Miniatures and laminitis

P

Patchworkpony

Well-Known Member
Joined
24 July 2012
Messages
1,536
Visit site
Given that Shetlands and miniatures can get laminitis at the drop of a hat how do all you miniature owners prevent yours from getting this dreaded illness? Do you keep them on a completely bare paddock, with no grass at all, or do you restrict their grazing to a minimum? How does one keep these enchanting equines safe but still give them a quality of life that doesn't involve a lifetime of living in a tiny boring paddock or wearing one of those horrible grazing muzzles? One can run sheep on the grass first I suppose but then you are exposing the miniatures to short 'damaged' grass which is even more sugary. There doesn't seem to be a sound answer to this problem. I do wonder how many of you Shetland owners have already experienced laminitis.
 
At the start of spring (say march) i put them onto the bare paddock and leave them there usually until later in august. They get hay soaked and no feed unless they need it. In the later months of the year i usually work on a 24hours grass, 24hours hay in the bare paddock. They are still well covered but i don't tend to rug too much in winter so they loose weight. I have not had lami yet in three of them, and one is possibly lami but she is older and more obese than the rest when i took her on. I keep an eye on her, but farrier said she doesn't have any lami signs. The main thing is to just realise the size of them compared to bigger horses, and not feed too much, and keep well exercised.
 
My Shetland gets no special treatment at all. He's out on 12 acres of water meadow with the rest of the herd. From previous threads you will know that I am a rotten mum and he is ridden / driven miles and miles... enough that we rarely have to trim his feet! He's also constantly moving around with the rest of the herd, playing in the summer, and searching for what little food there is to be found in the winter. I firmly believe that activity is vital to circulation, and one of the reasons laminitis has never been an issue for him.

He tends to gain some weight in the summer, and lose it again over the winter - just as nature intended.
 
I have standard Shetlands and never had an issues with laminitis. My main herd of five live on four acres all summer and spend three/four months in thirty acres over winter, this is their down time and they don't get worked/shown in that time.

Rest of the year they are regularly worked to keep them fit and in summer they come in during the day to get out of the heat. I think because they have never really been rationed, they don't guzzle and stuff their faces when out.

The summer grazing is tough old pasture and we're quite high up so our grass isn't rich. No rugs in winter and I use this time to shift the weight gained over summer.
 
I think so often it depends on the type of grass they are on and whether it was originally dairy cattle grass which of course is so full of sugar from long term use of fertilisers.
 
Patchworkpony said:
I think so often it depends on the type of grass they are on and whether it was originally dairy cattle grass which of course is so full of sugar from long term use of fertilisers.
Click to expand...

Yes very true. I had fertilised grass the first year i got my mini and she was a baloon. Its not been done for two years now.
 
i have a 6 year old mini ,up until this year she was out with my mare ,strip grazed and muzzled but had her first episode of laminitis this winter. She has since been diagnosed with ems and i have her on a bare paddock. its tricky as she is kept seperate to my mare who she was bought as a companion.
 
debsflo said:
i have a 6 year old mini ,up until this year she was out with my mare ,strip grazed and muzzled but had her first episode of laminitis this winter. She has since been diagnosed with ems and i have her on a bare paddock. its tricky as she is kept seperate to my mare who she was bought as a companion.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry to hear that - it must be very difficult for you.
 
debsflo said:
i have a 6 year old mini ,up until this year she was out with my mare ,strip grazed and muzzled but had her first episode of laminitis this winter. She has since been diagnosed with ems and i have her on a bare paddock. its tricky as she is kept seperate to my mare who she was bought as a companion.
Click to expand...

Thats the perfect excuse for two more!! hhehehehe
 
catroo said:
I have standard Shetlands and never had an issues with laminitis. My main herd of five live on four acres all summer and spend three/four months in thirty acres over winter, this is their down time and they don't get worked/shown in that time.

Rest of the year they are regularly worked to keep them fit and in summer they come in during the day to get out of the heat. I think because they have never really been rationed, they don't guzzle and stuff their faces when out.

The summer grazing is tough old pasture and we're quite high up so our grass isn't rich. No rugs in winter and I use this time to shift the weight gained over summer.
Click to expand...

I am going with this too...

I have two shetlands and they are out 24/7 on a reasonably grassy 1.5 acres (my 14.2 joins them at night but is in a much grassier field for the day). They do get to go out into the grassier field for a couple of hours a day and depending on the weather/how chubby they look, they sometimes spend the night out there.

They actually spend a lot of time grooming, playing and snoozing, so they really don't stuff their faces like I would have expected. They ideally need more work but at only 3 years old I am cautious with what I do!
 
Mine is muzzled 24/7 so he can be out with our small herd. Separation just upsets him so he is happiest when in company. He gets walked a few times a week which keeps his feet trimmed and helps keep off the pounds.
In an ideal world I would have two minis who could be out unmuzzled on as large a bare patch as possible. Alternatively, a hilly field with poor grass, ie moorland or something similar. For various reasons neither option is practical for us so we have to muzzle. We are still struggling with his weight. I do occasionally ride and lead him so I should probably do more of this. Training to lunge is also a good way.
 
our two minis are now 8 years old. Annoying had always been treated the same of all the other horses and no restriction required, they "should" have had lammy on some of the fields they went on (we didn't have much choice back then) but they never did as were sooo active and played with the herd, galloping around etc.

Cue couple of years ago they went out on loan. Through ignorance or sheer stupidity from the loaner, I had requested specifically that they were never split apart. What did they do?? Still to this day I do not know whether the laminitis the mini Shetland came back with (Crippled, unable to walk and reared rather than walk forward as so much pain - "oh he's a bit stiff today"......grrrrr) stress laminitis or cushings...

He has slowly recovered, having been kept in overnight with hay only, limited grazing and back with his mate!!! He has recently galloped around and despite a pot belly (cushings tests underway) is much more active than he was and I am convinced that he was just immensely unhappy.

The minis have a smaller paddock but it's not bare, and are given ad lib hay all the time to try and limit the grass intake just in case.....!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top