Diet for a Laminitic with Hay Allergy?

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Nosey

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Could someone with more technical knowledge than me advise on what would be sensible diet for a pony with these two conditions. Its not my horse but a friends and would like to give him some gentle advice as think he is way off the mark in what he is feeding but want to have a few technical pointers to guide him in right direction.
Yes I probably sound like a busy body but I am trying to do whats best for pony in a softly softly way. Its kept on my yard and is showing symptoms of the lami returning which I think are being exacerbated by the diet.
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Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
 
Nailed has hit the nail on the head. Soaked hay - removes the sugar and the mould spores and dust at the same time. Not just wet, soaked for several hours at least.
 
As others have said hun, your pal can just soak the hay. When horses have a "hay allergy", 99.9% of the time it's allergy to the dust and spores in the hay, not the hay itself. Soaking the hay for a couple of hours will cause the spores to swell so the horse doesn't breathe them in so doesn't get the terrible coughs that the allergy produces. If you soak it for too long you leach most of the nutrients out - now that might be helpful for a laminitis-prone horse but your friend will need to ensure her horse is getting the right amount of calories and essential vits and mins. If soaking the hay is difficult or impossible for your friend and haylage is too rich, she could feed her horse fibre in the form of a hay replacer like Hi Fi or Hi FI Lite. The best advice I could give for you to pass on to your friend is that she rings one of the free feed helplines and they will help her get the diet exactly right x
 
What they all said
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I soak my hay for at least 4 hrs . No sugar or carbs and limited grass for the laminitis so I would recommend something like Fast Fibre as it is mollasses and barley free but contains vits and mins so is a complete feed. Be careful with most chaff's like Hi Fi as they do contain a small amount of mollasses which can be harmful for them.

Good luck...its a horrid condition and you are right to want to help this owner
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Sadly our little pony has Lami at the moment after being free of it for 18months. It started when we had all the snow and freezing temps. She is on two buckets a day of Hi Fi Lite and is improving, any hay she has is soaked for ages. Vet also had us bandage her feet which she reckons will help. But is allready on a deep bed with rubber matting.
Hope this helps.
 
Yep, what they said soaking hay should help unless the allergy is to grass itself!
Give your friend these links, this lady is expert with metabloic conditions so may be of help.
www.MetabolicHorse.co.uk
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheMetabolicHorse

No grass, no treats such as carrots either may help.
Grass is probably high in sugars atm due to sunny, frosty weather so reducing sugar intake any way you can is always the first step imo.
 
YEP, Agreed. Soak the hay. it will remove dust spores and reduces the nutritional content of the hay to pretty much just fibre... pony should pretty much loose weight before your very eyes... oh and only feed 1.5 - 2% of pony's bodyweight in dry hay a day...
 
Thanks guys - reassuring to know I was on right lines....but having only had experience of keeping a lami pony not one with hay allergy too, was in need of some reassurance!
I have repeatedly asked her why doesn't she soak his hay but she is adamant vet says no way must be haylage..which I know contains more sugar than hay. Her vet however does not have the best reputation!
She gives him so little haylage that sometimes he is in his box a good 12/14 hrs with no fibre having eaten the small portion he was given in about 30/45mins!
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Dinners consist of a massive quantity of AlfaBeet (aprx 1/2 to 2/3 std bucket size)some H+P nuts and smallish amt of Alfa A.
She is a nice...if somewhat stubborn person at times!! I want to take the right approach for it to effect some change for pony as feel a responsibilty with it being on our property!
 
If she insists on feeding haylage then Marksway Horsehage do one that is suitable for laminitics. Its the one in the lilac and white packaging. My vet doesnt like lami horses having haylage but was ok with this one for my mare when she had a dose last summer and I found it difficult to find any old hay to buy.
 
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I have repeatedly asked her why doesn't she soak his hay but she is adamant vet says no way must be haylage..which I know contains more sugar than hay.

[/ QUOTE ] That is not necessarily the case! Much depends on which grasses the hay/haylage is made from and what time it was cut. Some haylage types, such as Marksway High Fibre Horsehage IS recommended for laminitics, and I have used it for a laminitic pony myself.

You can find the analysis for Horsehage compared with hay on this link:

http://www.horsehage.co.uk/analysis.html

Some more info on forage analysis can be found on this link:

http://www.dengie.com/pages/posts/forage--facts-fiction-clarified.php

Including the quote:

"So far in 2007, the forage analysed by us for our customers showed that the average sugar content of hay was 10.5% whereas haylage is 9.8%. It would normally be expected to see haylage with a significantly lower sugar content than hay as the sugar should be fermented during the ensiling process. However, there seems to be a tendency to create drier haylages which may be compromising sugar fermentation as can be seen from our analysis; all the haylages with sugar values over 10% had a dry matter in excess of 65% whereas haylage would normally be expected to be 50-60% dry matter."

However, I wouldn't feed bog standard big bale haylage to a laminitic, UNLESS it had been analysed first and pronounced suitable for laminitics. Actually, I would do this with hay too!

Also, as regards soaking hay, there is an interesting article here:

http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/news/2009/07/047.shtml

about new research that shows that soaking hay may not be as effective as removing sugars as once thought. It recommends that if you are soaking hay to remove sugars you should ensure you start off with a low sugar hay (again by getting an analysis done).
 

I agree, I soak my hay over night and then rinse it off whilst it's draining, aswell as use a diet of hi-fi lite, fast fibre and some safe and sound (to hide the tablets she is on for her insulin resisitance). That way they can eat poorer quality feed and be occupied, thus keeping their hind gut functioning and not put on the calories.

It's more work but it is worth seeing them happy - and you get really muscular arms carrying the nets across the yard!!lol
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Thanks everyone - the haylage is def not the Horsehage one - think its MainBale. I appreciate its two difficult conditions to manage - one req. turnout as much as poss and the other requiring restricted grazing. Its just the compete lack of fibre that concerns me coupled with huge feeds.
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I've had my shettie on box rest before and fed him the blue horshage. He kept a steady weight.
If she won't use anything but the haylage she is using then tell her she can soak that.
Also Fast Fibre can be used as a complete hay replacer.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks everyone - the haylage is def not the Horsehage one - think its MainBale. I appreciate its two difficult conditions to manage - one req. turnout as much as poss and the other requiring restricted grazing. Its just the compete lack of fibre that concerns me coupled with huge feeds.
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[/ QUOTE ] MainBale is probably not too bad, as although they do not give the sugar content on their website, it is a late cut haylage designed to be high fibre and low energy. However, she really should get the sugar level checked out to be on the safe side.

It does sound like the pony is getting plenty of fibre in its bucket feed (Alfa Beet and Alfa A are both fibre feeds) but not much in the way of chewable fibre, which means the pony eats his feed too quickly and then has nothing to occupy him. If there is a specific reason for not increasing the haylage, then she needs to alter the bucket feed to include more short chop feed - HiFi Lite might be a good choice because it is quite coarse and takes a long time to chomp on. Could you suggest that she rings Dengie to get some advice from them? I'd also want to be wanting to swap the H&P nuts for something lower starch like Spiller's High Fibre Cubes.
 
I am really begining to despair of vets in the 21st Centuary still giving advice like restrct hay, no need to soak etc. etc.

There is no way of telling the sugar content of grass, hay or haylage unless you have it tested!!! Some yards buy hay/haylage sprayed with mollasses I have read!!!!!!
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Please, please everyone free choice soaked hay and soak haylage if no improvement in a couple of days.
If horse is over weight then find ways to slow eating down such a small holed haynets or even double (one inside the other) small holed haynets.
Restricting forage is very stressful both physically and mentally for horses and a constant trickle of forage is need for their guts to function correctly etc. etc.

Your hay/haylage may be fine but imo it's not worth the risk. Soaking hay/haylage does no harm but NOT soaking can be life or death!!!!!!
 
Thanks guys - some v useful info and sources of info on here. Think will point in way of helplines plus suggest she look again at soaking ...she is now increasing fibre however after a few prods this week. Just hate seeing his sad little face over door at tea time when mine get their large nets!
 
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