My friend on another forum showed my pictures of her horses hooves. She has rings on them from where they think she foundered. I got to looking at them real well and they look alot like my mini's hooves! Champ also has rings on his hooves and they're really easy to spot. It really started to freak me out and I'm scared he has foundered before. He's only 6 though and his previous owner had only had him for 5 months and she said he didn't founder. He's obese also, which adds on to the worry. I've had him since June 16 (of this year) and we've got some of the weight off. He's in a stall/dry lot 24/7 and get's a good sized flake of hay and a handful of grain (which we are about to fully take him off of in the next few days). Before we got him he hadn't had his feet done in 6 months...could that have been the cause of the rings? I will get pictures first thing in the morning!!!!
Founder?
- Thread starter Jessica H
- Start date
Help Support Miniature Horse Talk Forums:
MiLo Minis
Well-Known Member
Pictures will certainly help to make a call on it but there is always the possibility that they are just normal growth rings. Founder rings tend to be deep, like a quarter of an inch, and run parallel to the coronet band. Shallow grooves are normal on lots of horses and are not caused by founder.
chandab
Well-Known Member
They are probably "stress" rings, which could very well be from founder, but could also be from many other things that caused the horse stress.
My FIL has a full-size horse that got extremely ill a couple winters ago, they thought they were going to lose him (they found him on his back in the corral, don't know what happened); and he had stress rings on his hooves for many months after he was well again.
BTW - founder has nothing to do with age, they can founder at just about any age. I have a 4 year old mini mare that foundered last year, I saw the x-rays that showed the rotation. She is doing extremely well now. I'm 99% certain she foundered due to the crap I found in her beet pulp (it was supposed to be plain, but I found corn and other grains in it, I'm sure it was the corn that got her).
Founder can be brought on by many things; concussion founder, grain overload founder, founder caused by retained placenta, grass founder and many other causes. Obesity definitely doesn't help.
My FIL has a full-size horse that got extremely ill a couple winters ago, they thought they were going to lose him (they found him on his back in the corral, don't know what happened); and he had stress rings on his hooves for many months after he was well again.
BTW - founder has nothing to do with age, they can founder at just about any age. I have a 4 year old mini mare that foundered last year, I saw the x-rays that showed the rotation. She is doing extremely well now. I'm 99% certain she foundered due to the crap I found in her beet pulp (it was supposed to be plain, but I found corn and other grains in it, I'm sure it was the corn that got her).
Founder can be brought on by many things; concussion founder, grain overload founder, founder caused by retained placenta, grass founder and many other causes. Obesity definitely doesn't help.
