What is Cushings Disease in horses? Do you have a horse that has extremely long, kind of wavy hair? Does your horse always seem to be way behind others in shedding out? Are you having trouble keeping weight on your horse despite the fact that you are carefully feeding it good quality hay and pelleted feed? Does your horse have a pot belly but poor muscle tone? Does your horse drink what seems like a lot compared to others? These are just some of the symptoms of Cushings Disease (the correct name is Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction) Cushings is a condition affecting the horses pituitary gland. It causes the gland to release too much of a hormone known as ACTH. This results in horse tissues becoming insulin resistant or unable to control blood sugar levels. Insulin levels therefore climb in the horses bloodstream; often resulting in Laminitis (lameness stemming from inflammation around the coffin bone of the hoof). Cushings Disease is very often a condition found in older horses, but younger horses can be diagnosed with it also. It is only recently that Veterinary Medicine has begun to understand that a horses diet almost certainly influences the severity with which Cushings will manifest itself and perhaps may be a major contributor to the condition also. Untreated ulcers may also have a causative effect on the onset of Equine Cushings and environmental stress as well. So what can be done to help the Cushings horse? Since the body releases insulin in response to elevated blood glucose levels, avoid feeds that are high in sugar and starch, which you can find measured by feed companies as water soluble carbohydrates (WSC), ethanol soluble carbohydrates (ESC), or perhaps plain old starch. Also, it is important to have your hay analyzed for its sugar content. Soaking the hay for 30-60 minutes can reduce the sugars in it but it is important to discard the water. Grass can also be a problem for the horse with Cushings under certain conditions. Oats, Barley and Corn are very high in starch and are therefore not good to feed your Cushings horse. Alfalfa can be an excellent choice providing you have it tested to make sure it has an NSC value of at least below 12% and preferably below 10%. There are commercial pelleted feeds on the market that are specifically for the Cushings horse, but read the bag to make sure it meets the criteria above and ask for advice from your veterinarian. If you find your horse does not shed out well or spends way too much time being sweaty, you might want to give him a trace clip which is pictured in the second horse below. A trace clip can be very beneficial in managing your Cushings horse excessive hair problems. For more reading on Cushings Disease click on these links: prascend/Home/CommonSignsOfPPID horsechannel/horse-health/equine-cushings-disease-24321.aspx Marty (first picture) is a senior Saddlebred gelding who was adopted and diagnosed with Cushings Disease afterward. Wynn (second picture) is sporting a trace clip as an example. He was so big in the stall that he was very often hot and so kind volunteers helped him out!
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 18:49:52 +0000
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