Laminitis - more prevalent or more aware?

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domane

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Apologies if this has been mentioned before but I started riding in *cough* 1968 and was around them through til 1984, when I somehow took a 21-year break for marriage, kids etc.

Now divorced and re-married, I've returned to my "first love" and have been a horse-owner again for the past five years. Something I've noticed from having the break is that laminitis seems to have increased. When I was a child, you hardly ever heard of a horse or pony getting the dreaded L-word. It was one of the the greatest feared illnesses, along with colic and strangles (interestingly sweet itch seemed really rare too), but you didn't hear of it really. I was wondering whether this is because it's more prevalent these days due to "farmed" pasture land, ie, horses being grazed on rich, grass-planted fields rather than native scrubland or whether we just have a greater awareness of it? My boys are shoeless and horses with no shoes are far more likely to show footiness through the spring flush. Many horses actually get footy but because they wear shoes, it's not noticed. Actually, that's an example of increased awareness because when I was a child, you didn't really see horses with no shoes either!

Thankfully, I've never had to nurse a horse or pony through laminitis but it is there at the back of mind, particularly at this time of year and I'm very vigilant, checking pulses, etc. It's not worth getting complacent.....
 
It will probably be a combination of both, but to be honest, I do think it is more prevalent.

I am just thinking -- here on the Continent laminitis is much, much rarer, and I think it's because we don't really have horses turned out 24/7 -- while in the UK turning horses out day and night on really good grass seems the norm!
 
And yet in Canada, where many horses live out/have full day turn out, I'd say it's also less prevalent. :) I'm sure part of that is due to the harsher climate, so the grass is often dry in the summer and well, dead in the winter. And also partly to the kinds of horses many people have - there are far fewer Native type ponies and small cob types around. Plus, because the hay quality tends to be a bit more reliable and storage is generally easier lots of horses that don't work hard exist on hay alone, or only small amounts of fibre-based concentrates, and the range of hay is greater so people can feed grass-only or similar consistently.

I don't obviously have any experience of UK horsey life 40 years ago but I do remember, in things I read as a child - pony books, magazines etc - laminitis was a big fear and often provided the "drama" of someone's pony getting sick/pts so I do get the sense it's always been much more of a mainstream problem here.
 
Domane, my timescale of learing to ride and then coming back to horses after a long break very similar to yours.

And I think it's a combination of factors maybe - there seems to be more overweight horses than before which might point to how horses are managed today - the whole feed business has expanded massively and so horses may be being fed products that are unsuitable for their weight/build/needs without people taking the appropriate feed advice, we also rug horses now more so they do very well during the winter etc but I think laminitis awareness has also grown (good thing) plus with the amount of research done over the last couple of decades (?) into laminitis, it draws some attention to it too (sorry, dreadful grammar there..if any!). I'd be happy if there were daily headlines in spring and autumn about laminitis if it meant that one less horse didn't have to go through the awful pain of it.

I think also too when there's been fewer and fewer riding schools where children can learn about horses through stable management days, etc, that maybe there's been people getting involved with horses without all that very useful knowledge which is why it maybe gets the amount of coverage in articles and magazines it does now to ensure they can get that knowledge from another source.

Funnily enough the pony I learnt to ride on back in 1971 (I was 8!) was a recovered laminitic and the stables I rode at were excellent at telling me all about it as obviously they felt it important that children coming to the stables were aware of those things. I have to say I've been shocked as an adult coming back into horses in my 40s how little some younger people know about horse husbandry, even the very basics, not all but some. And there's plenty excellent sources like books and magazines now but maybe they don't make up for coming under the wing of a great RI or very knowledgeable horsey person at a yard/riding stables.
 
I think it was always there, we just are more aware of it. Also most ponies lived out all winter, unrugged, so probably went into the spring slimmer than they do nowadays. I lost a mare in the early 70s with laminitis, a toxic form due we think to eating acorns. I had never heard of the danger of acorns then, but I bet most people know now . Had another little pony who had several attacks of laminits throught the late 60s, and yet another owned by a friend who had to be pts after pedal bones rotated around the same time.
 
I agree with Mochadun about how much the feed industry has expanded there are now somany feeds, supplements now, i read somewhere that a huge majority of horses are overfed as owners ideas of workloads differ from the feed companies. Apparently high workload means polo ponies, race horses and high level eventers NOT 3 days a wk trotting around a school with a bit of sj at the w/end. Grassland management has also improved, grass varieties have improved leys and with the more regular use of artificial fertilizers and weed control we generally have better quality and more grass than we probably need.
I think we are more aware of it now too though but this doesn't always mean that we feed our horses to match their workload.
 
It does seem there is more around at yards I have had experience of since i came back to riding. And at those yards the horses I am thinking of were shod so just comparing those it has increased.

My timescale is similar to Mochadun and Domane and from about age 10 to 17 I spent every day I could at the stables.
There was a riding stables attached - different yard but we shared the big fields and a mixture of horse and ponies from the heavies that pulled the traps to the owners daughters TBs and competition ponies and in all that time I remember one laminitis case. He arrived with laminitis and was a very bad case and sadly didn't make it.

A few things strike me that have changed.

Feed - we fed straights mainly, oats but sometime maize, barley or linseed, or sugarbeet (molassed) if you needed to add condition and bran.
Now the feeds we use have all sorts of things added to them, not necessarily bad but less controllable.
The old rule of feeding according to work done was followed, the riding stable ponies brought in and used or 3 or 4 hacks a day got 2 feeds, but if they weren't used and left out in the field then they didn't get fed.

Weight - it does seem to me that horses are fatter than they were. Everything came out of winter a little slim. Now the first sign of losing that round look and conditioning cubes are stuffed in. I have seen owners start worrying when their honestly quite fat horse goes slightly less fat.
I think people are aware of what laminitis is but some need to be educated using examples on what the correct weight of a horse is.

Pasture - as farms are losing money, are some using pasture for horses that would have been used for cattle? Are these same fields being used to create hay which is then richer.

I wouldn't like to say how much of any of these factors contribute but maybe they are all things that need to be revisited.
 
When my horse got it a few years ago (he is 31 now) my vet said it could be because our grass doesn't really get scorched anymore in the summer, because its so wet and warm the grass grows continously so is like spring grass.
 
I suspect ponies were also worked more (and fed less!) than they perhaps are these days?

perhaps the fact that it isnt so easy for kids to go hacking for hours on end given the current roads etc?
 
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