The Horse Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Laminitis without being on grass

1K views 12 replies 6 participants last post by  Acadianartist 
#1 ·
Not looking for advice, just thought I'd share for the sake of those who, like me, are still learning about horsekeeping. My neighbor's horse has been diagnosed with laminitis in three legs, even though the horses are not on grass yet. We will not have grass here for a few more weeks. I was a little surprised when she told me about it since I usually think of laminitis as something that happens when they get too much grass too soon. They think he'll be fine, but right now, he is kept in the sandy indoor arena rather than out in the paddock. Turns out the horse is probably IR (not sure they did any testing, but they suspect it) and is chronically overweight. Harley was living with this horse and their herd last winter, and I know exactly what happens. They throw a bale or two out in the big hay feeder paddock and the horse that has laminitis eats it all and chases the other horses away. I've seen it happen many times. In any case, it's not my horse, and it's not my problem, but it's a good warning for people who let their horses' weight get out of control.

They did get him a grazing muzzle for when the grass does come.
 
#2 ·
My neighbor's horse has been diagnosed with laminitis in three legs, even though the horses are not on grass yet. We will not have grass here for a few more weeks. I was a little surprised when she told me about it since I usually think of laminitis as something that happens when they get too much grass too soon.

Turns out the horse is probably IR (not sure they did any testing, but they suspect it) and is chronically overweight.

In any case, it's not my horse, and it's not my problem, but it's a good warning for people who let their horses' weight get out of control.
The horse most likely has been laminitic for quite some time, but they are only getting around to diagnosing it now.

Being overweight and IR, of course, is only adding to the problem.
 
#3 ·
Ditto to Beau - esp if he's obese, the horse has very likely been laminitic(& if it's systemic rather than purely mechanical, it won't be only in 3 feet) long term, but it has only been *recognised* when it reached the 'final straw' point of the horse becoming obviously lame from it. Unfortunately that is exceedingly common, as many(even vets & farriers) still don't recognise 'sub clinical' laminitis. It is very rare for a truly 'suddenly, out of the blue' 'founder episode'. Many horses are 'always been fine' but perhaps 'ouchy on hard ground' or 'bit tender after the farrier' or 'need shoes' for eg, until 'suddenly, without warning' they're seriously lame & declared 'foundered'.

Chronic 'good condition', obesity & insulin resistance is the common cause of systemic laminitis, but not the only one. It can be due to drugs, stress, mechanics, poisoning... anything that causes inflammation & damage of the laminae of the hoof. 'Spring grass' is a commonly blamed culprit. However, IME, spring grass & the extra sugars in it(or autumn grass, or at other times) are generally more of a 'final straw' for horses that due to chronic metabolic probs are overly sensitive to(like 'junk food' to a type 2 diabetic). Feeding grain/'sweet feeds' is a common cause too, which can be due to IR type 'lifestyle diseases', but can also be due to acidosis/gut upsets from the grain. Racehorses for eg. commonly suffer laminitis.... albeit 'sub clinical', which often doesn't(obviously at least) effect their performance in the short period they're racehorses.

One more thing to consider - people often think of fresh grass as 'dangerous' or 'high sugar', while hay is 'safe'. You even still hear advice from vets to that end, for 'laminitis prone' horses - don't let him have any grass, but feed him hay only. Worse still, feed the horse on straw or oaten chaff only(because this is considered an 'empty filler'). Unfortunately, grass produces sugars from photosynthesis, uses those sugars only in active growth over night, and doesn't lose much of them when dead/dried/baled. Therefore, hay may have just as high sugar content as the grass it was grown from, and straw/chaff, coming from cereal grass(namely oaten) tends to be quite high sugar content(and that's even if there are no grains in it!). So, depends how/when the grass is growing/was cut, the weather, stage of growth, the variety etc, as to how high sugar it is, but not so much on whether it's fresh grass or hay. Therefore, it pays to be careful - not just in spring - of what grass/hay our horses get, and especially if they're already obese/IR, I'd be very cautious to avoid high sugar, 'improved' varieties, such as ryegrass. If feeding hay to a 'high risk' beastie, if you think it's high or aren't sure, you can soak & drain the hay in clean water before feeding, which will leach out some of the sugar.
 
#4 ·
Chronic 'good condition', obesity & insulin resistance is the common cause of systemic laminitis, but not the only one. It can be due to drugs, stress, mechanics, poisoning... anything that causes inflammation & damage of the laminae of the hoof...
...Feeding grain/'sweet feeds' is a common cause too, which can be due to IR type 'lifestyle diseases', but can also be due to acidosis/gut upsets from the grain.
Good posts above.
Since we are talking education, I just want to highlight the "feeding grain" part of this. This is something I recently found out the hard way when my thin (BCS 4), non-Cushing's, non-IR athletic horse foundered in January.

If we only think of starch and sugar as causing insulin resistance and obesity, then we think it is safe to feed grain to thin horses to put weight on them. Or at least I did. They feed pounds of grain to race horses and other athletes (talking about actual grain here such as corn, oats and barley rather than complete feeds made up of alfalfa, beet pulp, etc).

This is not a safe practice. When the hindgut reaches a certain PH in order to digest grain (requires acidic environment to ferment), the lining can be compromised and the toxins will leak into the bloodstream. This circulates through the hooves and creates inflammation and laminitis. In my horse's case, it took about a week for the leaky gut to resolve and the laminitis to begin to subside, in the meantime her front coffin bones rotated.

I'd been feeding my mare oats for many months and had no problems, and she walked over rocks and hard ground with no issues. But once the gut was finally compromised, the hooves were affected immediately and severely. Her soles went flat within days due to the damage and now I have a long process of growing out a realigned hoof capsule over the next months.
 
#5 ·
A lot of good points! I doubt the vet would even pay attention to the horse's feet since he'd only be there for routine vaccinations and teeth floating. As you say, if the horse doesn't appear sore, there is no reason to check for laminitis. Except that this horse has been obese for quite some time. And this is something the vet HAS pointed to them over and over again as a problem. Their response is that they've tried to get him to lose weight, but even when they starve him, he doesn't lose any. Which of course, is bogus. If the horses have free-choice hay and this horse is hoarding it by pushing the other horses away, then he's getting more than his share so that's part of the problem.

And this horse is also fed grain. Not a lot, but I don't understand the logic of giving a horse a handful of grain. They do it as sort of a reward, but when Harley was boarded there, I had a problem with it for a number of reasons. First, because the grain they were feeding was not a good choice as far as I was concerned. Secondly because they were only feeding a bit, but in their view, it was enough for the horse to get all the nutrition it needs. When I pointed out to them that the recommended ration was quite a bit more, they said they would never feed that much because it would be too many calories. Fair enough, but then you have to add a supplement of some sort, and you have to figure out how much they're getting from the feed, and how much to add. I eventually switched to hay cubes, but they didn't like having to soak them. I like the hay cubes because I'm not adding anything unnecessary to the horse's diet, yet they love them, and I can add supplements.

Anyway, I am learning a lot about laminitis from your responses, so that's very useful. I used to think fresh grass was the only reason horses got it, but now I know better.
 
#6 ·
they've tried to get him to lose weight, but even when they starve him, he doesn't lose any. Which of course, is bogus. If the horses have free-choice hay and this horse is hoarding it
Sounds like they have little idea, perhaps not interested to learn either. Sadly, for their horse. 'Starving' a horse is really bad for them - they're not built like us, to have 1-few meals daily, but are grazers who should always have something going through their system. Gut upsets from starving a horse can be a cause of laminitis too! Aside from our knowledge of how metabolism works in situations like that(which I'd have thought the vast majority knew these days), for humans or otherwise. Diets which greatly restrict calorie intake - let alone actually starving - will only 'tell' the metabolism to 'hoard' every calorie it can, so can encourage further weight gain.

I'd keep the horse on free choice hay, but put a grazing muzzle on him part time at least, or use a small holed hay net, to prevent gorging & lessen consumption, &/or I'd soak & drain the hay in clean water first, to leach out sugars, so it is 'low cal' hay.

And this horse is also fed grain. Not a lot, but I don't understand the logic of giving a horse a handful of grain. They do it as sort of a reward, but when Harley was boarded there, I had a problem with it for a number of reasons. First, because the grain they were feeding was not a good choice as far as I was concerned. Secondly because they were only feeding a bit, but in their view, it was enough for the horse to get all the nutrition it needs.
While I would be looking for something 'low cal' if the horse is IR or such, IF he only gets a very small amount, IF it's just for a reward, unless the horse is super sensitive, it isn't likely to have negative effects. Just like healthy kids & junk food - doesn't matter if it's rubbish, if it's a small, occasional 'treat'.

If they are doing it for the misguided idea that they're supplementing nutrition, you're absolutely correct, that IF this feed is appropriate & well balanced for that, it needs to be fed at or near manufacturers suggestion, or else the horse won't be getting what he needs out of it, and if that were so, they would indeed be feeding far too many calories, aside from the whole question of feeding grain. etc.
 
#7 · (Edited)
If IR and laminitic he may not be able to have ANY grass.

My boy was also diagnosed only when he suddenly came up lame (Cushings/IR I'm sure most of you know the story by now lol). When I got him he was obese, when SHE got him she said he was emaciated. I have no doubt that whatever issues he had to deal with in his past contributed to how he ended up despite maintaining him at a good weight once we had him (I'm very OCD with weight). And now that he does have these issues his weight is kept at a 4.5 or even a little less.

There's a reason I'm so OCD about weight, I've seen both extremes and dealt with both extremes (including my old mare who was practically emaciated DESPITE good care) and the effects of them... and the most frustrating part is it's NOT HARD to keep a horse a good weight. Yeah you have the few like that mare who have issues going on but overall it's such an easy and effective thing to do and everything is happy healthy and easy.

Completely agree with loosie of course and want to emphasize the "final straw" point. Right before coming up lame (and he was only ever sore didn't do the "founder stance" or anything) my gelding had a grand total of one or two quick early spring hand grazes to help transition him to pasture (which he never did get poor guy) and an unauthorized hard ride in pasture condition. I genuinely believe those two things were the "final straw" but at the same time does your average healthy horse come up lame when you handgraze them for 10 minutes? You need to stop issues at the source, not let them happen then wonder why.

**I have known ONE horse with laminitis/founder who was NOT overweight (or related health issues in Spur's case) and he had a bad reaction to Dex. I think that's saying something....**

Heck I know an (overweight) horse who suddenly foundered in both fronts and was diagnosed with Cushings (it was pretty sudden too, at least in terms of any obvious symptoms). Owner has money so vet went ALLLLL in... well after 6 months of doing absolutely everything, and the horse doing very well!!, a lady is showing a working student his feet as an example of founder lines.... and the student goes "so what are the lines on his back feet?" Vet did xrays and he rotated on all 4 and they didn't even know...:beatup:

Yes it's very interesting all the other causes as well, not really the standard but @gottatrot 's example or the risk in pregnant mares (without knowing anything it just occured to me that maybe this is the same as pregnant diabetes?) or a very sick horse... there are just SO many different factors.

Re starving- yeah when I "starved" my formerly obese gelding I figured out the bare minimum he needed and gave him tiny amount of the total over many meals, 6 months later he looked great. I think it may have been 5 months as I took pictures lol. But there was a lot of planning and effort involved in said starving ;). I have no problem with withholding feed from a piggy but there's a right and wrong way to do that. The less I feed the more often I feed!
 
#8 · (Edited)
There are many causes of laminitis, as it, like colic, is only a symptom that something is wrong in the system,, and many triggers in the horse, go to the feet
While metabolic laminitis is the one we mostly deal with, endotoxemia can trigger it, also high fevers, use of steroids.opposite leg weight bearing, mechanical laminitis, as working on hard footing=probably misses a few
Spring grass in particular, as certain other grass growing conditions have a high amount of NSC, and thus the association with laminitis, but if the hrose is fed ahay that is high in NSC, grains (as in grains,thus hot calories ), then they need not eat any grass to get enough NSC to cause a high insulin level response to those nSC, and thus laminitis
IR in horses can be compared to human type 2 diabetis, with complications in humans going to the circulatory system, but in the horse, to his feet, which also has a change in hoof perfusion as a basis, so, not that un like
The only association pregnant mares have with laminitis, is if they have a retained placenta, which causes an endo toxemia.
True grains are high in NSC. The reason people get away, for the most part, feeding high grain meals to race hroses, is because they burn those hot calories and are in racing shape
Bottom line, In an IR horse, NSC , esp with a high glycemic index, cause a major insulin response, as the cells have become more resistant in allowing the NSC to be moved from the blood stream and into the cells, thus the pancreas compensates by putting out more insulin. It is this high insulin level that is responsible in causing laminitis,in metabolic laminitis

Far as grain, the laminitis would be a combo of high insulin response and hind gut acidosis in a mETABOLIC horse,although of course, hind gut acidosis alone can cause it in a' normal ''horse, as one getting into the feed bin
 
#9 · (Edited)
Mares that get laminitis in late pregnancy, already have under lying metabolic disease, and the added weight of the foal is the final straw. Never had a normal mare become laminitic during ,pregnancy, even though I fed them more during the last trimester then the rest of the horses
In humans gestational diabetis is associated with insulin blocking hormones being produced by the placenta
 
#11 ·
"That is why you can founder a laminitic horse on an amount of grain that is perfectly okay for a non metabolic horse"

Yes my gelding accidentally got the other horses feed 2 qts as opposed to a half qt. Not super high NSC I think it was 25-30% compared to his 15%. While he has gotten up to 2 qts of his own feed at the time he was not used to it. We don't even know if he got the full 2 qts but he was Banamine-d and handwalked and iced... for something I usually wouldn't give two thoughts about! Better safe than sorry.
 
#12 ·
The bottom line, far as putting weight on horses, when you use hot calories, of which true grains have the highest amount, compared to forages, you have the associated risks of laminitis, colic and mood highs, directly in proportion to amount fed
For laminitic IR horses, it is best to feed no true grains, as they are very easily pushed over the edge
Even in a normal horse, where that high insulin response does not occur, you have hind gut acidosis , because the grain moves there to finish being digested
That is why cool calories are always the choice for adding weight, as they don't have this associated risk
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top