Lutine Comes Home

Lutine arrived home with us in mid-January 2006. The photo to the right shows how she looked when she arrived with us. Actually, the photo doesn't do her justice. She was even skinnier in real life! I had never seen a horse where you could see the whole length of her spinal column and count every single rib. I installed her safely in a seperate part of the paddock and gave her as much simple grass hay as she could eat. It's important with starved horses not to feed them too much, too quickly and so she was left with just hay and water for a few days. I then started to give her four small feeds per day of lucerne (alfalfa) pellets and wheat bran.

Just how malnourished she was brought home to me within a couple of days as Lutine developed swollen pasterns from the increase in protein in her food. I was worried at first but within a day or so, the problem receeded and hasn't been an issue since. I had been advised about Lutine's diet by an equine nutritionist, who had informed me how important good quality protein would be. The lucerne was critical to Lutine being able to rebuild the muscles she had lost.

Within a few weeks, even though it had been very cold and started to snow, Lutine was looking much happier.