Laminitis routine / prevent / please share your's

[Tyssandi]

Having lost my mare of a lifetime to this, I thought this could be a useful thread which could be used by others this year and the next and so on. We are in the danger time for equines great and small - this thread is not for the *my way is better* thread, but a thread where members can share their regime which works!!!! for your "at risk equines" which might help new members or old faced with this life changing / life threatning killer.


I also use this daily http://www.laminitis-risk.com/

Please share your routine(s) so others can try with their *at risk* Different ways work for different equines

I will start


Gelding 15.1hh won't where muzzles *off within 5 minutes* first bout of laminitis last year, over weight due to tendon injury. Initial box rest and limited turnout - soaked hay Monitored grazing

This year:

Tendon still issue so out of work

Went slightly lame in March before I was planning restricted grazing due to sudden grass growth - box rested hosed feet flare up gone within a week.

Routine turned out with others at 9am and comes in 11.30am stays in 2 hrs goes back out 1.30pm in at 4pm, at night 24 hr soaked hay. = No heat no pulse no flare up



pony 12 hh welsh A used to be in 20 meter circular coral (electric fence) as like above used solid objects to remove dinky muzzle. This worked until new livery



Now with 2 ponies,

we split their acre field into 3 and strip grazed, we tried cutting one strip in half but to much grass, so gone back to old way, moving the fence up 1 ft every 2 days. Out at 9am - they come in at 2 pm and do not go back out

Pony has 1 section a night soaked 24 hh haylage

 

[scats]

14hh cob x mare, EMS.
Turned out overnight- usually 7.30pm- 8am on baldest field we have, with a bossy gelding who keeps her on the move.
In during day with small net of soaked hay that she usually leaves anyway. Handful of chopped oat straw and anti-lam Balancer to get 20 metformin into her.

Fence moving occurs every 2-3 days, by 1-2 feet. If pulses are ever felt, fence moving stops until settled again.

 

[poiuytrewq]

really interesting thread for those of us new to laminitis..... Thank you for starting!

 

[meleeka]

12hh Cushings pony, 14hh fat cob and mini Shetland. Out 24/7 on a track of just over an acre. Pretty much adlib hay in a teeny holed net.

 

[Follysmum]

2 ponies are in a small area ( enough to have a blast ) ad lib hay in a trickle net each

 

[Fragglerock]

Digital pulses - observations. My vet said pulses will vary with conditions, exercise etc.

This is what I find with my horse who is in during the day in hot weather. His legs fill slightly around the fetlock and his pulse is easy to find when he has been standing in for a while and he gets a slight swelling above the fetlock at the back (I know before I get there if I can feel his pulse if he has that puffiness). He has one when he gets up from lying down. His increases with ridden exercise on roads. They tend to be easier to find when the weather is hot (he does feel the heat). Put him out in the field overnight, any swelling and pulses disappear.

 

[Lintel]

14hh Highland and 10hh Shetland

Out from 8pm to 11am each day on 3/4 acre of fairly pants grazing. In during the day... More for comfort and convenience for me to check them over etc.

Fed on bran and half cup of suregrow each.

Highland is worked when possible normally 4 days... Not recently due to bruised sole, so we are getting back up to fitness now!
Shetland isn't worked.

I keep an eye mostly on digital pulses ... Footyness and general lethargicness

 

[suffolkmare]

Thank you for starting this thread. I'm on laminitis-watch as an understocked paddock plus sudden lush growth has caused my pony to balloon. I'm now keeping him in between 4 pm and 9 am on shavings with soaked hay in a small holes net ( doesn't quite eat it all) then turned back out but now has 3 new friends out with him so his elderly buddy isn't alone at night. I'm considering a grazing muzzle. He would be stressed if he was in alone during the day as neighbouring stables come in at night. Eagerly reading for further tips, especially with reasons!

 

[buddylove]

12hh Welsh a and 10hh Shetland. Welsh is a fatty and Shetland has had laminitic episodes. Out from 9pm to 6.30am on small rubbish paddock, on a bare lot during the day with a tub of straw chaff to chew on. Farrier says the Shetland is the slimmest he has seen for a long time. Yes they hate me, but they're not lame!!

 

[Britestar]

Ex toxic laminitic - 13.2hh, Cob 16yrs old.
Came down with TL after Atypical Myopathy in May 2014. 11 months box rest, gradual re introduction to grazing. Returned to work in November 2015. Gradually built up work, returning to full work by March 2016.

Fed top chop zero, optigain balancer. Molasses free speedibeet. Muzzled at grass March - December. Out 7.30am to 5/6pm in at night all year round. Worked reasonably hard 4-5 days a week, including competitions and training. Soaked hay in the summer, does have haylage in the winter as grazing is poor.

Currently 460kg, could have a little less weight, but can feel every rib without pushing.

 

[SEL]

14h Ardennes and 15h draft x mare.

Both have PSSM 1 but the mare is also considered by the vets to be insulin resistant. She can't have a glucose clearance test because of the PSSM so told to treat as high risk for laminitis. Ridiculously good doer.

1/2 acre of rye grass mixed with clover on an ex-dairy farm. I have electric tape around the middle of the paddock to create as close to a track as I can get. This was pretty worn down until the last 10 days when the grass has come back very well.

Mare is muzzled in the day and muzzle off at night. She has a pile of soaked hay to eat through her muzzle as she was getting stressed and she's had ulcers in the past. The Ardennes is allowed a tiny amount of the long grass in the middle each day while the other one is muzzled.

Mare was around 600kg on 5 April (weigh tape) and is now 560kg if I measure her once the muzzle has come off but bloats to around 20kg heavier after a night without the muzzle of. She could easily lose another 20kg without looking thin. I'm going to narrow the track this weekend because I think the grass is coming back too well.

Food wise - a small amount of soaked beet to hide supplements and oat chaff. All hay is soaked to death. I watch the laminitis ap and test pulses on the mare whenever she comes in. She's barefoot and if she's ever tentative over hard ground then I know she's getting too much sugar.

 

[stencilface]

Wait for pulses or footiness. Then he gets taken off the grass for the day and moved onto a bare earth paddock with hay. Turned back out at night is normally enough to get rid of pulses, although he last did a week continuously on it. I'll be bringing him off the grass tomorrow.

I want to muzzle him in my new dinky muzzle but I'm not sure of the fitting. He's 16.1 and it's an xl, but it seems close around his nose, although there is room I think? He hates the shires bucket one with a hole in, just stands looking miserable. I'm hoping the muzzle will stop me needing to take him off the grass, and also exercise to use up the sugars. As much as I can as hes also lame from i think barefoot issues, but I just do what h es comfortable doing (ie stay in walk)

 

[windand rain]

Acute laminitic dartmoor who suffers severe bouts if he eats too much but recovers quickly. Fat old highland mare.
We use a track system about 100 meters by 3 meters very short grass. I measure the dartmoors neck as he shows signs of getting cresty a long time before he gets laminitic. His neck is down from 93cm in the center to 81 centimeters and you can just feel his ribs. They are given about 6 square feet of long grass a day. Live out 24/7 if poo drops below 4 in 24 hours each they have a slice of soaked hay. Fed daily a scoop of ossichaff oat straw and meadow hay hand full of soaked grass nuts to make it palatable, cup of micronised linseed turmeric and pepper plus equibites for vitamins

 

[dreamcometrue]

This is the best advice i have

https://www.bluecross.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/fat-horse-slim.pdf

 

[Tyssandi]

This is the best advice i have

https://www.bluecross.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/fat-horse-slim.pdf

Please read the first post it is peoples personal routine with their at risk equines not what you read on the net.


Thnx everyone so far - it makes interesting reading all the ways to keep it at bay.

 

[fattylumpkin]

I have a 15.2 native mare, lives on fresh air, had laminitis in 2010 before I bough her and has been lami free since.

I can't muzzle - she'll either chew through them by pushing it against something until she can get her teeth into it, or rub sores in her face trying to get one off. I'm not even a big fan of muzzles.

Routine each year - the grass grows really late in this country so far up north. Technically we're in 'spring' now and everything is growing like crazy. I let her have whatever is growing at the verges, but while the grass is growing and the nights are still cold (0-5C) and the days are warmer/wet, she is kept off grass. When the temperature difference between night and daytime drops and the first massive growing spurt is over (usually around midsummer here) then I start to let her out on grass and build up slowly, say 1-2 hours extra per week. She lives out 24/7 atm, so if she's doing well and has had plenty of exercise, I plan to leave her out overnight some nights as I usually do when the weather is ideal. There's also a much sparser paddock where barely any grass grows, just enough to keep her interested.

Feeding - she's had only hay and an oil based mineral tub this winter and it has been her best winter yet. She's looking really good.

Exercise - we've been less good at this year. We had a very near miss in incoming traffic earlier in the year when it was still snow on the ground, which is our third to date. I think my guardian angels must be getting tired of me! So I talked to the farrier and we decided it would be the perfect year for her to go barefoot. So this year we mostly lunge at home or I walk her like a dog along the verges to places where we can lunge higher up in the forest. It's not half of what she used to get but it seems to be doing the trick.

 

[mcgreggor]

Pony: 9hh Shetland, good-lean weight, 13 years old. Investigation after recurring bouts of laminitis (despite careful management and restriction) showed negative for cushings but positive for ems/insulin resistance.

Routine: Stabled 7.30am-1pm, turned out (muzzled) on a big hill field with a herd for the remainder of the day and overnight.

Feed: Breafast; small amount of happy hoof and micronised linseed, metformin.
Tea; small amount of happy hoof and micronised linseed, metformin, powder feed balancer, salt.

Work: 3 days per week - mixture of; driving, lunging, freeschooling/ freeschooling over jumps, long reining or ride and lead.

 

[pansymouse]

When I first got my mare my farrier told me she had had laminitis within the previous two years so I got in the habit of watching her carefully at risk times. I check her pulses at least once a day and at the very first sign her muzzle goes on and only comes off for riding. I'm very lucky that she is good and doesn't remove it. I would prefer to restrict her grazing but our YO doesn't allow that.

 

[RubysGold]

Roo got laminitis last January, when she was feeling better we were in the danger of summer grass. So last year was just 1-2 hours turnout. Built her up over winter to 6 hours.

She now goes out at 9-3.30pm with her muzzle on. She isn't currently ridden but I'd like to start walking her out again.
Her hay is soaked for an hour. She gets a small breakfast of topchop lite with a prascend in.

 

[TotalMadgeness]

Very good doer 16.1hh IDx is turned out from 6pm to 5:30 / 6am in a long narrow strip in a ex dairy farm field (lush rye grass) with a Greenguard muzzle. During day he is stabled and gets two small small-holed haynets of 'low sugar' meadow hay one in morning one in afternoon. Because he gobbles the hay up so quick I would like to bulk it out with oat straw as he ends up standing for a long time without any hay. However I can't get my hands on oat straw...

He gets a small feed of speedibeet, magnesium and Pro Hoof in the morning.

Not diagnosed with EMS but laminitis risk due to greed / weight.

Exercised at least 6 days a week weather and time permitting.

First year I've done this with him and so far so good - weight is staying off and muzzle is staying on. No increased pulse or footiness.

In the winter he goes out during the day without a muzzle - stabled at night.

Have a topper and the neighbour's sheep to keep grass manageable in other fields because they cannot be grazed by my horses in the summer.

 

[Kezzabell2]

Sam (7yr old Connie x tb) hasn't had lami but he does put weight on very easily, so
he's turned out on next to nothing, from 6pm until 7.30am, with a mini Shetland,
comes in and has his top spec senior light balancer, and goes on the walker for about an hour.
stays in until 5.30 and I will either lunge or ride, if time allows and then he goes back out.
Obviously if I ride he doesn't go out until about 6.30-7 that night

Jezza (16 year old mini Shetland) is turned out with another mini and a new forest who has had lami a few times in the past. To be fair the shetlands have never had it and have always had far more grass than you'd imagine was okay, but because of the New forest getting lami again last year, they all just follow his routine of being in a fattie patch and I just move the fence out a couple of feet every sunday.

 

[DanceswithCows]

Never ANY hard feed.

Ad lib non-ryegrass, unfertilised, diverse-species hay when no grass, grass must be same.

Track system.

Access to seaweed minerals, vitamin supplement and salt at all times.


Slimmed the fattest equid I've ever seen (a shetland) down to normality without any extra exercise and keeps her lami free. Also keeps my mule, notoriously good doers (she will even get fat before the shetland) nice and fit.

 

[Pinkvboots]

2 Arabs on just over 3 acres one is ridden 5 to 6 days a week the other is lame at the moment, so because one is not being worked I have taped of about three quarters of the field and they are on a fairly bare patch with soaked hay and they come in during the day for between 5 and 8 hours, I do normally just let them have the whole field but the lame one will just balloon he is barefoot at the moment and I check pulses everyday, having lost one to lami a few years back I won't take any chances and don't want them getting to fat over the summer.

 

[_HP_]

Restricted grazing (small paddock/track) during spring/summer/autumn to keep weight down
Daily pulse check

 

[HashRouge]

14.2hh Arab mare with cushings (24 yrs old), out 24/7 all year round.

I think I've been striking the right balance over the past few years (fingers crossed!). Over winter she has access to ad lib grazing with her companion and they have bucket feeds/ hay as needed, although last winter this amounted to having hay on one day only (when it snowed) as they have access to a lot of grazing over winter.

The tricky bit for me is making sure that I restrict grazing early enough in the spring. I like to do it almost before the grass is obviously coming through, so I think this year I split their winter field at the end of March and had them in a small paddock, after several weeks of scrutinising the grass to decide if it was coming though yet! They went then into their summer field in the middle of April, after it had been grazed by sheep for several weeks. At first I had them in quite a small space, but I had to make it considerably larger as we then had that long cold/ dry spell and the grass completely stopped growing and they were getting too hungry. Now the grass is coming through I think I have it just right!

They are on about half an acre and it is fairly rough, unfertilised grass. It is quite short and I know what they say about stressed grass, but at least they can't eat as much of it! They both look good weight wise, though cushings mare has her usual slightly droopy belly. They don't seem hungry at all, but every now and then when I'm feeling very nice I move the electric fencing back a small amount so they get a bit off new grass. I will probably start strip-grazing slightly more through the summer, but at the moment I'm happy with what they're on.

They have no hard feed through the summer, though I do give mints probably more than I should . Obviously only one is really prone to laminitis but I manage both the same and I have to say they look amazing - great weight, good coats, good movement. I think they move about more with less grass tbh, and they also have hedgerows all round the field full of hawthorn, field maple and brambles which they seem to enjoy.

The trick for me is making sure I restrict their grazing soon enough and getting their paddock the right size so that they have grass, but not too much.

 

[MuddyMonster]

My routine is dictated by the yards routine, but we make it work as best we can.

At the moment, he is out 7.30am-5.30/6pm on poor-ish grazing. In a few weeks he'll start going out overnight.

He's worked 5-6 times a week (mainly hacking with a mixture of 5-12 miles on average per ride and a mix of fast work & slower, strength work but also some jumping & dressage).

He's on a handful of Fast Fibre and Equimins Advanced supplement/NAF Magic twice a day. He's on ad-lib soaked hay which I rinse off before feeding.

I'd do things slightly differently if I could, but we get by well enough.

 

[TGM]

Current pony hasn't had laminitis but I feel she is quite high risk. Always been a very good doer with a cresty neck, plus now 20 years old so risk of Cushings. At night she is in a small, bare paddock (probably 30m x 10m) with some coarse meadow haylage. During the day she is on a kind of track system around the edges of our arena. Feed is just Spillers Lite and Lean Balancer with a couple of carrots.

Pony we had years ago was probably Cushingoid and came to us on loan with active laminitis! To complicate things she also had poor teeth and COPD. Finally found the best routine for her was in at nights, then out for two hours in the morning and another two hours in the evening. This was reduced after rainy spells in warm weather as this tended to trigger laminitis. I ended up feeding her Happy Hoof as a hay replacer, because she couldn't chew hay properly (there wasn't the choice of feeds available then, about 15 years ago).

 

[MagicMelon]

Ive got a little pony who trimmer believes has had laminitis prior to me getting her so Im quite OCD about keeping it at bay. She literally lives on air and it seems to take forever to take weight off her. Ive been trying to get it off by lunging her (shes a lead rein pony so doesnt exactly get loads of exercise from that) and she's in a very small paddock with minimal grass. She gets a tiny handful of Frickers Baseline cubes twice a day, otherwise I am very careful with regards to what she eats - I dont give her more than say 1/2 a carrot or 1/4 apple a day. Ive noticed the slightest addition to her diet makes her footy so Im very careful. Feel bad for her, especially when my other two horses get pretty much whatever they want, but its better for her in the long run! Having not had a proper native for years though, I forgot how easily they live on literally nothing!

 

[BandL]

15.2hh, 20 year old Welsh X TB.
- Has cushings and on prascend. Last bout of laminitis was a few years ago, higher risk of colic currently.
- Semi-retired so ridden in light work 1-2 times a week.
- February - September his hay is soaked overnight. October - January he gets limited dry hay.
- Fed on topsec senior lite balancer, dengie hi-fi molasses free and speedi beat in the summer (fibre beat in the winter).
- Turned out for 5/6 hours grazing on okish grazing. Depends on weather if this is 7am-1pm or 11am - 4pm. Stabled overnight.
- I have used a greenguard muzzle in the past which was very effective in keeping his weight down, however, he wasn't happy in it and the risk of colic if he was to get it off outweighs the benefits at the moment!

I feel like I'm the only horse owner who prefers the depths of winter as it is less of a worrying time for me as if he was to get a serious bout of colic or laminitis I fear it would be his last.

 

[LHIS]

Watch him like a hawk, limit his intake, check digital pulse every day and remove from grass if I have any cause for concern. He's out with a herd of 8 and there isn't much grass at the moment so he's alright at the moment.
Also exercise him as much as I can, although he's having a few days off at the moment as he's made a mess of his feet.