Stringhalt- Does anyone have any advice or experience?

[silvershadow81]

My 20 year old mare (IDx TB) devleoped what I believe to be stinghalt after one worker at my old livery yard stabbed her below the fetlock with a pitchfork whilst mucking her out.

This happened about 8 years ago and she has always had intermittent stringhalt, especially when first ridden out but once warm is able to showjump quite sucsessfully.

Two days ago I went out as usual through some deep mud and then trotted up the road, after about 2 minutes she started to feel very wonky and i could feel that she was not quite right so i jumped off and walked her home. Whilst walking her in hand i noticed that 1. the roads were quite greecy and 2. her leg was snapping up higher than usual.

When i got back to the yard she wasnt as bad walking across the grass but i did discover that when asked to walk backwards her hind leg came up, out and then back, which is different to how she would usually move. There wasnt any snapping or apparent discomfort.

I changed her feed about 10 days ago and increased her MJDE to 11.5 and wondered if the increase in energy could be a factor of this?

I cold clayed her leg from the hock down and bandaged all four legs last night and she walked out fine the next morning and again today. I think she may have twisted something walking through the mud but want to prevent it happening again!

I was wondering if anyone knows what this could have been, if there are any natural herbs or exercises which i could add to help prevent this from happening and if i should lower the energy and replace with oil?

Also has anyone ever used cider apple to help with older horses?

Any similar experiences or suggestions are welcomed!

Thanks for hearing my story!

 

[teabiscuit]

if you type in EPSM to google, a lot of info about diet in relation to stringhalt and shivers comes up

it's well worth a look to see if any of it is relevant to you

my part shire is on no hard feed, instead he gats alpha a oil, pink powder, sunflower oil, selenium and vit e supplements

he's so much better since i started him on this new diet

 

[Would_I]

Someone i know has a hunting horse who is getting on and he has stringhalt he is similar to your mare and often comes out of the stable very stiff

A few months ago he was put onto cortaflex and there has been a big improvement

 

[JenHunt]

IME stringhalt and shivers are quite common in ID and IDx (especially when the dam was ID with a history of it). most horses with it can compete/hunt successfully as long as you are aware that it's worse when they are cold (as in not warmed up rather than actually cold) or under stress.
feeding a diet with oils/fats as the main energy source can help, but it depends on the true cause of the problems and it sounds to me like yours is due to damage rather than carbohydrate storage problems (but worth trying anyway for its other benefits to the horse) the increase in the energy of her diet shouldn't make a difference to it unless it was caused by a starch storage problem and you were using a high starch diet (like a racing diet).

 

[Laafet]

My friend's Trakehner has it and she gets worse the more tense she is, so if she is having a strop about working then it becomes more pronounced. Sometimes you cannot tell she has it and she has won Dressage tests like that.

 

[silvershadow81]

Thanks everyone for all the advice. I have taken her off the competition mix and replaced with oil and added cider apple vinager for good measure!

I rested her for two days, but allowed her to walk about in the field. I also ensured her legs were wrapped each night in the stable to keep the joints warm.

She has been completly sound since (touch wood). I think that she must have pulled something going out of the yard throgh the sticky mud and it in turn caused the stringhalt to be more pronounced?

we went out for 50 minutes across the fields on sat and she was her usual energetic self and worked sound again yesterday and this morning.

I think i will take it easy going through sticky mud in future!