So sad :(

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Lotty

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Earlier this year 2 horses at our livery yard have been pts due to Laminitis, today the 4th horse has been diagnosed with laminitis. I go to the yard tonight and the said horse is being brought in from the field😳😳 I overheard lady say, "I've taken his rug off and there's hardly any grass in the field". Some people should not be allowed to own animals. Every one of these horses wasnt just overweight, 3 of them are obese.
 
:( drives me nuts! My mare is very prone to laminitis so only gets half a day out over winter and no more than a couple of hours in the summer depending on how much grass there is. I check her pulses everyday, and keep her at her ideal weight or a little on the light side. Drives me nuts when people say "oh I just don't know how they got it there's not much grass" when their horse wobbles out the field :mad:

Sorry rant over, laminitis has changed the way I care for my pony as I fought really hard to get her through an acute bout without any rotations. It makes me angry when people don't do the same for their horses! Not many people seem to accept its their fault and I spent months and months looking after a pony that pretty much had its pedal bones through its soles and the owner kept turning it back out (when she bothered to turn up) after saying the vet had been and he's fine :mad:
 
I was at a yard where 4 horses were lost to laminitis in a short space of time.
The vet suggested it could be down to over rich pasture, 3 of the horses were nowhere near overweight and not your typical lami types.
The farmer wasn't happy unless he was tilling the damn fields :mad:
 
The trouble is anyone can own a horse, I know we all have to start some where but you should do basic ground work arounnd horses before you take one of your own on. I have a constent battle to keep the weight off my girl. She wears a muzzle, I soak her hay for 24 hours and double net it. So so sad to hear about this.
 
This makes me really angry too. I am fighting against this nasty disease at the moment. Both times my mare has come down with it have been when she is OFF the grass. She is not what you would call overweight, her ribs show but she has fat pads and a crest due to laminitis and EMS. Anyone who lets their horse get obese, is either plain ignorant about the welfare of their horses, or cruel.

Surely the yard owners where people are allowing this to happen have some level of responsibility here? No way would I allow it to happen on my yard.
 
:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

I am about to lose my 1 in a 1000000000000 mare who everyone knows her battle on here from a year or so back. Her long fight with laminitis is coming to an end (crying while i type) the bone is dying

I am organizing a vet visit for everyone to learn how to check a pulse as no one here knows how.

Made me think in your yard alone how many know how and what a raised pulse feels like??
 
a yard near me has loat 3 this year to lami and a 4th looks to be going the same way, its and old dairy farm and they still fertilise the fields every year-when will people learn fertilised grazing is not good for horses and ponies?
 
Yes Wagtail, I agree, which is why I left the yard.
They were a converted dairy farm who didn't seem to realise that cows and horses needed rather different grazing.
 
montyforever said:
laminitis has changed the way I care for my pony as I fought really hard to get her through an acute bout without any rotations. It makes me angry when people don't do the same for their horses! Not many people seem to accept its their fault :mad:
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^5 this I was so strict on my welshie and donkey not getting lami muzzles / feed etc but my mare was in full work when she got it and I ( never seen lami in the flesh) didnt see warning signs.

Whats also hard is one livery has her 30 year old on the same diet

comp mix- barley rings- propell -plus- sugarbeet. mixed flakes :mad::mad::mad::(:(:(

I have told her but it goes in one ear and out the other. So many people pump their horses full of pretty looking mixes etc.


I can't recommend highly enough D&H Teressa senior nutritionist. for a tailored diet advice. To many people pump large amount of grain without thinking of what can happen. None of mine will have mix again
(unless advised by Teresa and amounts)
 
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It makes me so angry!!

Would much rather see an underweight Horse then an overweight Horse!

At my last yard I was the only one to use a muzzle, Ruby would get comments like "awww bless her, not being able to eat, are you sure she will be ok?" managed to keep her weight down using it though.

At my new yard the grass is very good! she wears her muzzle everyday in the summer.
 
I agree with all of you. My mare had laminitis 3 years ago and it was 8 months of hell, her management is strict, weighed & soaked nets and muzzled when turned out for 5hours. The amount of liveries who have said to me "aw, why don't you take off her muzzle, it's winter". Yep, it's winter but have you seen the fields.
 
Just to give you an idea on how lush the grass is at new yard (this field is 10 acres!) mine is of course the one wearing a muzzle

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:eek: LaurenBay...that grass scares me to death!! Why on earth would any horse owner not see the dangers in such lush grazing. My Haffie and welshie would be bursting within an hour being on that and the TB would be sky high. Much as I have grazing envy when I see a nicely managed paddock (I am on very poor grazing that in the past was not managed) I would prefer that and feed extra hay that such lush grazing...you sound like the only one at the yard who deserves a horsey...must drive you crazy.
 
redriverrock said:
:eek: LaurenBay...that grass scares me to death!! Why on earth would any horse owner not see the dangers in such lush grazing. My Haffie and welshie would be bursting within an hour being on that and the TB would be sky high. Much as I have grazing envy when I see a nicely managed paddock (I am on very poor grazing that in the past was not managed) I would prefer that and feed extra hay that such lush grazing...you sound like the only one at the yard who deserves a horsey...must drive you crazy.
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Was a bit of a nightmare! upped her workload and with the muzzle managed to keep her weight at bay. The TB standing next to her managed without though (she looks quite big in that photo, but she wasn't in RL) they had another 2 Horses in with them, 1 of them were muzzled too. They did graze down that entire field though, then moved onto the 15 acre field, so back to muzzling. Now she is in her winter field (1 acre for just her) and the grass was knee high to begin with.
 
I now have to make a choice for next Spring. Do I muzzle my mare (which she hates and it makes her miserable), or do I only allow her an hour of grazing a day, with turnout in the sand the rest of the time? It's a shame that all horses can't just enjoy 24/7 grazing out on lush fields, but they can't, and that's that. Having owned only WBs and TBs all my life, I really never thought that laminitis was something I needed to worry about. How wrong was I?
 
Personally I would go for the muzzled option. My mare is a clever little Horse and if she sees me around, she stands at the gate looking miserable. However when I am out of sight, she goes off quite happily and grazes. I know this because I hid from her on occasion just to make sure ;) Horses cope better with them then you would think. The Shires are a bit restrictive (thats a Shires one in photo) but you can have a look at greengaurds as they are a bit more "open" just remember when they first have it on, they don't get the hang on it right away so don't feel too guilty.
 
LaurenBay said:
Personally I would go for the muzzled option. My mare is a clever little Horse and if she sees me around, she stands at the gate looking miserable. However when I am out of sight, she goes off quite happily and grazes. I know this because I hid from her on occasion just to make sure ;) Horses cope better with them then you would think. The Shires are a bit restrictive (thats a Shires one in photo) but you can have a look at greengaurds as they are a bit more "open" just remember when they first have it on, they don't get the hang on it right away so don't feel too guilty.
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I may get her a greenguard one as she really did hate the shires one and it rubbed. She will be out with the other lami prone horse whose owner is going to buy him one so they can suffer together. At least they can have a moan to each other about it. :D
 
Tnavas - yes to both . I lost my boy this month.

Laminitis really is a battle isn't it? Such miseries involved for horse and owner. It has got to be better to try to prevent it.

The other issue is that the early signs can be very subtle and easily overlooked if you are not familiar/ watching out for them.
 
Wagtail said:
I may get her a greenguard one as she really did hate the shires one and it rubbed. She will be out with the other lami prone horse whose owner is going to buy him one so they can suffer together. At least they can have a moan to each other about it. :D
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A tip wagtail get a size bigger it does not rub as much and get the square type one too.

What I do with my welshie is make a coral within her field so she is out in it with her mate but limited access just an idea
Wagtail said:
. Having owned only WBs and TBs all my life, I really never thought that laminitis was something I needed to worry about. How wrong was I?
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My thoughts too with my ID mare :( no horse is safe sadly
 
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Makes me so mad too when I see people chucking overweight horses out on massive paddocks and then being confused when they are footy :(

Im currently battling with my old lady and her laminitis! Spending £100s and researching til I feel like I'm going to cry!
 
I have the Greenguard grazing muzzle with the halter. My mare has been wearing this for the last 3 years when she's turned out for 5 hours, summer and winter as the grass here has been that good. It did rubfinder her chin at first so put some green gel on every night for a week and then no rubs.
 
Tnavas said:
Of the cases described above how many of the horses had been given steroids in the past?

How many have been fed with feeds containing SOY.
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I would guess that my mare had feeds containing soy. I certainly never avoided it. Also, she had steroid injections into her shoulder when she sustained her major injury three years ago. She came down with her first acute lami attack a year ago, though now that I look back, she had intermittent lameness in front during the summer for several years. I always blamed it on her upright pastern (she has a boxy foot) brought on by working in the arena when it was dry and deep. Of course that coincided with summer, and now I wonder if she had very low grade laminitis that I just didn't pick up?

Leviathan said:
A tip wagtail get a size bigger it does not rub as much and get the square type one too.

What I do with my welshie is make a coral within her field so she is out in it with her mate but limited access just an idea



My thoughts too with my ID mare :( no horse is safe sadly
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It is heartbreaking, Leviathan. Your mere did not test positive for ems or cushings did she? Did she ever have the glucose test? She must have some underlying metabolic issues I would have thought. It is so tragic.
 
melbiswas said:
Tnavas - yes to both . I lost my boy this month.

Laminitis really is a battle isn't it? Such miseries involved for horse and owner. It has got to be better to try to prevent it.

The other issue is that the early signs can be very subtle and easily overlooked if you are not familiar/ watching out for them.
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So sorry to hear you lost your boy this month it must be heartbreaking to have to deal with such a loss. (((((hugs)))))


The reason I ask this question is that in some humans a steroid injection will cause the recipient to develop diabetes. Could this be happening to our horses too.

Soy is known to cause metabolic problems in humans - could this be what is happening to our horses too.
 
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I worry about two of mine all the time. I have a shettie X which has her weight carefully monitored.
I was given a new pony last year and didnt know that she had had lami before. She was very underweight so we were working hard to put weight on her , she is a welsh x but looks like a mini TB so not the sort of pony we expected to have a problem, luckily her 2nd to previous owners saw her out in our big field and knocked on the door. Since then we have cared for her differently and take more care. She is kept light and works hard with no sign of any problems so far.

On the other side a friends lami pony was marked down in a showing class for being too thin. She was far from thin but not "well covered" like the others in the class. the comments from the judge to the child riding him were unacceptable I think in this day and age where we should be more aware of weight
 
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