Red Flag Laminitis Warning!!!!!

[welsummerchicks]

My vet said the other day that she is expecting to have hundreds of additional laminitis and founder cases in the next few weeks!!!!!!

WHY?

Because the recent heavy, continuous rains (and these have happened in many parts of the US and Canada), have caused very rapid and lush growth in pastures! Be sure to restrict grazing and provide hay instead, while the grass is this heavily saturated with fast growth!!!

 

[hennyannie]

Spring has always been the time when we have had to watch ours closely and limit pasture time, But I had not really thought about this season being worse. Having dealt with this condition I appreciate the heads up.

 

[piecemaker]

For those of us not getting the rain founder is up also. My farrier said the grass is not growning but that it is protin heavy..My fat boy was put on limited grazing. Hasn't foundered yet but you can tell his one foot is sore. When I finally decide it is time to sell this happens

edited to add yes I know she is not dressed to sit on Handsome


This is both of the boys. They must go together dont care if they stay together just have to go together

 

[Skyesrocket]

Thanks for the heads up! My old man mini has been stalled for the past month with limited grazing time. I wonder if there will be problems with fungus or mold in the grass and clover this spring? Remember the one year when mares in Kentucky were losing their foals? I think it turned out to be a fungus or something on the clover?
I wish my rememberer wasn't on the fritz so much.

 

[RabbitMage]

For those of you with tubsters/horses prone to founder, I cannot recommend this stuff enough: http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=d54319d4-0302-4385-932e-3ee2db9f7b2f

 

[welsummerchicks]

Sorry, but no supplement, no vitamin, mineral or 'nutritional' or combination thereof, will prevent laminitis; and supplements DO NOT treat laminitis. Who ever is marketing that product with those claims should be horsewhipped. When I see ads like that I have deep regrets that the supplement industry is so unregulated as to be able to make such insane and potentially damaging claims.

Management prevents laminitis; veterinarians treat laminitis.

One of the biggest risk factors for laminitis is overweight.

A horse that is overweight is always referred to as a case of 'Pre-Laminitis'. Many of them are constantly right on the verge of laminitis.

It takes very, very little change to tip them into frank laminitis.

I often see proud photos of very, very obese horses and ponies.

Owners who truly care about their horses restrict grazing, restrict hay, cut back on grains, concentrates and supplements, resulting in about a 30% reduction in calories(for the weight loss period, and horses may need some overall permanent changes in their diet as well!), until the horse is at a normal weight.

 

[hennyannie]

Quote:
I remember this quite well, I got a healthy foal, many others had problems even in our area. I believe that season was really wet one because I had go to the vet with a couple horse that had skin conditions. Turns out it was coming from the weather in our area.

 

[RabbitMage]

Quote:
Note I never said it was a treatment nor a preventative. You are right that on it's own it will do neither.

However, with the combination of diet and exercise I was already doing, my sensitive mare was still throwing out some small rings in her new hoof growth, had the same big cresty neck, would not lose weight. At my trimmer's advice I put all three of my Minis on Remission. The new hoof growth looks great on all of them, and my little mare has never looked healthier.

It is a supplement, intended to help along what you're already doing. You feed very little, it isn't expensive, and I've had very positive results with it. It may be of help to someone else out there.

 

[welsummerchicks]

I was referring to the advertisement.

And if it made your horse's hoof growth rings come in smoother(rather than time being responsible), I'd love to see any legitimate, juried, reviewed research not conducted by the manufacturer or its minions, that it has a generalized protective, preventative or treatment effect of any sort whatsoever, either to prevent or treat laminitis or founder, or to cause your horse's hoof rings to grow in smoother. But you see, this is how the supplement market works. And people swallow it. Hook line and sinker.

Too, the study should prove out the exact biochemical mechanism(s) that it uses, as well as how this combination of very, very ordinary substances present in almost every feed and supplement sold, is somehow magically transformed, as well as why it has this miraculous effect in THIS product but not all the OTHER supplements it appears in.

Laminitis is a devastating process that involves the immune system, metabolism, the bacteria that co-exist in the horse, as well as the circulatory systm, and is in fact a whole-body disease involving numerous processes, which only shows most obviously in the hooves. So I'd love to know how some magnesium etc would have this miraculous effect.

Vitamins and minerals and such are responsible for very specific actions and processes in the body. They are not magical miracle substances that act like Gort's Magic Salve in The Day the Earth Stood Still. They aren't 'general'. They do specific things - specific chemical reactions, they benefit the body in very specific and limited ways. But believing otherwise is how people get roped into spending so much money on supplements.

Yes farriers recommend all sorts of things, even vets do. They also sell stuff or help friends sell stuff.

I've also met people who swore up and down that painting their horses feet with kerosene or used motor oil caused them to grow smoother, too, and try as I might, I can find no possible mechanism by whch motor oil or kerosene would act in such a miraculous way.

Sorry, you're welcome to believe in it and I won't debate it further, but I will still offer my opinion that the advertisement for this product is both dangerous and irresponsible and hope that others will not be taken in by such hogwallop.

No supplement or similar product is proven to prevent laminitis when the management and health factors are there to put the animal at risk. Horses (and especially ponies) are pictured here time and time again that are dangerously obese and are at a very high risk for laminitis and its crippling effects.

It is extremely unsettling to think that anyone here (or on any other bulletin board) would give this product instead of changing their feeding and management of their horses to get them out of danger.

In other words, there is no product out there that will prevent your horse from getting laminitis if if obesity, insulin resistance, overfeeding, certain types of infections, impairment of the opposite leg, inappropriate work, immersion or other relevant stresses are present.

 

[Jetiki]

Stressed grass has a higher sugar content than non stressed grass. My mini lives in as much of a dry lot as I can make it. The sugar/carbs turn into fat much the same as people, you have to reduce the sugar intake in order to prevent laminitis/founder


Karen