like that. He can't chryo, or do joint injections (Cam more than likely needs his splints done), so it is easier for me to get everything done by someone who has experience with standardbreds and does that stuff regularly.

[J and I]

Cam and I got home from the vet today. He was awesome! He spent 3+ hours with Cam, explained everything that was going on and was just wonderful to work with.

We did a lameness examination, x-rays, blood work, teeth and a few other things.

He was sore in the fronts, the x-rays were clean but we injected his coffin bones to give him some extra comfort. His blood work showed that he has very low red blood cell count. He said this is probably what was causing the lethargic attitude. He got a jug and he recommended using hippiron.

He said that I should see a significant difference in him soon. I'm just so happy!