If you have a horse, you’ve heard of LAMINITIS. It’s a topic we talk about a lot in the magazine and for very good reason. Laminitis and colic are the two main causes of equine demise across the globe.
Whether you have a barefoot or shod horse, laminitis is never far from the minds and concerns of every horse owner I have ever met. We all have a pretty good idea that we mustn’t feed too much grass, or too much sweet feed but do we all know how to recognise those subtle signs of when too much is just too much?
It’s a sad fact that many horses and ponies spend their lives ping ponging in & out of mild to serious discomfort without their owners realising the root cause and how to fix it. If the horse is footy, it’s blamed on poor breeding, weak feet, feet wearing away…rather than something as ‘serious’ as laminitis. Acute laminitis is usually quite easy to spot – horse is stiff, has difficulty moving, is sweating up, might be lying down a lot…and that’s often before anything was ever noticed going on in the feet.
But it’s the low grade chronic symptoms of laminitis which are often missed. Early warning signs not to be ignored, if you only knew what to look for. We listen to professionals who we trust and tell us that “no way your horse is fine it’s not lamintiic, it just has to wear shoes because it’s feet are rubbish AND you’re doing too many miles a week to even be feasible for barefoot”. Well of course many discerning owners know that is simply a fallacy, but how many owners can truly say they know the signs and symptoms of low grade laminitis and what to do about it?
Well here at the BH Mag we offer advice
, support, education and real life case studies from specialists at the rock face to owner’s sharing their stories of how they brought their horse back from a dire prognosis.
It’s all here across many issues of the mag. Click on SEARCH at the top of our this website and type in laminitis, you will be shown a list of all the issues where that topic appears…and you can do that for any topic such as NAVICULAR, HOOF BOOTS and DIET, to name but 3.
In Issue 19 we have an excellent article by barefoot specialists Hoofing Marvellous who talk about the link between diet and laminitis, one of THE most important links of all.
So if you are an owner struggling to find out how others coped, here is a link to Issue 19 and don’t forget to do that smart search to find out which other issues the subject of laminitis appears in.
The video below is of a beatufil brave horse called Duncan, who was diagnosed just over a year ago with acute laminitis, was shod and had been out on loan…then things went from bad to worse. NOT one vet believed he could recover, but with faith, determination and the right support, owner Jo & trimmer Emma pulled him through and just look at him today. Read his story in an upcoming issue very soon. The vid is tough to watch at the beginning but just look what happens in the end!
Don’t let laminitis be the end for your horse!
Lindsay
, Editor