laminitis

C

cardi_girl

Active Member
Joined
11 August 2012
Messages
38
Location
Wales
Visit site
Hello, my 16yr old gelding has been turned out to grass for the past three weeks, on tuesday he was found to be mildly lame in his front hoofs. I brought him back into his stable, monitored him, by the late evening he seemed to be getting much worse so i phoned the vet to come out and check him, he couldnt feel a pulse and when tested with pinchers he didnt flinch. He was given an intravenus painkiller. By the morning he looked comfortable but not moving. By the aftetnoon he seemed to be getting worse, he was given 2 sachets of bute. He seemed settled last night and could get up/down but not moving. My vet and farrier are now suspecting laminitis. Today he has had more bute and is fed soaked haylage as i havent got any hay. He has no other feed. He is booked in for xrays next week. Today hes not moving and if he is he's shuffling with straight legs. So my questions are...should i be feeding him any supplements to help him? He's overweight so the vet said not to give him hard feed. But i feel like he's not getting the vitamins and minerals he needs? Is there anythingi should be doing to help him get better? I know he needs to loose weight, hes only been fed a cupful of baileys low cal
 
Sorry posted to soon. He was fed a handful of baileys low cal once a day and a slice of haylage twice a day prior to being turned out. He wasnt in work as i have two small children and no one to mind them during he day, once the clocks change i can start taking him out once my husbands home from work.
 
Sorry to hear your boy has laminitis. I am sure you will get lots of good advice on here. Have you had your horse tested for Cushings/IR? If that is a cause diet alone will likely not be enough to prevent laminitis.

I had a bad experience with my 16.3hh mare getting laminitis last year - her's was stress laminitis, but it all has the same effect. I don't want to scare you, but sadly I lost her after a 3 month box rest; she had bad rotation and sinkage. My advice would be to go onto soaked hay (soaked for 12 hours) to remove the sugars now. If you are feeding a low cal balancer that should have all the vits and mins your horse needs. I fed fresh clivers and dandelion root to detox my horse - you can get these in dried form.

Speak to your vet if you are concerned about nutrients, but at this stage you want to remove sugars and detox your horse. Hopefully you have caught this in good time. Good luck.
 
It wont hurt to not feed a supplement for a few days so personally I would cut everything out for now and just feed the soaked hay and water.

Baileys lo cal does contain molasses so would be safer to cut out for a few days until the xrays are done, you could put a salt and mineral block in the stable if you were worried about it. Just one of the plain Rockies ones though non of the tub or likkit types.

Hope your pony improves soon.
 
Sorry to hear about your horse.

My mare is 16 (she'll be 17 in April) and came in lame at the beginning of February, at first I thought she'd pulled something in the field as the snow had melted, the fields were boggy and shes forever chasing my other mare around.

I box rested her for a few days until my farrier came out (he was due out a couple of days later), he advised shoes off and box rest. I also had the vet out who gave bute and advised a Cushings test plus x rays. The x rays showed that she had minimal rotation in the left fore and the Cushing's test came back positive.

She is in a set routine (she's been in about 2 months now) - she is fed/hayed by my friends partner at 6am every morning and then I go up at 5pm every night. She has a large deep bed that is deep littered as it helps to keep the straw in place with a smaller/thinner straw bit at the front and matting underneath that. She has two small nets of hay (double netted) at night and one in the day. She's on two feeds a day of 1/4 small scoop of fast fibre (soaked weight) plus a vitamin supplement and a scoop of garlic to hide her 1 sachet of bute which she has at night.

I have to dustbins (they were feed bins over winter) where I soak my nets in, I put the nets in the bin (one in each) and fill them with water, weight the nets down and then leave them to soak overnight - they are soaked for at least 24 hours.

Her pulses have now gone down and she should be having her shoes back on next week.

She never reacted to the hoof testers even when she had pulses.
 
This emergency diet is a good place to start. He will require further mineral supplementation in future but getting him stable and comfortable is the priority in acute laminits. http://ecirhorse.org/index.php/ddt-overview/ddt-diet
Fingers crossed.

ps. Trying to get some hay might be better but soaking (and rinsing) the haylage will have to do if that's all you've got.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for your replies, i will try get him hay to soak and also a salt block. I havent had chance to read the ecir document yet but will do later amd hopefully it will set me straight on a crash diet for him.
It has been 48hrs since he was found to be mildly lame. He looks to be getting worse rather than better, his back is straighter than usual
 
Urgh i hit send to soon again. Im on my phone and the buttons are too close! So his back is straighter than normal as his feet are under him and he's tucked up. Hes only passed two mucks in 24hrs. Is this normal for a lami case? Sorry for asking so much. Im in a mess about it and dont want him suffering.
 
Like yasandcrystal I had a mare with laminitis, I lost her before Christmas.


If you need any advice so many here have been through it recently :(

speak to your vet about founderguard
http://www.founderguard.uk.com/

Also i recommend Laminator, it helps with the vessels to allow the blood to improve flow to the feet. I used it all the time

http://www.equimins.com/laminator-for-horses.htm

Lastly previous help from others and links are here on my website http://horse-care-and-advice.weebly.com/l.html.
sadly it was the bone infection that got too bad :(


I had a 17 month battle with this horrid disease feel free to ask or PM.




.
 
Last edited:
I will say giving my mare haylage was the worst thing i could do , it caused a flare up and it was the lami haylage. Most of the lami haylage is for after the event not during it as this can tip them over the edge
 
cardi_girl said:
i will try get him hay to soak and also a salt block. I havent had chance to read the ecir document yet but will do later amd hopefully it will set me straight on a crash diet for him.
It has been 48hrs since he was found to be mildly lame. He looks to be getting worse rather than better, his back is straighter than usual
Click to expand...
Do read the diet advice and follow it to the letter. Don't be tempted to feed 'laminitic' feeds or any compound feed (including the low cal) until he is stable. No treats and stress to everyone how important this is atm. people do feel sorry for horses with laminitis but treats/unsoaked hay/handfuls of nuts etc. etc. are/can be dangerous. His system needs to detox itself so the emergency diet is a very good move imo.
Is he on a deep shavings bed? If not it needs to be at least 4-6 inches (compacted) deep covering the whole stable.Put table salt in his feed rather than a block.
It may turn out he hasn't laminitis but these measures wont hurt and will help him loose weight anyway. Blood tests for Cushings and IR might be a good move as well.

Wishing him well.
 
Last time my pony came down with it we used gardening kneeling sponges and duct taped them to her feet to keep her comfortable (id link you to the page but im on my mobile, google will bring it up), and took sugars out if her diet. Within days of supplementing mag ox she improved and was cantering round her stable within a week.

Its an awful experience especially the first time you see it but she'll be more comfortable with pads or a deep shavings bed. Some reports say mag ox helos digest sugars and others say it opens the capillaries in the feet allowing better blood flow. It def helped my mare and i feed it twice a day now. Hope she's better soon x
 
Soaked hay, no haylage, get vet to x ray hooves to see what damage has been caused. Vitamin and mineral supplement - if they won't eat it by itself, mix it with a little molasses free chaff or sloppy Allen and page fast fibre.no pellet feed or balancers or hard feed. Get a weigh tape and use it daily, feed 2-2.25% bodyweight in total per day for gradual weight loss safely.

Every time you think of giving them some extra feed to make them happy, harden your heart, they are relying on you.

Much easier to tell if any flare up starting if the horse has no shoes.
 
Thank you for your replies. I have him on soaked hay now and 2 x bute a day (mixed with water and syringed intohis mouth). He is a lot more comfortable, and moving around his stable which is a huge inprovement. He is booked for x-rays on tuesday. Can I ask what will happen if he has alot of rotation? Thanks.
 
Depending on the degree of rotation the vet will advise you on treatment. It is amazing how horses and ponies can recover these days with the right care.

Laminitis is a very distressing thing for horse and owner. I have been there myself so understand how you might be feeling right now. I hope the x-rays show little or no rotation and you can start to rehab your horse.

Best wishes
 
OP sorry to hear about you horse.

A question you might want to ask your vet is whether to get your horse tested for cushings? 90% of all lami cases can be as a result of an underlying metabolic condition of either cushings or EMS. But you are doing the right thing by immediately addressing his dietary issues.

He will survive well enough on just forage for the time being, with that being 24h soaked hay, but do weigh it and make sure you feed through a trickle net to keep him occupied. No carrots, polos, apples or any form of treats, and no molasses based mineral licks - get him a himalyan salt lick to keep him busy if needs be.

But longterm you might want to think about getting him tested for cushings.
 
I guess most of it is covered now but I would have put frog supports on easily made with a bit of old carpet and bandaged on. Deep bed of shavings and plenty water and soaked hay Do not starve the horse he needs the fibre in his diet to protect his gut He still needs 1.5% or more of his body weight in forage depending on his condition.
Magnesium oxide will help but you will need to add salt to his food as well a salt block isnt good enough as the horse is unlikely to get enough salt from self medication
Mine have a small amount of fast fibre for drugs and he should really be on ACP too/sedalin. Dont worry if he lies down a lot taking the weight off his feet is good as long as he can still get up and down easily
There is a lot that can be done but sometimes it is kinder to let them go as others have said
The former treatment will only help and even if it isnt laminitis wont do any harm Dont be tempted to encourage him to move in anyway as that only caused more damage and remember he needs to be sound for 30 days off any medication before you let him exercise or start to lead him out. Strict box rest until he is sound for 30days off meds is essential as the laminae need time to heal
Only movement should be minimal for his welfare so it would be better if the xray came to his box but if you must transport him make sure the forgs are supported
 
my boy has cushings, had laminitis a few times, had x-rays, rotated in all 4.. was barefoot, trimmer left his toes to get to long, he was crippled for months, vet got a farrier out 1 trim and he was sound.. anyway hes 1 year on and back in shoes, being ridden.barefoot trimmer is now being taken to court, (not by me) yet.. shes messed alot of horses up.. he has soaked haylage speedi beet and high fibre cubes... no signs of laminitis, hes out all day muzzled, if your horse needs to lose weight its feed 1.5 % of body weight, made up of hay or haylage soaked.. i weigh my boy weekly..dont feed malasses free, its high calorie dengi told me that when i asked about it... fast fibre or speedi beet, rinse it through after you've soaked it..
 
Thank you all so much for your advise. I have him on soaked hay now, and I can already see a slight weight lose. He isn't sound yet, but is hobbling around his stable and able to get up and down and seems comfortable. He is on one bute a day at the moment. His x-rays shown some rotation, slightly worse in one hoof. My farrier has been in touch and suggested heartbar shoes when he is feeling more comfortable. Can a horse get cushings without a curly coat? His coat is perfectly straight at the moment. x
 
My only concern about shoeing a laminitis is that they make the horse more apparently comfy but also mask the essential early warning signs of any future flare up, denying you the opportunity to nip it in the bid. Also the shod hoof physically cannot generate the blood flow to the laminae that is essential to it functioning properly. So before going down the heartbeat route do have a good thorough discussion with your farrier and vet too about those aspects, ESP as your horse symptoms sound a bit more than very mild lami
 
OP - curly coat for Cushings is a relatively late stage symptom.

Heart bars have unfortunate side effects so make sure any discussion includes the downsides as well as the ups.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top