EMS & Weight: A Year In The Life Of Fatty The EMS Pony details the journey of Fatty and her weight throughout the year after being diagnosed with EMS.
EMS (Equine Metabolic Syndrome) is often likened to diabetes in people. In horses, keeping an EMS horse at the correct and healthy weight can be a challenge. Many can be remain healthy with dietary changes alone, whilst others need daily medication. Excess weight can lead to further health problems such as laminitis, so diet and exercise are very important.
Fatty has been with me since a 2yo. She’s always had a healthy appetite and carried a few extra pounds. Read on to find out how her weight has been managed and how she is doing after a year…
Diagnosis
Fatty has always been on the larger side and needed her grass intake restricted. However, after months of restricting her grazing to very little it was obvious that there was something else going on. It was not possible to reduce her intake any further and yet her weight was increasing rather than reducing as it should have been.
The vet was arranged and a blood sample taken after giving Fatty a meal high in sugars.
This test confirmed that she wasn’t processing grass as she should, and meant that a more disciplined approach towards her diet was required.
Indicators
There are several indicators that your pony may be suffering from a metabolic disease. The main ones, the ones that Fatty suffered with were:
- Weight Gain – Regardless of restricted grazing she kept on putting on weight
- Crest – She had a very cresty neck that became even more apparent and started to become hard and rigid
- Fat Pads – In addition to her cresty neck she gained fat pockets behind the saddle and her rear became a very defined peach shape with a deep indent
- Medical Overview Source
All of these put her in danger of succumbing to laminitis, a very painful condition of a horse’s hooves. Once a horse has had one bout of laminitis they are often prone to have flare-ups for the rest of their life. It was something that I wanted to avoid at all costs. When both her farrier and her vet mentioned her weight during regular check ups, I knew it was time to take action.
Weight tape
Most people do not have access to a weight scales. Using a weight tape is the next best thing. However, they can be inaccurate if incorrectly used. It’s important to use the tape in the same place and preferably at the same time of day, so that you can get a realistic reading.
Diet & Management
To help Fatty remain healthy I’ve set up a track in the summer field. Although I’ve not been able to surface it to remove the grass it has meant that she moves around more searching for the grass that is still available.
Fatty has been on the track alone during the day with SFB joining her overnight. He spends the daytime in one of the centre paddocks.
I thought just putting a track around the outside of the paddock would end up being rather dull, so I’ve ensured that there are multiple options of direction and paths to take.
Fatty is fed soaked hay at least 3 times per day whilst on the summer track. Each hay net (4 per day) was measured to mean that she was having 1.5% body weight per day of soaked hay. This amount of hay is considered to be a weight-loss amount. 2% of bodyweight is suggested as a maintenance amount.
I stuck with 1.5% even though there was a small amount of grass available as two nets were available overnight and I knew that SFB would eat a proportion of it whilst they were together.
To stop squabbling, each net was emptied on the track in up to 5 piles dotted around the track with the majority as far away from the water trough as possible. This meant that she had to walk as far as possible between hay and water, encouraging her to move more.
With only soaked hay though, it has been necessary to feed a vitamin and mineral supplement to replace those lost through lack of grass and removing the nutrients by soaking. Fatty also has a gut supplement as she showed signs of discomfort when being moved onto limited forage. Although it would be wonderful to allow her ad lib hay and grass so that she didn’t need the supplements, unfortunately, this would have such a negative health effect that it is utterly impossible.
Exercise
This year hasn’t been conducive to a huge exercise programme. The first part of the year we faced continual rain, and then the summer brought with it temperatures too high to do anything but cold hose the horses and do a little in-hand working.
With the new turnout paddock though, even with the recent heavy rains and storms, we have been able to exercise more regularly which can only be beneficial to her health in the long term.
Progress
Below shows Fatty’s progress throughout the year: Having been initially weighed at 430kg
- September ’22 – 400kg
- October ’22 – 390kg
- November ’22 – 390kg
- December ’22 – 380kg
- January ’23 – 390kg
- February ’23 – 390kg
- March ’23 – 395kg
- April ’23 – 390kg
- May ’23 – 390kg
- June ’23 – 395kg
- July ’23 – 400kg
- August ’23 – 390kg
- November ’23 – 396kg
Although her weight has crept back up, this is because she’s had to come down to winter grazing earlier than planned. This has meant that she has had much more grass than would have been ideal. Hopefully with her new clip and the colder weather these extra pounds will drop off quickly.
Results
As you can see from the results above, Fatty has made progress over the year. When I first weigh-taped her she measured 430kg which is far in excess of the healthy weight for a 13hh pony.
With diet and management changes this has reduced to 380kg, and although she’s gone back up a little much of that is muscle weight rather than fat deposits.
We have had a few blips along the way. Most of these were caused by her realising that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. Many broken fence posts later, and a new energiser to give a stronger zap, and we’re back on track.
Conclusion
Getting the diagnosis early, before the onset of laminitis, allowed me to get control of Fatty’s weight before it became a real problem for her health. This has meant that so far she has managed to avoid daily medication.
Being able to reduce her weight by so much makes the chore of weighing and soaking hay nets each day worth it.
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