whitesage
Nov. 25, 2009, 03:06 PM
I am hoping people with more experience dealing with foundered / laminitic horses will be able to share some info with me. I am going to post my questions first, and then provide all the background details below.
QUESTIONS:
When a horse has gorged themselves, is icing their hooves a good way of preventing founder/laminitis?
Do you ice just the front hooves or all four?
How often and for how long do you ice? 3 days? 30 minutes every 2-3 hours?
Do you ice even if the hooves are NOT overly warm, horse's appetite and manure are normal?
Best way of icing the hooves? Ice boots? Special horsey ice packs? Standing bandages? Polo wraps?
Is walking good for their circulation in a situation like this?
**********************************************
Okay, onto the background info:
I have a 7 year old Curly gelding. I've had him since he was 2 and a half. The second barn I boarded him at did not feed him enough, and when I brought him to the 3rd barn, they felt overly sympathetic and overfed him by a LOT for about a year. Finally moved him to a fourth place where I have a lot more control over his diet.
He is 14.3 hh and weighed 1085 at the 3rd barn. He may have gotten a little heavier than that, I don't know. That was when he was 5 years old. When he was 6 he had 3 episodes of getting warm hooves when he was turned out on pasture that was rich. I spent more time and frustration trying to explain to the barn that he really *did* need to a diet with less grass.
Finally I had a vet come and do blood work, and talk to the people taking care of him when I'm not there. He was diagnosed with "Metabolic Syndrome" and we moved him to a dry lot this past spring. He was put on a chinese herb called rehmania, thyroxin (because he tested as having slightly low thyroid), and magnesium.
Over the past 6 months we've been able to gradually reduce his dose of all both the thyroxin and rehmania until about a month ago when we took him off them both completely. He's been doing fine. His weight is steady at 875 lbs, and we can feel but not see his ribs. His random lameness issues from last year are totally gone.
We just moved him to a new barn-same people taking care of him, they just relocated. The new place has a great dry lot for him, and although he was grazing for a few hours a couple mornings a week at the old barn (in a grazing muzzle) here we just have him in the dry lot because there haven't ever been any horses here. The pastures are dead grass, but lush dead grass because they haven't ever been grazed.
Monday night my horse broke out of his dry lot and was found tuesday morning pigging out on the dead grass. He was put back in his dry lot, fence repaired, and they called me to let me know. I came out Tuesday afternoon and iced his legs once. Called my vet who said to put him back on a full dose of the rehmania for the next 10 days. Iced his legs again last night.
The vet says I don't need to bother with icing his legs--the rehmania is enough by itself. But I can ice them if I want to...
One website said to ice if the feet get warm. The yahoo group for insulin resistant horses says to ice for 3 days BEFORE their hooves ever get warm, by the time they get warm it's too late.
The lady at the feedstore said to ice the coronet bands, and you just need to ice the front hooves.
The yahoo group says you need to do all four.
I don't know if my horse would even be considered insulin resistant anymore. We need to do blood work again and check, but he was doing fine off of the supplements and grazing a in a limited way.
I am playing it safe and icing him--we're on Day 2. His hooves have not at any point seemed warm, his manure and appetite are normal, the only side effect of his getting out and grazing seemed to be being very sleepy the next day.
I am wondering what other people do, and what their experiences have been because I want to know more next time, and know if I need to change anything this time. I have not iced him as often as I maybe should--am icing him a few times a day instead of 30 minutes every 2 hours.
Thanks for reading this monster post, and thanks in advance for any advice.
QUESTIONS:
When a horse has gorged themselves, is icing their hooves a good way of preventing founder/laminitis?
Do you ice just the front hooves or all four?
How often and for how long do you ice? 3 days? 30 minutes every 2-3 hours?
Do you ice even if the hooves are NOT overly warm, horse's appetite and manure are normal?
Best way of icing the hooves? Ice boots? Special horsey ice packs? Standing bandages? Polo wraps?
Is walking good for their circulation in a situation like this?
**********************************************
Okay, onto the background info:
I have a 7 year old Curly gelding. I've had him since he was 2 and a half. The second barn I boarded him at did not feed him enough, and when I brought him to the 3rd barn, they felt overly sympathetic and overfed him by a LOT for about a year. Finally moved him to a fourth place where I have a lot more control over his diet.
He is 14.3 hh and weighed 1085 at the 3rd barn. He may have gotten a little heavier than that, I don't know. That was when he was 5 years old. When he was 6 he had 3 episodes of getting warm hooves when he was turned out on pasture that was rich. I spent more time and frustration trying to explain to the barn that he really *did* need to a diet with less grass.
Finally I had a vet come and do blood work, and talk to the people taking care of him when I'm not there. He was diagnosed with "Metabolic Syndrome" and we moved him to a dry lot this past spring. He was put on a chinese herb called rehmania, thyroxin (because he tested as having slightly low thyroid), and magnesium.
Over the past 6 months we've been able to gradually reduce his dose of all both the thyroxin and rehmania until about a month ago when we took him off them both completely. He's been doing fine. His weight is steady at 875 lbs, and we can feel but not see his ribs. His random lameness issues from last year are totally gone.
We just moved him to a new barn-same people taking care of him, they just relocated. The new place has a great dry lot for him, and although he was grazing for a few hours a couple mornings a week at the old barn (in a grazing muzzle) here we just have him in the dry lot because there haven't ever been any horses here. The pastures are dead grass, but lush dead grass because they haven't ever been grazed.
Monday night my horse broke out of his dry lot and was found tuesday morning pigging out on the dead grass. He was put back in his dry lot, fence repaired, and they called me to let me know. I came out Tuesday afternoon and iced his legs once. Called my vet who said to put him back on a full dose of the rehmania for the next 10 days. Iced his legs again last night.
The vet says I don't need to bother with icing his legs--the rehmania is enough by itself. But I can ice them if I want to...
One website said to ice if the feet get warm. The yahoo group for insulin resistant horses says to ice for 3 days BEFORE their hooves ever get warm, by the time they get warm it's too late.
The lady at the feedstore said to ice the coronet bands, and you just need to ice the front hooves.
The yahoo group says you need to do all four.
I don't know if my horse would even be considered insulin resistant anymore. We need to do blood work again and check, but he was doing fine off of the supplements and grazing a in a limited way.
I am playing it safe and icing him--we're on Day 2. His hooves have not at any point seemed warm, his manure and appetite are normal, the only side effect of his getting out and grazing seemed to be being very sleepy the next day.
I am wondering what other people do, and what their experiences have been because I want to know more next time, and know if I need to change anything this time. I have not iced him as often as I maybe should--am icing him a few times a day instead of 30 minutes every 2 hours.
Thanks for reading this monster post, and thanks in advance for any advice.