Feeding Question

[LilSapphire]

Sapphire my 3 year old 40" miniature mare recently had a mild founder.....that has all been taken care of with a dry lot and no grain....my question is if she is only eating hay and alittle grass is she missing something in her diet? Is there a supplement that I should feed to help her get the right nutrients that she needs such as protein etc? Thanks,

Jessica

 

[minih]

We have been feeding our foundered mare plain steamed and crimped oats along with hay. She seems to be doing pretty good with this combo.

 

[Hosscrazy]

A big question is why your horse foundered. If it's a metabolic issue, she needs to be on a low-carb, low sugar diet. You may want to consider joining the Yahoo Founder group to see what they recommend, too:

Yahoo - Founder Group

 

[Marty]

If I had another foundered horse I would feed:

straight oats of any kind

grass hay

purina 12 12 vitamins

 

[Mnmini]

I would second the sentiment that you need to base your feeding decisions on WHY this animal foundered. Some animals can tolerate little to NO grass, and need to be wearing grazing muzzles to minimize the potential for recurring bouts of laminitis (especially if you want the animal in question to be able to be with the rest of your "herd.")

There are several low carb feeds available to help maintain animals with Cushings, and other metobolic disorders that are prone to bouts of Laminitis. Dr. Valentine has done extensive research into metobolic disease in horses, and is very good to answer diet questions (you can research for free, or subscribe to pose questions yourself). You can get to her through Rural Heritage There are several articals on EPSM (a metoboic disorder) and that feeding program is very beneficial to animals that are prone to laminitis, plus, if you go down to the bottom and click on the The Virtual Vets Are In link, you go right to the message board where if you join you can post, or if not, at least read whats there. Good luck.

 

[Crossbuck Farms]

I had this past Jan to March and mini donkey 30" tall founder so bad that he lived in my basement in a stall we made him. He would go on and off aspirin. We thought we were going to have to put him down. It turned out the hay was causing the founder. It had very high sugar content. That same donkey is doing better we had to put him on Triple Crown Low Starch feed. My farrier worked his usual miracles. The donkey actually had a big bump line around his hoof from the founder. He is okay. HIs founder was so painful that we'd pick him up so he could pee.

 

[LilSapphire]

How do I find out if it was a metabolic issue? I think it just came from too much fresh grass but you never know.

Marty- Where do you get purina 12 12 vitamins from? and what all do they provide in terms of nutrients?

What do oats provide in terms of nutrients for the horse? any protein?

Thanks,

Jessica

 

[Hosscrazy]

Jessica -

I'm speaking as someone who just went through a horrible 2 year period of laminitis (resulting in coffin bone rotation - aka founder) caused by Insulin Resistance (IR) & Cushings disease. I cannot begin to tell you how much reading I've done, and am very active on the Yahoo Cushings/IR group - just to try to get a basic understanding of this!

You can try feeding different things to your horse, but unless you know for sure what's going on, the condition can worsen. Sounds like you were lucky. In my horses' case, oats would kill her.

Triple Crown Lo Carb - is around 15% NSC, which MAY be okay for some IR horses, but again, would be much too high my my horse. She'd be right back into laminitis if I fed that to her. You need to know what's going on with your horse.

Please. Ask your vet to come out, and draw blood to check her insulin levels. That will answer the question right there. In the mean time, here is the "Emergency Diet" that is recommended by Dr. Eleanor Kellon for IR horses:

- Grass hay or grass hay and soaked beet pulp with no molasses ONLY. Hay should be soaked for at least half an hour before feeding, an hour is better. Hot water preferable.

If you cannot find beet pulp without molasses, you can soak the beet pulp,

then rinse the beet pulp multiple times (hot water works best) until the water

draining off runs clear (not brown), and then feed.

- No grain or pelleted or senior feeds, etc. that contain grain products or

molasses

- No grass of any kind (even if it looks dead)

- No carrots or apples or sugar containing treats

- Stop any multi-ingredient supplements that you may currently be using, its

best to use ONLY the items recommended here until a full diet analysis is done

- Plain white salt 1 to 2 oz. a day (or iodized if not feeding an iodine

supplement, human iodized table salt added to the beet pulp is fine.)

- Cinnamon 1 teaspoon/250 lbs body weight (regular grocery store cinnamon). This is the total daily dose, e.g. 4 tsp/day for a 1000 lb horse, and should be divided between meals

- Chromium 2.5 mg/day/500 lbs body weight (ones for humans often easiest to

get, and may be only useful in low chromium areas like the midwest USA)

- Iodine 2.5 mg/day/500 lbs body weight (supplement or from salt as above)

- Magnesium 1.5 grams/day/500 lbs body weight (only as a short term

measure until hay analysis can confirm if it is actually needed or

not, and how much), can use human supplement, or get feed grade magnesium

oxide from a feed mill.

- Vitamin E 1000 IU/day/500 lbs body weight (again, human supp. may be easiest)

Bed on shavings rather than straw. This is very important. Straw may look to you like it's "empty" nutritionally, but can have three times higher sugar than a green hay does.

Stop using any supplements with ingredients that include glucosamine or

yucca. Avoid TMZ or SMZ antibiotics when other antibiotics can be used

Please note, this is only a TEMPORARY measure, not intended for long time use.

The odds of this diet being adequately mineral balanced are very low. The hay

only or hay and beet pulp part won't change but depending on the sugar level

in your hay you may not need to soak it and mineral needs may be vastly

different from the ball park figures above, including a need to supplement

some or all of the following: calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, manganese.

Copyright Eleanor M. Kellon, VMD 2003, all rights reserved

 

[Mnmini]

Like the previous poster said, blood work, and for EPSM a muscle biopsy. Vet would need to send off a musle tissue sample for dianosis. Grass is frequently the biggest offender, but if they are sensitive to grass, there is a strong chance that they would, or could become sensitive to any high carb feed, such as oats, sweet feed, or corn, so why court disaster?

It can also be due to trauma like "road founder" of yesteryear, but you might have correlated a cause and effect if that had been the case, as in "we trotted down the city streets for 4 hours, and late that night I found my horse in the classic founder stance."