Confused about Laminitis.

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OpalFruits

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A few weeks ago the yard allowed the horses to only be in for 6 hours if the owner wished so I started leaving my horse out for longer and only bringing her in for 6 hours.

It was going well until about a week later I noticed that the pockets above her eyes had filled up and the top of her neck was solid.

She's now back to the routine of going out in the day and in at night and the pockets above her eyes have gone back to normal but her neck is still solid however it doesn't look as cresty if that makes sense.

I do want her to be out in the field and only be in for 6 hours because I did notice that she was a lot happier however if she has lami symptoms I'm not keen but before I had her she was living out 24/7 since she was 2 till I bought her 3 months ago when she was 5.

I cut her feed right down to only a thin layer across the bottom of the scoop of calm and condition, half a scoop of chaff and magnesium oxide and she had about 3 sections of hay when she was brought in.

So my question is what would you do? I am thinking of getting the dengie healthy hooves or the top spec AntiLam balancer.

All opinions welcome, thank you!
 
Why feed c&c at all if she is a laminitic risk?

Soak the hay, cut out unnecessary calories - that will do more good than feeding things like healthy hooves.
 
What is the grazing like at your yard? Perhaps where she was before, although out 24/7 the grazing was sparse.

Have you tried using a muzzle while she is out?

What is her current weight like?
 
Does she need a feed? If shes a good doer then she would be far better off not having one, its just extra calories that she doesnt need. I would also be soaking her hay aswell for when she is stood in.

The fat pads would concern me to be honest and screams EMS. I would be asking my vet for blood tests.

Is she overweight?

Is she ridden? If so it sounds like she needs more exercise.

Do you have good grass? If so I think a muzzle would be a good idea. I dont ever think you can be too careful with laminitis. I have learnt the hard way and its truely heartbreaking and avoidable.
 
Is it possible she could be out at night and in during the day? Only ask because the grass isn't so full of sugar at night, so she could probably graze quite happily then. I'd also cut the calm and condition out, just go for something like dengie hi-fi lite with a vitamin and mineral supplement. tbh I'm not sure that the feeds that are supposed to be lami friendly are all that good. I'm trying happy hoof for my shettie at the mo and he's having so little of it (my grass is barely there at all) that it's hardly worthing feeding it at all and when the bag is finished I'll be doing exactly what I've suggested above.
 
JFTD said:
Why feed c&c at all if she is a laminitic risk?

Soak the hay, cut out unnecessary calories - that will do more good than feeding things like healthy hooves.
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I had never thought that the calm and condition could potentially be causing a problem to be honest. I only have her on it because I am bringing her back into work and wanted something to help with that.

CobsGalore said:
What is the grazing like at your yard? Perhaps where she was before, although out 24/7 the grazing was sparse.

Have you tried using a muzzle while she is out?

What is her current weight like?
Click to expand...

Grazing is okay at the yard. I never actually saw what the field she was like in before when I went to see her.

BlackVelvet said:
Does she need a feed? If shes a good doer then she would be far better off not having one, its just extra calories that she doesnt need. I would also be soaking her hay aswell for when she is stood in.

The fat pads would concern me to be honest and screams EMS. I would be asking my vet for blood tests.

Is she overweight?

Is she ridden? If so it sounds like she needs more exercise.

Do you have good grass? If so I think a muzzle would be a good idea. I dont ever think you can be too careful with laminitis. I have learnt the hard way and its truely heartbreaking and avoidable.
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She had blood tests done when I had her vetted 3 months ago and the vet didn't mention anything then? Would they have to test it for different things?

She's not overweight, I had a few people on the yard last night tell me she looked really well but I am going to weight tape her to see what she is.

3OldPonies said:
Is it possible she could be out at night and in during the day? Only ask because the grass isn't so full of sugar at night, so she could probably graze quite happily then. I'd also cut the calm and condition out, just go for something like dengie hi-fi lite with a vitamin and mineral supplement. tbh I'm not sure that the feeds that are supposed to be lami friendly are all that good. I'm trying happy hoof for my shettie at the mo and he's having so little of it (my grass is barely there at all) that it's hardly worthing feeding it at all and when the bag is finished I'll be doing exactly what I've suggested above.
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She is on high fi at the moment but may get a balancer or something like that to help.

Thank you all for your suggestions :)
 
They wouldn't have tested the blood at her vetting. I believe they just take the blood, and then you can request for it to be tested for things like bute if she became lame at a later date.

No offence, but when people say "She looks really well" it could mean that she is a little bit porky, just because most people have a misconception of what horses should look like.

Weight tapes aren't accurate, I would look at the BHS condition scoring info. They have lots of good info on their website. :)
 
OP I would be surprised if anything was run on the bloods taken at a vetting.

The bloods are just taken incase you need to test for bute or something later if the horse suddenly shows lame etc. I think the Cushings/EMS tests are still free - you have to pay for the bloods to be taken and sent obviously, but the actual test is free. Definately worth doing if your horse has fat pockets.
 
OpalFruits said:
I had never thought that the calm and condition could potentially be causing a problem to be honest. I only have her on it because I am bringing her back into work and wanted something to help with that.


She's not overweight, I had a few people on the yard last night tell me she looked really well but I am going to weight tape her to see what she is.
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Well, C&C is for putting condition onto a horse, so there's really no point in feeding it to a horse that doesn't need condition and you're trying to restrict intake!

I'd be hesitant to trust other people on the yard - people are far too used to seeing fat horses (and "well" is often a euphemism for fat in my experience!). The best thing you can do is learn to condition score for yourself. A weight tape will allow you to keep track of fluctuations in weight but an absolute value from a w/t is very inaccurate and pretty useless.
 
CobsGalore said:
They wouldn't have tested the blood at her vetting. I believe they just take the blood, and then you can request for it to be tested for things like bute if she became lame at a later date.

No offence, but when people say "She looks really well" it could mean that she is a little bit porky, just because most people have a misconception of what horses should look like.
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Ah I see. I thought they tested the blood :o

Yes that is true, I will borrow a weight tape tonight and weigh her :)

I might just cut the feed completely for the moment but she is ridden 5 days a week so not sure about that, and soak her hay.
 
To test for EMS they need to do a glucose test therefore wouldnt test this at vetting. The fat pads scream EMS to me, if untreated this will result in an increase risk of laminitis.

A horse at an ideal weight wouldnt have fat pads or be cresty.
 
JFTD said:
Well, C&C is for putting condition onto a horse, so there's really no point in feeding it to a horse that doesn't need condition and you're trying to restrict intake!

I'd be hesitant to trust other people on the yard - people are far too used to seeing fat horses (and "well" is often a euphemism for fat in my experience!). The best thing you can do is learn to condition score for yourself. A weight tape will allow you to keep track of fluctuations in weight but an absolute value from a w/t is very inaccurate and pretty useless.
Click to expand...

That's true, I only have her on the calm and condition because that is what she was fed on before I had her so just kept her on it- I should have thought about that when I noticed the pockets above her eyes.
 
Echo the comment about cutting out feed of any kind other than basic forage.

If you can keep out without over-feeding (bare paddock?) this will aid circulation. To some extent confinement can make things worse.
 
OpalFruits said:
Ah I see. I thought they tested the blood :o

Yes that is true, I will borrow a weight tape tonight and weigh her :)

I might just cut the feed completely for the moment but she is ridden 5 days a week so not sure about that, and soak her hay.
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At this time of year the grass will provide so much nutrition that this along with the hay will provide plenty of nutrients, it is at its peak. There should be no need to feed anything extra unless a horse is in hard work (and hard work means hard competitive work or working 8 hours a day in a riding school).

Much safer to cut out the feed, better that than have no horse to ride. If they must have a bit if chaff then hifi and top spec both do molasses free chaff (but do only use a bit). Healthy hooves is ok but too molassey for a lami prone horse.

I say all this wise after the event, my pony got lami. Hopefully a one off..

Well done for noticing the puffiness and pads tho, you may just have saved your pony!!
 
OpalFruits said:
I had never thought that the calm and condition could potentially be causing a problem to be honest. I only have her on it because I am bringing her back into work and wanted something to help with that.
Click to expand...

You only need to think about giving her hard feed if she's back in work but is losing more weight than is preferable through burning all her reserves to work. Think of weight control as a balance between calories taken in and calories burned. If you want her to lose weight then you'd want more calories being burned than calories taken in. If you want to maintain a constant weight then the two need to be equal.

Most good-doers in light work (which is what most of us do with our horses) don't need any hard feed at all - maybe just some (unmolassed?) chaff and appropriate supplements (if necessary).

Well done on being so vigilant with her health and spotting the early signs.
 
The trouble I found with the lami is it came on quite quickly after the first symptoms. My pony never had the eye pockets, only a little cresty and then full blown lami :(

I only let him out at night, he is in between 9 and 6, he has a small handful of hifi molasses free and the recommended scoop of lo cal balancer. Mine only has half a section of hay and he doesnt always eat that!! but then he is only 11.3. The people at the yard often tell me my pony and the horse are too skinny but I take it as a compliment as theirs look like they have swallowed a barrel! The vet, dentist, back man and farrier all have commented what lovely condition they are in and for once, not a fat pony!!

Like someone else said, you cant be too careful. It amazes me how other people can get away with leaving their ponies out during the day, feed haylage and hard feed and the ponies are ok, they are just lucky but I wouldnt risk it myself!

Good luck :) xx
 
As someone has mentioned, you can get the blood test for Cushings/ems done for free I think up to the end of June (you just pay for the vet call out)....see the link here....http://www.talkaboutlaminitis.co.uk/

Might be some useful info on here for you in case you have not seen this website yet...
 
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