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Sondra
Member
Username: sondra
Post Number: 20
Registered: 11-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 11:13 pm: |   |
My 4 year old TB/WB gelding has been not quite right for a while...crankiness, stiff, ulcers on the inside of lower lip, some tail hair loss. (I also noticed that when ridden at the canter he's breathing sort of heavily though it may be because he's not totally fit after having the winter off - but I just wanted to mention this anyway).
My vet took a cbc/chem yesterday and his BUN is high - 26. So something is up with kidney function. Another horse on the farm was tested and his BUN was 29.
The creatinine is normal in both horses by the way. (But the 4-yr old's calcium was a little high too.)
What could cause this overage of nitrogen in the blood?
They're not eating a lot of anything like alfalfa... Re feed, my 4-yr old is eating normal amounts of protein (Ultium, which is 11.5%); has access to water all the time (though during the day it's hard to know how much he drinks, since in the paddock it's an automatic waterer); gets a mix of timothy and alfalfa hay (mostly timothy); and is ridden moderately: 3-4 times/week for half an hour.
If this is a management or farm issue, is it feed, toxic plant, lack of hydration? Can it be something in the spring grass?
I realize a kidney issue is usually not a diagnosis but an indicator of something else going on...
For now my vet is going to flush him intraveniously, and recommended not working him anymore than a walk or light trot for now.
As a side note, one thing that scared me is thinking can the grain contain the toxic substance that has caused kidney issues in all those cats and dogs recently (and now pigs)? I called Purina and of course they "said" all their ingredients come from US manufacturers, not Chinese (but who knows where the manufacturers get their raw materials, right?) and said that there isn't any wheat or corn gluten in their feed. |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM
Moderator
Username: dro
Post Number: 18476
Registered: 1-1997
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 8:18 am: | |
The very mild elevation in BUN is not a clear finding of anything being wrong with the kidneys and could easily reflect a high protein diet considering the normal creatinine. Remember that the normals from a lab represent one standard deviation of all the samples submitted to it. Therefore 5% of the normal horses will fall out of this normal range.
If you have alfalfa in the diet in combination with the higher protein levels of spring grass this is the most likely cause. Is there clover in the fields, as this would cause a further increase in protein. For more on diagnosing kidney dysfunction see Diseases of Horses » Urinary System » Kidney Disease and Failure in the Horse.
Of course the real question is why is your horse cranky and stiff. The list of possibilities is very long but if a thorough exam does not turn up anything that list would include: - too intense an exercise regimen with too little time to relax
- high starch diets or vitamin-mineral imbalances
- chronic diseases of tying up
- gastric ulcers
DrO |
