Basics on Louize

Louize is an adorable mare. She was born in 1990 or 1991... not sure which. I have seen both written down, so who knows? Anyways, she's my 14.3hh chestnut register Arabian mare. I bought her on September 2, 2007 from a lady in Monroe, ME who had her in her back yard with Louize's filly (Morning Glory) who is an Arabian-Andalusian cross. She's a super cute dappled grey, born May of 2006.

Anyways, I got Louize and has always been fabulous for everyone. Everyone loves Louize... unless you don't like her speed or bouncy trot. Then you're out of luck.

When I bought her, I brought her to my barn in Hampden, Maine - Coldbrook Equestrian Center. We stayed there for a year and I left for school. I brought her to college with me where she stayed at Starwalk Stables in Orono, Maine I stayed there for 3.5 years. I never had a problem with them until this past winter I noticed small changes in Louize. She was more lethargic and she was getting thin! I spoke to them in January saying that Louize was getting thin and maybe she should get a little more food. Lisa just nodded her head and said that would be fine. February came around and Louize was still continuing to drop weight. I spoke to her again and then bought a supplement for Louize to add to her food to help her gain weight more quickly since whatever they were doing wasn't really working. By the end of February, I could see all of Louize's bones.

Here is what she looked like when Louize first moved to Starwalk and what she looked like the day before I moved her. Louize has never been one to eat all of her hay. She always kicks it around her stall a bit and messes it up and decides not to eat it once it's been stepped on. In the picture to the right, there was some old hay on the ground of the arena and she kept stopping to eat it when I was trying to lunge her and so I let her eat. She was hungry enough to eat the nasty hay off the ground. She never does that. I had been lightly lunging her because I couldn't bear the thought of riding her and making her work because of how terrible she looked.

The day after this photo, I spoke to Lisa, one of the barn owners, to confront her about Louize's feeding because I saw "bring in hay" being put in the stalls. Every other horse had 2 flakes and she only had 1. I was so frustrated by that I exploded at Lisa when she said "Well, she's eating everything so I don't see what the problem is." Louize could have been getting 1 cup of grain (and for all I know, that's all she was getting) and you could say that she's eating everything and you don't see why she would be losing weight. Clearly, she doesn't know how to feed horses. I moved Louize that very day. I weighed her with a measuring tape. She was 765 lbs. She sunk for the next two weeks as low as 739 lbs. When I bought her, she was 850 lbs and was fatter than that when she got to Starwalk Stables, I'm sure.

I brought her back to Jill Schnedler's farm - Coldbrook Equestrian Center in Hampden, Maine where we struggled to get Louize to eat anything. She would eat one kind of grain once and never touch it again. We tried 6 different kinds of grain before found out she liked the Nutrena Black Bag! FINALLY! Jill Schnedler was giving Louize chopped up apples and carrots 5 times a day because that's all Louize consistently ate (she was fed apples and carrots at 8am, 12pm, 5pm, 10pm, 3am). We started getting Nutrena feed through Maine Horse and Rider, a new tack shop in Holden, Maine that has been nothing but helpful through our whole ordeal. In fact, it was because of Kathy there that we discovered Louize had a stomach ulcer caused by her malnutrition! She said to try giving her Maalox. If she gets that and she starts eating, it's an ulcer. Sure enough, the Maalox made her eat!

Now, Louize is a happy 840 lbs. We are starting to wean her off the ulcer medicine to see if her ulcer is gone, we're hoping it is since the omeprazole to treat ulcers isn't cheap! Starwalk told me that she was getting 6 lbs of grain a day of Demand, a Blue Seal grain. When I asked how many quarts, she said 4. 6 pounds of grain should be roughly 6 qts so somewhere along the line something isn't right. Also, the fact that a horse who is now 22 was getting Demand is ridiculous. She should be getting a senior feed, not a low fat grain most people give to OVERWEIGHT horses. And Lisa told the vet later (he went there to check on a horse that was at Starwalk and he started asking them questions about Louize) that Louize was "wasting" hay and so they started giving her less. They told me she was eating everything. If the vet goes there for another horse and starts asking about one that just left and her weight issues, you know you've fucked up. 3 different vets from Foxcroft Veterinary Clinic saw her within a month for blood work, shots, floating teeth, a choke she had a week after I moved her, etc. The vets know us by name now! We even have one vet's personal cell phone number! They all know about Louize and even had her blood work sent out to Michigan to test her calcium levels because they were too high for their machine to read!

Since all of this happening, Louize has finally leveled out. We did a parathyroid test on her. She had to fast for 12 hours and the vet had to draw blood for the parathyroid test and her calcium levels at the same time and FedEx the blood samples to Michigan to be tested. Both were high. In most cases in people, those two together can mean a tumor in her parathyroid. In human terms, if it's a benign tumor it won't affect her much at all. If it's malignant it could cause renal failure at some point. So right now we are just watching that she drinks water and she has plenty of urine in her stall and if she starts acting funny, a vet will be immediately called.

This is Louize now, happily grazing and loving life as a semi-retired horse. If she has a tumor, it's not fair to make her work much. She's a fun and trail horse now.