help on diet for laminitic horse

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odd1

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on monday i was told my boy (16yo 16hh arab x warmblood) has laminitis not too bad with 2% roatation in one foot only we think its been brought on by stress - another story!
anyway the vet said he needs to drop some weight although he isnt grossly overweight i taped him and get him at 585kg on monday and again yesterday he had dropped to 562kg
vet said to box rest and give 3 handfulls of happy hoof for his medication split into 3 feeds & a max of 10 -12kg of soaked hay in 24 hrs - im worried this is too little he is starving and to loose a fair bit in 4 days is perhaps a bit too much of a diet:confused:
he used to be on haylage at night and out during the day on poorish grass
they tested for cushions and ems both came back clear phew
do you think i need to give him a bit extra hay??
 
My mare had an attack of lami 2years ago so I have to watch her weight like a hawk as she is a good doer. She is a 16.1hh warmblood cross and I feed her 1 scoop of Happy Hoof morning and night and in the winter she has a dry cup of Allen & page fast fibre in her night feed. I also soak weigh and soak her hay with a good rinse afterwards, she has 20lbs of soaked hay at night and 4lbs for breakfast. Her turnout is 5hours muzzled - this management along with exercise seems to keep her at an ideal weight.
 
Ditch the Happy Hoof, it is molassed ( only a small amout about 4% ) but something like Fast Fibre would be better. I don't think thats enough hay either, you need to feed at least 1.5% of his bdy weight so I would up that.
 
Vet is right with the hay weight(around 2% body weight), you need to invest in a trickle net or some other way of slowing down eating so he isn't left for long periods with no hay. Some use two haylage nets inside each other. It's a problem many of us have to deal with but it is possible. You must rinse the hay as well. Best of luck.
 
I second this * ditch the happy hoof *

My mares lami started in april though wasnt diagnosed till august she has been box rested ever since.( 6 months )

I use fibergy alfa a lite ( vets idea ) with soya oil
i have created a feed ration in exec ell with all the proteins etc for laminitis i can forward it to you but need an email
this you can compare all the necessary per cent

I spoken at long lengths to Lami trust they advised me to

a) do 3lbs am 3lbs lunch 9 pm
or

4lbs am albs lunch 10lbs pm my mare is 16 hhs

though now we do 4lbs 4lbs 4lbs and 1 section haylage so her forage goes in small 4 time slots spreads it out it works well at the moment.


as she is box rested no turn out

i also use


flexi joint to keep her mobile joints
laminator1 measure x 2 for blood flow in hooves remain
formula4feet to grow good health horn


the other things she is on is anti biotics for the pedal bone

she has 15 degree rotation :(

i soak her hay every night over 12 hrs and rinse it through as they advise on this site i also bought a hay soaker

http://equinecare-and-control.weebly.com/useful-ideas.html
there is loaads of advise on this web site for laminitis
 
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I'd agree the hay ration is about right. I'd be double or treble netting it in small hole nets & splitting it into several small feeds, with a bigger one at night. Weigh the whole days ration out at once though because it's easy to overfeed if each net is just slightly over. Also weigh the net empty, I was surprised by how heavy some nets are!

My vet suggested replacing part of the hay ration with the same weight of clean straw, particularly since my lad won't eat soaked hay. The straw weighs lighter so he would get more bulk that way & keep busy longer.

I used Top Spec AntiLam to put meds in. It quickly dampens to a mush, I'm told is very tasty - bucket is always clean - & at least that way I knew he was getting the vits & mins he needed. As it's in pellet form I could also use some of his daily ration as treats :)

I hope your horse is ok soon, lami in anything is a worry but in a big horse it's even worse. I was terrified I was going to lose mine & I still think I was very lucky not to. I had a good vet, excellent farrier & followed their advice to the letter & he made a full recovery - I hope you're as lucky.
 
you have had good advice here .

sadly i cannot give my mare straw ( colic )
also because she went through a non eating her hay phase i just put her hay in one of the plasterers baths and she eats it when she wants she isnt greedy which helps and only has around 3 hrs between each hay feeding.
but check those websites too its there for all of us and maintained by a member here. The idea is its a library of information. for as many as possible ailments , and actually situations and advice from people actually going through the illness and what they did which worked which could help others and all in one place so no spending hours and hours searching for something someone wrote which worked.
 
thanks been double netting and hanging them from the rafters so he has to fight to get the hay out! using that tiny holed nets they are quite new but 2 of them are slowing him down a good bit
changed his supports just now and he stood fine and im 1 handed as he smacked my hand against the wall on wed getting the blood test and i now have bad tendon damage & broken joint in a finger and not to get it smacked or i will need an operation:(
thanks for confirming the amout is right, i have been weighing it in one lot in bags and just soaking a small amount at a time
why do you rise it after soaking - never heard that before
 
Leviathan, is your mare improving? Mine is on box rest (only 2 weeks so far) and I feel bad enough. What is her prognosis?
 
To rinse off the sugary residue. This step can be vital for some very sensitive horses.
I would give him some nets not tied on the rafters as well just so he doesn't get too frustrated.
 
i just tie the odd one up on the rafters and at night i dont use a net but scatter the hay on the shavings about the bed, i hate haynets and worry that over night he may get a foot caught
i give him 1 or 2 kg every few hours so he isn't without food for too long, im lucky in that he is at home and i am self employed and back and fore to the house alot and not away all day so he has plenty of attention etc
i feel really bad that i have let him get it but even the vet has said he isn't overweight but i need to get him down a bit to help the healing
hopefully he will recover quick and be back out (mega restricted) soon
 
Wagtail said:
Leviathan, is your mare improving? Mine is on box rest (only 2 weeks so far) and I feel bad enough. What is her prognosis?
Click to expand...

We have improved then go down again

our road is ~~~~~ :(


dont know if you have followed our progress when i have posted.


after the initial rotation and sinking it went ok for a while then bloods showed protein loss she had fluid under her undercarriage in the skin. We then had to change her diet from just speedy beet which she stopped eating and stopped eating her hay so eating nothing more a less per day

too alfa a lite and fibergy with soya oil
changed to the third supplier of hay and 1 section haylage evening .

This did help her bloods go up but protein still below normal but she was brighter.


The we got hit with an abscess at coronary band which recently caused more rotation 15% :( though vet not to worried as she has hard feet.

the abscess now gone but it cause inflamation of pedal bone so she is now on norodine ,potassium ,and batrol. to fight it.



In herself she is bright , calm and staying positive. In fact we had Billy out to do her feet friday he said with that rotation he expected her to be more hobbly than she is, she stood there on yard when he did her feet with rope hanging down not moving dosing in sun, how bout that after 6 months box rest.:D she also stood on her bad foot 99% of the time he removed shoe of her other front and trimmed and filed it .

she has a massage every day with my pad we have Penny Hooper when ever we can.

The recent x ray said no more rotation but infection got worst:(

My VET is ACE she spoke to orthopedic at Newmarket who said he wasn't to worried about the infection and he is one of the top surgeons in orthopedic

She has lost a load condition which is to be expected.

We are trying her without the Styrofrom pads which Billy told us to try her off them.
Still hobbly but her lami was bad. she only on 2 bute a day .
so
I am thinking

* Don't stop believing hold onto that feeling she get there *:) she has a zest for life and her son and me and hubby to live for.

sorry to waffle so much to say . bout to go give her massage again

she also loves wet hay if you rinse it with hot water and give all nice and steamy :)

prognosis 50/50

Whats yours in for??

from this

to this


to this



Even Billy said my god her feet are hard as rock lol
 
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Leviathan, has your mare been tested for Cushings? Apologies as I can't remember off the top of my head. Pergolide can make a huge difference even if they only test very slightly positive. Some do very well have a clear test but display symptoms including difficult to control laminitis.
 
odd1 said:
on monday i was told my boy (16yo 16hh arab x warmblood) has laminitis not too bad with 2% roatation in one foot only we think its been brought on by stress - another story!
anyway the vet said he needs to drop some weight although he isnt grossly overweight i taped him and get him at 585kg on monday and again yesterday he had dropped to 562kg
vet said to box rest and give 3 handfulls of happy hoof for his medication split into 3 feeds & a max of 10 -12kg of soaked hay in 24 hrs - im worried this is too little he is starving and to loose a fair bit in 4 days is perhaps a bit too much of a diet:confused:
he used to be on haylage at night and out during the day on poorish grass
they tested for cushions and ems both came back clear phew
do you think i need to give him a bit extra hay??
Click to expand...

We feed our fatty donkey chaff!! sounds silly i know, but vet recommended as as necessary nutrients but little else, also feed a vitamin supplement, garlic and linseed, have really noticed a difference! I hope you find a system that works best for you :) x
 
So sorry to hear all that about your mare Levi. It must be terrible for you. My mare has also developed lami at 18 years of age after being retired for two years and never having it before in her life. I think we caught it early though. First vet said not lami and to turn out on 2 danilon a day! If she wasn't better after 10 days, to nerve block. After two days I wasn't happy and was suspecting lami so got the other vet out and she diagnosed it straight away. She is slightly over weight so I have her on a diet. Soaked hay and happy hoof. She has had bloods which show mild cushings and am awaiting the results for insulin resistance. Two days ago I took her off the danilon and am delighted to say that she is sound in walk. So fingers crossed, I caught it soon enough. Do you know what caused the lami with your mare?
 
Wagtail said:
. Do you know what caused the lami with your mare?
Click to expand...


last year in april she was brilliant at one sponsored ride then 2 weeks later dull lifeless, i thought its her asthma so comp mix propell plus eventually got better,
this year the same so repeated one ride brilliant 2 weeks later lifeless, we gave her ventapulmin she got a little better not much

july i went away the wed i rode she ok got back sun lame bought her in spent the next weeks cold hosing and ice boots no change so got vet they said poultice did this nothing eventually aug nerve block xray showed lami.




It was to much corn and starch that did it.
 
Sorry to hear about your boy, and hope he's soon a lot more comfortable.

You'll probably already be discovering that there are different schools of thoughts on how to treat laminitis. Whatever you choose to do, it's worth being really objective about whether your horse is making progress in the right direction or not. If you get to a point when he's not making progress, or when he's getting worse, then it's a strong hint to rethink your strategy for his recovery.

One of my mares went down with acute laminitis in August (following colic surgery at the end of June). She had been on a long course of antibiotics following an incisional infection from the colic op, and it's my belief that the long antibiotics caused the laminitis. Anyway, she could barely move a single step the morning she went acute. Vet thought it was peritonitis, and she was rushed to vet hospital where it was discovered the following morning that she had laminitis.

Although I'd read up a lot about laminitis prior to that, and had friends who'd gone through laminitis with their ponies, this was the first time any of my gang had gone down with laminitis.

In terms of food ration, I find it helpful to know what my pony's ideal weight is. That may be a guess, if they've never been at their ideal weight, but if they've been close to their ideal weight at some point, it is easier to guess more accurately.

I use that ideal, or target, weight as the basis for the food ration. With my gang of 7 ponies, I find that feeding at 1.8% body weight dry matter is just about their maintenance ration (so this means because hay is only around 85% dry matter, for every 8.5kg of dry matter that is in your ration, you have to feed a little more hay, ie 10kg hay altogether, if that makes sense?).

If I feed more than 1.8%, my ponies gain weight. If I feed any less, they very gradually lose weight, but also they become more grouchy because they aren't occupied with chewing for long enough.

If your horse needs to lose weight, the ideal time is when he is off grass and when you can control his diet fully. With some of my gang who had become very overweight, I had to reduce their intake to only 1% body weight dry matter for several weeks to start to make a difference to their body weight. But I wouldn't want to restrict their diet so much for any significant amount of time.

I find it helpful to weighband the ponies once a week, and adjust their diet accordingly. That way, I can make small adjustments to their feed ration before any weight gain/loss becomes a major challenge. Dodson & Horrell's weightape is meant to be the most accurate one, and although it won't be exact, it's a good indicator of changes in your horse's weight.

Spreading out feeds/nets as much as you can helps to ensure there is always food moving through the gut. And just as you would do normally, you need to have a larger night net if your horse has to go longer overnight before his next feed/net.

The haynets I like are Shires extra fine small holed haynets (they are twotone, either blue/black or red/black). They are very quick and easy to fill by flopping the empty net over an XL tubtrug and are among the smallest holed nets I've come across. I also have some tricklenets, which have a slightly smaller meshsize. Those definitely slow my gang down even more, but they are heavier, and I find them slow to fill because they are not as floppy, so I tend to only use them for very small rations.

I did double net for a while, but it made little difference to the speed that my gang ate at, so eventually I separated the nets again. However, if you do go for double or triple-netting, you can save a bit of time by rethreading the haynet drawstring so that it goes alternately through the outer net and the innder net. Takes a few minutes per net to do, but then it's just like filling a single haynet (especially if you secure the base of the two nets together with a chain link).

I've found Allen & Page's Fast Fibre to be a really useful feed. Very low digestible energy, so less energy than hay, and very quick to prepare. Only needs soaking for a minute. My mare found that palatable even when she wouldn't touch much hay. I just give a 250g mugful once a day now, but there were times when I fed it several times a day just to have some more bulk going into my mare.

I always soak my hay in a haynet, even if I'm not going to feed it in the net. It's just easiest for me to do that as it means I can keep the accurately weighed ration together; I don't lose hay in the water when I soak; and it's easy to pull the net out of the water (or tip the container over) and still keep the hay together.

I only do a single soak. No rinsing. But that decision rests with you, and depends on how reactive your horse is to sugars in the hay. The longer you soak, the more water you include in the soak, and the more you agitate the water, the more sugars you'll remove. The hotter the water, the more sugars you'll remove. I just soak one batch of nets at a time, so one net soaks overnight. The next soaks from breakfast til lunch. The third net from lunch til supper.

This time last year I would have said feeding oat (or barley) straw is the way to go to keep the bulk up but reduce the calories and encourage the horse to lose weight. However, over the course of the last 12 months, feeding oat straw at part of the ration to my 7, I've had one pony go down with an impaction (which timewise fitted with when she got access to a fatter pony's straw ration). Admittedly this pony is the one who had colic surgery last summer, but her original colic was not an impaction one. More recently I had another pony go down with colitis, and although we officially don't know the cause of the colitis, I suspect that his increased straw ration was to blame. I will not be feeding bales of straw again, although I will continue using straw feeds like Fast Fibre as a way to help bring weight down.

Don't know if any of that is any help, but I hope it may be.

Best wishes.

Sarah
 
flintfootfilly said:
Whatever you choose to do, it's worth being really objective about whether your horse is making progress in the right direction or not. If you get to a point when he's not making progress, or when he's getting worse, then it's a strong hint to rethink your strategy for his recovery.
Click to expand...
This is so important. Really comfort progress should be quite quick (2 weeks ish. Days in my personal experience) providing diet and trim are right and any metabolic conditions dealt with. It's the inflammation and any prizing of the hoof wall that cause the pain

I hesitate to write this but some of the experienced trimmers really do have knowledge that some farriers should take on board in the trim department in acute laminitis and reversing rotation.
 
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