Today, I will join Hubby and his National Guard buddies at the Air Show at Mather AFB.
I really should be doing about 14 loads of laundry and cleaning my barn (I bought a bunch of much needed shelving units for the tack room and I’ve been itching to set it all up and organize…).
On Sunday, the vet is coming to take her blood to measure her sugar levels – to see how well I am doing in my ‘at-home’ feeding program. MT suffered an abscess this week and I want to make sure it isn’t something that I’m doing…
HERE WE GO!
HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth… if you like this, please pass it around!
HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth... if you like this, please pass it around!

Ah, Dawn, your poor Mama Tess. I do hope your vets know that it isn’t “her sugar levels” that are important: it’s her insulin. Unless a horse is truly diabetic (very rare and extremely serious), their glucose levels hover around 100. Insulin is the culprit in laminitis. Non-fasting blood test for insulin and glucose, spun down within one hour, kept cold and sent on ice overnight to Cornell. Normal insulin is 12 or less. If her insulin is at 15, I’d be doing a happy dance. You’ll know you’ve made progress feeding hay with low ESC (ethanol-soluable carbohydrates) and Starch values (soaking for 1/2 hour in hot water or 1 hour in cold water removes 30% of sugars); 1/2 cup of flax (or chia, of you want to pay more); salt, and 2,000 IUs of vitamin E in gel caps. No grass until insulin is down to normal. We just had the NO Laminitis! Conference here in Southern Oregon last winter with wonderful speakers, new information about mares and laminitis and a great group of attendees. Wish you had been able to come! See ecirhorse.com for more information. Best of everything and hugs to Tess, Jannalee in Southern Oregon