What was the cause of your horse/pony's laminitis?

[Rose Folly]

Midwinter. On the beefy side. Vet's diagnosis. Combination of frozen grass and over-rich haylage (farmer's first attempt at making same). Mare was 10 years old at time. Has never had laminitis before or since. It was the winter of 2010, when here in Somerset the temperature never went above freezing for 3 weeks, with lows on many nights of-13C (she was/is kept out 24/7). Hope this helps.

 

[Montyforever]

Sudden acute bout due to sugars in the grass (possibly more to it but no way to prove it unfortunately!) she then for over a year afterwards struggled to even stay out on the grass for a few hours a day without becoming footy/getting pulses despite the fact she was on the lowest sugar diet possible, plenty of exercise and was a little bit underweight.
This year she colicked, quite badly and it showed that her liver had been struggling for a long time due to toxins, gutted I didn't do a blood test sooner as I had a niggly feeling something wasn't quite right for a very long time, but didn't go with my gut instinct
But ever since her liver has been treated and is working properly again she's put some weight on and is happy, healthy and hasnt had one footy/pulses day despite being out on a 5 acre field at least 5 hours a day!

 

[Equilibrium Ireland]

I would also be interested in knowing what people are feeding. Especially those on strict diets. Also with grazing, were fields fertilised? Because I do think it gets more nitty gritty than just grass or strict diet.

For instance, soya in feeds. I think this is a huge problem. Feeding just a balancer which was low sugar/starch caused me huge headaches. It also meant my horses couldn't graze either. I'm not a scienist or nutritionist, but with the explosion of all this high tech feeds and balancers, there has also been an explosion in horses with IR/EMS. Not just because of reporting on the internet. And big feed has done much to scare the crap out of us about oats and things like barley but I think soya is way more damaging. If feed companies can make oat free and barley free why not a soya free range?

Anyway, I think research into soya's effects on horses is long overdue. I doubt it would happen though.

Terri

 

[RobinHood]

Equest Pramox wormer

Horse was a good weight, leaner side of average, getting max. 3hrs turnout a day and well soaked hay.