How long to soak hay for laminitic pony

S

sjdress

Well-Known Member
Joined
14 March 2010
Messages
611
Visit site
Our pony is coming back from her loan home, she has never had laminitis before but came down with it this autumn :(
We’ve never really had to deal with laminitis before and are getting conflicting information regarding how long we should be soaking the hay for. Any advice appreciated!
 
You need to soak it for 30mins (or if really cold water 1hr) change the water and soak again for 30mins (1hr) then rinse off well and hang to dry. Letting it soak overnight in sugar water isn’t going to do much to help. If you had some edible straw it would help to fill the nets a bit with less sugar, a hungry pony will stress and that won’t help. Lots of nice deep bedding if they’re too sore to go out, and muzzle if they’re ok to go out. On frosty mornings I wouldn’t let them graze until it’s thawed, but put hay out and they can nibble that through the muzzle.
 
A nutritionist told me it should soak between one and three hours. After that time the sugar loss tails off rapidly and you really start to lose the vitamin content.
 
Well lots of vets say soak for 12 hours but often becomes unpalatable that long. Sugar levels definitely affected after 30 minutes so if that’s all you can do it’s still worth it. I used to soak the breakfast nets overnight and the evening net from 8am to 4pm. I used to feed a little barley straw too unsoaked. Mine was on a diet not laminitic. He lost loads of weight on this regime though. He occasionally got a kg of dry high so he didn’t lose the will to live!
 
sjdress said:
Our pony is coming back from her loan home, she has never had laminitis before but came down with it this autumn :(
We’ve never really had to deal with laminitis before and are getting conflicting information regarding how long we should be soaking the hay for. Any advice appreciated!
Click to expand...

Have a look at the Laminitus website all the information there on how to care for Laminitics. ( talkaboutlaminitics.com)
 
When Daisy had laminitis I would have a net soaked and ready for her which I would hang as soon as I arrived at the yard. I then filled the empty night net with hay and put it to soak in a large container of water (one of those huge blue barrels) before getting on with mucking out etc. Last thing before leaving I would knock the barrel over, turn it upside down and put the dripping net on the bottom to drain ready for the next feed time.
This worked well for us. Daisy lost weight at a steady rate without going hungry. This is assuming 1.5% in dry matter of her bodyweight in hay spread over 24 hours with a general vit and min supplement. I also left a large trug of dampened Topchop zero chaff in with her overnight as it has no feed value and they don't like it much but it fills their bellies if they're hungry after the hay is gone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top