How much to feed laminitic on box rest

[Tiggy1]

My mare is on box rest with mild laminitis.
She has 1 large section of hay morning and night in a small hole hay net and a half scoop of Happy Hoof with Formula4feet in the morning with her bute.
She is on shavings so she can't munch her way through that.
Am I feeding the right quantity (14hh Native)

All guidance quite conflicting just wondered what everyone else's thoughts are?

 

[Tiggy1]

Just realised this is in the wrong section - sorry!

 

[spaniel]

It sounds as though you are doing the right thing. Is she laminitic due to overweight?

 

[Tiggy1]

No she got out onto some seeds which was enough to give her mild lami.
Brought her back into own field and then she went lame.
She is heavy being a native but not drastically overweight.

 

[ru-fi-do]

When my mare had suspected laminitis a few years back, the vet advised me to soak her hay and feed little and often so that she isn't long periods without food and to put it in small holed nets like you have done, soaking will take some of the goodness out of the hay if soaked for a long period. This way you are limiting what her intake is but keeping her guts working as normal. Or you could feed half hay and half hay replacer.

 

[spaniel]

If its not an obesity issue you may want to spread the hay through the day and pack it out using straw in the net as well. Trickle feed her rather than having two hay times if that makes sense. Adding a bit of straw will ensure she is getting fibre through her system for longer.

 

[Nailed]

Best thing you can do is to mix her hay with either a low quality oat straw or feed a mix of your hay and some very low quality hay.. This will keep her nice and interested and will stop any sugars.

Also, happy hoof could be substituted for hi-fi light which is a damn sight cheeper and is exactly the same minus the vit and min cubes.

You seem to be doing just fine as you are and i hope she is better soon.
Lou x

 

[TGM]

Agree with ann82 - soak your hay to remove a lot of the soluble carbohydrate and feed in a small holed net. I would work on the basis of feeding 2% of your horse's bodyweight daily as forage - so for a 400kg pony you should be feeding about 8 kg a day, spread out through the day as much as possible.

 

[_daisy_]

I was told the best thing to do with lammis is make sure they are full so give them as much hay as they can eat, so when they are recovered they done binge eat. Soaking with take out some goodness so you could do that.

When my lammi pony got lammi last time she was having 2 meals of happy hoof and speedibeet with her painkillers etc in, then she was having a large net of hay that had small holes, then she would have the same at night. She never ate it all up but she always had food available. If she didnt have anything to eat she started eating the stable.

 

[samp]

Soak hay for 30 + mins to remove some nutritional content and I would try to split the feed and hay up to little and often. Horses are trickle feeders and need a constant source of fibre

 

[Tiggy1]

Will get some oat straw and up the hay / straw mix to three / four times a day.
Thankyou for all your suggestions.
There is a wealth of knowledge on here

 

[bensababy]

[ QUOTE ]
I was told the best thing to do with lammis is make sure they are full so give them as much hay as they can eat, so when they are recovered they done binge eat. Soaking with take out some goodness so you could do that.

When my lammi pony got lammi last time she was having 2 meals of happy hoof and speedibeet with her painkillers etc in, then she was having a large net of hay that had small holes, then she would have the same at night. She never ate it all up but she always had food available. If she didnt have anything to eat she started eating the stable.

[/ QUOTE ]


Please be careful in the amount of hay you feed, my experience with a Lammi is do not feed hay in bulk, he had a relapse with soaked hay because it was too much and too rich.

 

[Tiggy1]

Bensababy - how much do you reckon then and how often in a perfect world?

 

[ISHmad]

[ QUOTE ]
Agree with ann82 - soak your hay to remove a lot of the soluble carbohydrate and feed in a small holed net. I would work on the basis of feeding 2% of your horse's bodyweight daily as forage - so for a 400kg pony you should be feeding about 8 kg a day, spread out through the day as much as possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this too. You MUST feed your pony plenty of fibre to keep her hindgut moving. Immerse the hay in water for at least an hour, but more preferably overnight to remove all the sugars. Feed a balancer like Top Spec Anti Lam or similar to ensure that she is getting all the right vits and mins as well.

If you fed ad lib unsoaked hay that would be a recipe for disaster because of the sugars etc. But soaking it removes all the sugars and means that she can eat loads without getting the calories.

Hope she gets well soon.

 

[Tia]

I completely agree with all the people who are suggesting feeding often or ad-lib soaked hay. I couldn't be bothered with this route, so when my girl had laminitis I used Dengie Hi-fi Lite as a hay replacer. She was fed this ad-lib with one scoop of Farriers Formula daily.

You have to make sure that you are pumping through plenty of fibre otherwise complications can arise. Best of luck.

 

[henryhorn]

The secret with laminitics appears to be to keep the gut moving, so I don't think you are feeding enough.
Can you get some oldish but not dusty hay, or some straw, or soak the hay for a while?
Feed some things like swedes on a rope, anything to keep the guts working.
I think the small holed net is a great idea too.

 

[TGM]

[ QUOTE ]
I couldn't be bothered with this route, so when my girl had laminitis I used Dengie Hi-fi Lite as a hay replacer.

[/ QUOTE ] I did a similar thing with our old laminitic, although it was partly because she had poor dentition and had trouble eating long forage, but I used Spiller's Happy Hoof instead of HiFi Lite (just because pony prefered it).

These short chop hay replacers have the advantage that you have a much better idea of their nutritional content than hay. Main drawback for some people may be the cost as it does work out more expensive than feeding hay. Not so bad with the little ponies, but perhaps more of a concern when feeding the bigger animals.

 

[mrsbloggett]

A word of warning on using straw - do make sure it has been throughly treshed and there are no seed heads left in.

My NF pony appeared to be suffering recurrent bouts of laminitis last autumn inspite of being on box rest. It turned out to be the straw I was using at the front of her stable (as it often had a mini flood during heavy downpours which was costing me a fortune in shavings). As she was eating the straw, she was getting the equivilent of a hard feed from the seed heads left over.

my pony is 14hh too, she needed to lose weight so the specialist vets at Newmarket put her on a diet of 8lb soaked hay and 2lb hi fi lite + formula 4 feet. if your pony doesn't need to loose weight then the ideal for a box rest lami pony is one and a half percent of their body weight.

I hope all goes well

 

[amandaco2]

my TBx is on 4-8 sections of soaked hay a day(soaked for 12 hours) and a powder suppliment with minerals and vits in.
she has adlib(she often does not eat much in the day as she is quite a stressy horse)
she doesnt need to lose weight in fact she probably could do with a bit more(you can see her ribs)
how she got lami is a bit of a mystery!(she wasnt injured/stressed/on hard ground/loads of grass/no hard feed)the only thing is she is 17 but she has no signs of cushings.

 

[JackieJATaylor]

Normally a horse will require 2% of it's bodyweight as food daily - so a 500kg horse would require eg 10kg hay, a small 250kg pony 5kg daily. This can be reduced to 1.5% bare minimum if they are very overweight. Two sections a day does not sound enough for a 14h to me - I would have said nearer four, depending on weight of course - they can vary.

The best thing to do s get a weightape and a spring balance and weight everything every so often so you know what you are feeding. I can send you a diet sheet for laminitics if you email me on 2007@MetabolicHorse.co.uk

Jackie