Laminitis help please

[melissa1971]

I've been lucky to have owned horses for 20 yrs without any sign of laminitis until now...

Please can you give me any help tips and advice for laminitis from starting with it to feeding and how to manage in the future..

He is on box rest and bute for a week then see how he is, vet has said as its first time he's had it to see how he goes for now but if it flairs up again he will do further tests.

Thank you for any help x

 

[Native Pony]

These links might help. The videos on the AHF site are good and Dr Walsh explains how you can reduce sugar intake and help your horse recover.

In his opinion, once the horse has had laminitis, he should always be managed as though at risk.

I found out the hard way you can't relax when it comes to laminitis and others often don't recognise the risk. This is especially true of livery yards where at risk horses have to run with low risk ones. Gates get opened into lush fields or field changes occur without preparation and planning......that's just for starters. Owners of laminitics have to take strong control of the situation.

Good luck


http://www.ahf-laminitis.org/

http://www.talkaboutlaminitis.co.uk/

 

[cardi_girl]

Hi, I'm going through the same thing at the moment. I was shocked that my boy got laminitis after only 3 weeks out and grazing in a field with sheep. I've always associated laminitis with the summer months for some reason!
I had x-rays done on my boy to see if there was any rotation of the pedal bone. I have been given loads of advise on my thread if you can find it...I don't know how to post a link.

I hope your horse is much better soon x

 

[CBFan]

The most important thing is to get them off grass and onto a soft deep shavings bed and fed on hay soaked for at least 12 hours. Bute can be given for the pain and inflamation. You should weigh his hay and feed no more than 2% of his ideal bodyweight in hay a day (dry weight). Use small holed haynets and double net it if neccesary to slow him down. The soaking is to remove soluble sugars.

I would supplement him with magnesium oxide - just add it to a SMALL bucket feed of something like unmollassed sugar beet or Fast Fibre. This will help him metabolise dietary sugars.

Once is is sound and has been so for several days turnout should be introduced gradually and it is likely that he will need his grass intake restricting, beit with a small paddock, grazing muzzle or limited time in the field.

Keep an eye on his waistline and try and be a bit objective about whether he is overweight, cresty etc. ideally he should have ribs easily felt and or slightly visible...

Diet is the biggest problem and one I urge you to research thouroughly - check out some of the 'barefoot' threads for starters. Feed companies are quite deceptive about what they put in their products and even those endorsed by the lamintitis trust tend to contain mollasses and or high levels of starch which are no-goes for a laminitic. They disguise them as things such as 'moglo' which is a mixture of mollasses and oil but is actually only a small % less sugar than mollasses... don't be fooled by labels like 'healthy hoof' and 'happy hoof' or 'lite' it's all a load of balls to make us buy it!

Do you have any pics of him at his current weight? and any info on his current diet would be good so that people can advise any other changes you could make