Update On Our Mare With Cushings

This is a picture of our mare Vision, before body clipping. She has Cushings Disease.

This is Vision after a total body clipping. Hard to believe it is the same horse.

In one of my older posts I talked about Equine Cushings Disease. You might want to check it out. It explains all about the disease.

In this post I just want to give you an update on how to deal with one of the main symptoms of the disease, which is long, curly hair that doesn't shed out like it should.

About 8 years ago our beautiful Polish Arabian mare, Vision was diagnosed with Cushings. At this time, there is no known cure for Cushings, but there is medication that is given on a daily basis that helps with the symptoms of the disease. Like I mentioned one of the main symptoms is that the horse developes long, curly hair. It is quite unattractive and very uncomfortable for the horse. When the weather gets warmer, it is like the poor animal has a fur coat on.

Vision seems to be doing fairly well on the medication, but we could tell she was truly miserable with that long hair, so we decided to do something about it. We went out and bought a body clipper and decided to clip her.

My son came over Sunday to ride his horse and we mentioned that we wanted to clip Vision and he said, let's get it done, so he proceeded clipping. It was amazing how long her hair had gotten. It was about 5 inches on her belly and legs. It was no wonder the poor thing was so miserable. He couldn't get her totally clipped that day, because the blade wouldn't cut anymore, so the next day we bought another blade and he finished her up.

As you can see, she looks like a totally different horse and she acts almost like her old spirited self again. You can see her beautiful Arabian shaped head again, instead of looking like a woolly mammoth.

I wanted to share these pictures with you, just in case you have a horse with Cushings. There may not be a cure yet for the disease, but you can make their lives much more comfortable while they are still with us, just by clipping off that long, curly hair.

If you don't feel like you are qualified to body clip a horse on your own, check with vet or a groomer. There are people out there that will do it, but it really wasn't hard, just time consuming. The end results are worth it!