4Hooves

Laminitis is really an end result of a whole chain of things that have gone wrong for the horse. A lot of imbalances and metabolic challenges have already happened before the pony actually gets to the point of being in acute laminitis. My own experience is that it is always easier to look back and see the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, changes leading up to a laminitis event, than it is to piece all the evidence together at the time and see it coming. 20:20 hindsight!

So don't feel guilty if you are in the midst of a laminitis event and you are looking back thinking "If only....". The reality is that you could have removed all of the visible risk factors, and got caught by one you didn't see.

Both of my ponies have returned to work, and actually have better health and better hooves than they had before the laminitis event. Laminitis is like that - it challenges the horse owner to address and change many aspects of the pony's management, diet and hoof health regime.

I hope that in reading the laminitis stories of my two ponies you will pick up some useful information that may help you with your own horses, and if you have ponies who currently have laminitis I hope that the story of my ponies gives some reassurance that a successful outcome is possible.

If you have a laminitis story or observations, please email it to me and I'll create an area of the site to post it.

 Indiana Apollo

This is Apollo looking relatively svelte! He used to carry a lot more weight than this - the typical "easy doer" or "air-fern".

Apollo has never reached the classic acute laminitc attack because we were fortunate that he did not cross the point of critical imbalance that would have pushed him into it - we caught him "on the way"

Apollo used to have a big cresty neck and fatty pads on his rump and pads above his eyes. He was, and still is, obsessed with food and if given an opportunity or opening will escape from his stable or field and raid the feed bins or the pile of food in the cattle court! We had to call the vet up last winter when he had escaped from a stable and eaten half a bag of sugar beet pellets!!!

We worked hard to get the weight off him by restricting his diet, restricting grass, and giving him lots of exercise, but as soon as the regime slackened even slightly he piled the weight back on. You could tell he was uncomfortable with his weight - getting hot and sweaty very easily, even just walking up the field, and he just seemed discontented much of the time.

Apollo was never really comfortable in his feet, and had had a problem with wall cracks and infections when we got him. He could be quite temperamental at times, and very often stumbled in his shoes. Most noticeable was his reluctance to really walk out in a forward walk, and he seemed to "mince" along. He was frequently very slightly unlevel - It felt like we were imagining it at times, and not really clear enough to justify calling the vet out. 

There were signs that all was not well.

He also seemed to be uncomfortable in his guts and at times seemed slightly colicky - but again we felt that we might have been imagining it and nowhere near tangible enough to justify calling the vet.

Other behavioural issues we noticed - he used to do a little dance - swaying from side to side on alternative feet. Eventually he became very reluctant to stand when he was being shod. We had a great farrier in Jason Simm and later Alick Nicol and they were quite patient with him - but he always leaned heavily on them and would snatch his feet away. He found the nailing particularly hard and at times he would visibly flinch. Sometimes he was quite short tempered and tested the farriers patience beyond their endurance.

With all that evidence stacking up....how could we miss it? Well, ashamed to admit, we almost did.

When we decided that we were going to embark on the barefoot path and his shoes were taken off and his setup trim done by Anni Stonebridge, there was a clearly defined bright red  fever event line, and a depression all the way round each hoof, about an inch and a half from the coronary band. There was also quite a lot of bruising on his soles. Evidence of a significant event having recently happened in his feet.

His soles were quite flat with a half buried frog. Despite all of this, Apollo was subjectively "sound" on all surfaces and remained so when his shoes came off. He is one of these horses that is quite stiocal - a bit Eeyorish - and was perhaps just accepting of the discomfort as part of his life.

We excluded all grains, and saw an immediate effect. We switched to unmollassed chaff, unmollassed beet pulp, seaweed meal and brewers yeast as a base feed. Subsequently the alfalfa was removed from his diet because Anni felt that it was disagreeing with him and that Alfalfa may not be tollerated well by an insulin resistant horse (which is a big ? mark for Apollo).

We arranged grass free accommodation for him - and now he lives in the dry lot with Bramble.

Shortly afterwards we added Magnesium Oxide in the form of Calcined Magnesite - and then he wouldn't eat his tea! We swapped this out for the fine food grade powder and he found this more paleatable.

Not much happened for about four weeks - but then we noticed that the crest was starting to diminish and the fatty pads were going. About 3 months later they were almost gone. His coat was also much glossier and his mane and fur were soft and silky. Evidence on the outside of the changes happening on the inside.

Today Apollo is sound as a pound on all surfaces and has tough hooves, good concavity and leathery, hard functional frog and heels. He is much more forward going, and he absolutely loves having his feet trimmed.

All the subtle signs were there - but it was the clear fever rings in his feet that finally convinced us there was a big problem brewing with this horse and we needed to react to avoid a major episode.

 Bramble

Bramble came to us recovering from laminitis, and also recovering from strangles. He was such a lovely little guy that it was was unthinkable not to bring him home and give him a chance.

When he arrived he was very overweight and reducing his weight was a prioritiy. He has experienced repeated episodes of LGL (Low Grade Laminitis) for the 6 years we have owned him, but has always quickly recovered in a couple of weeks.

Bramble has taught us many things about laminitis, the early warning signs, the degree of dietary sensitivity that a pony can have, the importance of addressing emotional issues during recovery, and the results that can be achieved from an approach to rehabilitation that is based on diet, movement and environment and not on farrier intervention..

It is important for hoofcare and veterinary professionals to acknowledge the very real difficulties that owners face in managing the environment of laminitic ponies in a livery yard environment, and for owners to acccept that the best they can achieve may be less than the optimal solution. Many livery yard owners and managers simply do not understand the management needs of a chronic laminitic.

We previously kept Bramble in thin paddocks, but the problem with stressed grass is that it is generally higher in fructans and provides too low a fibre intake. Despite having ad-lib hay, the little monster was a determined and acomplished escapologist with no respect for electric fencing at all! So we had regular overnight escapes into the fields.

Stabling 24x7 is not a suitable alternative, so we persisted as best as we could and accepted the limitations of the environment we could provide. 

We started driving Bramble. He is a brilliant driving pony and loves being out in his gig. This was a great way of getting him fit.

We learned to recognise Bramble's warning signs of impending footiness. Before the hot feet, pulses and tenderness, there were a number of other distress indicators. These were often seen in hindsight, but we were able to gradually begin to recognise the signs of an impending problem.

Keeping a stable diary is a great way of providing the history that allows you to see these patterns.

Bramble is a pink skinned pony. When he began to get metabolically challenged, he would start to scrub his tail against the hay ring, sometimes to the point of scraping the skin raw. He would be generally itchy and be looking for surfaces to rub against. (Interestingly some people find that they become very itchy at night if they have consumed too much sugar or alcohol.)

His eyes would appear slightly too wide, and almost as if he was having a bit of an adrenaline rush. Bramble is normally a gregarious little pony and loves children, being groomed and cuddled by a whole Brownie troop is his idea of a great time - but sometimes he would be short tempered and irritable, even on occassion nipping our children. The children obviously found this distressing, but Bramble semed simply to be unable to cope with the noise, activity and fussing.

Other behavioural characteristics such as diving into his bucket hungrilly, but then quickly stopping eating and getting frustrated with his bucket. But the temperament change that told us he was really on the edge of an attack was when he would simply become withdrawn and deeply introverted.

Provided we read these signs, and got him away from any grass on time he would be right as rain in a few days, perhaps a week. At this point we were in livery and doing the best we could to maintain a restricted grazing approach.

Bramble went barefoot at the same time as Apollo, his shoes were removed and his setup trim performed by Anni Stonebridge. While Apollo hardly noticed the transition, Bramble strugled with anything but soft or even surfaces. We got boots and pads for him and used them for everything except turnout. In shoes, his feet had grown long and narrow, a stretched white line, contracted heels and poor, chalky soles.

Bramble also went on to the same diet as Apollo, and has also had alfalfa removed from his diet at Anni's suggestion. At this point his weight was under control and managed carefully - but he still had a very hard cresty neck and fatty deposits on his rump and shoulders. We could see his ribs, but he never lost the crest or fat deposits.

When we added the Magnesium Oxide to his diet the same happened as with Apollo - three weeks after we started feeding it, the crest started to come down and the fatty pads diminished. Other interesting side-effects of adding the magnesium oxide were that his mane became soft and lustrous - it had always been wiry and rough - and he started to get subtle changes in coat colour with streaks of auburn sheen appearing in his black patches and mane! Evidence on the outside of changes on the inside.

He went through a period of about a year without any laminitis symptoms  and we started to let our guard down a bit. The paddock had turned to deep mud, and the fields were being rearranged so a new paddock was taped up and a couple of big horses were put in it for a week to "graze it off" before the ponies go in - that's what you do isn't it!!

Bramble crashed with almost no warning this time. In the morning he was fine and had been playing with the kids in the sand school - in the evening he was dog lame, four very hot feet, bounding pulses and looking more miserable than a wet spaniel!

He was immediatelly stabled in a nice deep straw bed, the vet saw him and prescribed Acepromazine and Danilon. We certainly were not going to go down the therapeutic shoeing route - we have seen other laminitic horses shod with heart bar shoes and it seemed to us to make no appreciable difference to the outcome.

Initially Bramble spent a great deal of his time lying down. He was reluctant to move at all so we allowed him to do as little or as much as he was able. When he was at the point where he could walk around the stable some 10 days later Anni Stonebridge recommended that we begin to take him out, in boots, round the yard for a few minutes at a time. Gradually this built up and he was comfortable in boots to walk for 15-20 minutes.

After about 3 weeks we had managed to get a grass free area fenced off with proper 4 strand wire  electric fencing. We provided him with a huge 15 ton pile of sand to play in, and this was a great hit - great to roll in, warm on top and cool to bury his feet in. It was the ideal supportive medium and he seemed to be comfortable standing in it.

He had his good days and his bad days. Days when he felt really good and would stomp around the paddock, and then a few bad days as a result of stomping around the paddock!

The trimming emphasis was on keeping the heels down and reducing the dorsal wall and toe length. It was a case of little and often - working the wall back in increments he was comfortable with rather than an all out attack.

For the first three months progress was very slow and there were times when I felt his sole was so thin I could have pushed my thumbnail through the sole. Anni Stonebridge gave us lots of encouragement and continued to trim Bramble and guide my own trimming between her visits. Anni even took Bramble to her place for his holidays when we went for ours!

At one point Bramble became very withdrawn and depressed. The other horses were all doing things and he had to be left in the dry lot. So we arranged to take him along on a few outings, where all he had to do was stand around and look pretty, and also let the kids and him take part in the yard fancy dress competitions - again nothing was asked of him except to stand around, but at least he was involved and engaged and mentally stimulated.

We also arranged for Isobel Hogton, a horse listener, http://www.horselistenerscotland.co.uk/ to meet him when he seemed most depressed and we were astounded to see the difference she made in him. Isobel met Bramble twice and each visit had an amazingly uplifting effect on him. In fact these visits marked a turning point in his recovery. We don't quite understand what Isobel does - but it certainly worked.

Today Bramble's hooves are a completely different shape from the hooves that he had 18 months ago. The horn is of a completely different quality, harder and better connected, and the heels are wide with good butresses and firm cushions.

This is a pony that is very sensitive indeed and will have issues with any quantity of grass. He seems to handle quantities of nettles and other herbs, but not grass. He cannot have grains, and all succulents are restricted. One carrot occasionally won't cause him any problems, but one carrot every day probably will. Apples and other sweet treats are simply out of bounds. Treats like almonds are OK, as are sunflower seeds etc.

We were fortunate to have been able to negotiate a dry lot for Bramble - and as well as the remains of the sand pile, our dry lot has bales for shelter, a hay rick and a variety of different surfaces.

Bramble has experienced a far better recovery than we could have hoped for. He still finds very rough surfaces challenging - but the hoof boots are great for protecting his feet. He now drives out for 6 miles at a time in his bare hooves and this year our goal is to bring him back into full work.