feeding an underweight laminitic

weesophz

weesophz

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posting on behalf of a friend whos not sure what to feed her mare.

mare is 16yo warmblood, teeth are okay, she very rarely gets ridden and is a bit of an ornament. alot of her weight loss is muscle wastage and her owner knows this, but due to her owner not having a lot of time to ride she wants to try feeding her something to help get her condition up as she is seriously lacking.

currently she only gets hifi lite and pegasus pony cubes. She is laminitic (stress laminitis, brought on by one of the geldings a few years ago constantly trying to mount her and terrorising her all the time) so owner doesnt want something to bring that on obviously. she just bought a bag of spillers conditioning mix but is wary of how much to give.

any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks guys :)
 
I wouldn't feed much of any mix to a laminitic. Like giving jaffa cakes to a diabetic.

My laminitic was underweight at the start of last Spring and I used Speedibeet, mixed with oat straw chaff and micronised linseed. Worked a treat! She could use the conditioning mix up by sprinkling a handful over each feed.
 
I would not risk the mix, the grass will be coming through soon or it should be and to give mix now could just push the horse over into laminitis again.

Fibre and oil are the safest way to go, speedibeet is ideal with either oil or linseed, linseed would help with the muscle wastage as it is high in protein plus ad lib soaked hay if not already getting it.
 
If mare copes with dengie have you tried using alpha a lite and alpha beet. This is what dengie recomended for my 16.2 whos had 1bout of stress laminitis. He runs up very light in winter and this has made a huge difference and in summer he gets hifi lite and water an vit an min supp
 
Definitely no mix. Unmollassed beet & micronised linseed & unmolassed chaff & a vit min supplement or lite balancer. And access to a plain salt lick.
 
Look at the Dengie unmollassed range. Lower sugar than Hi Fi lite but more calories as the molasses are replaced with light oil coating. They have the laminitis trust mark so goo for laminitics.
 
I would go down the route of fast fibre and the linseed with the pony cubes and the Hifi lite.

The linseed will help with the muscles wastage side of it as well. This is what mine are pretty much on other than they are on healthy hooves at the moment.

Your friend could drop the cubes and the Hifi, and use the above with the healthy hooves or safe and sound both of which are approv by laminitis trust.
 
Un molassed beet, a decent balancer containing lysine as well as minerals, salt, brewers yeast and m. linseed. Add lib hay if stabled part of the day. That's where I would start. Funnily enough my TB has gained weight on soaked hay. lol I assume it is because lower sugar levels caused less hindgut disruption.
 
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