Locked stifle.... frustrating

[Buckskin gal]

I do hope to hear from you and learn more. I sure do wish that breeders were more open about hereditary faults so things like this could be eventually bred out. Seems in many cases it is all about the almighty dollar rather than what is really the bedst for the breed. Sure would love to hear others opinions on the stifle problem. Mary

So, locking stifles are more apt to be from hereditary than from injury? Do you know how ahorse might get injured to cause it's stifles to lock? Seems like locking stifles are often defended by saying "oh it was an injury"

: Mary

My experience with locking stifles comes from arab's.......it seems to run in family lines........especially in families where the horses grow fast.........excessive feed at an early age can create a whole host of stifle and growth plate problems....so a hereditary tendency to rapid growth combined with an excessive diet can lead to these problems as well. Restricted movement in growing animals also seems to be a contributing factor often stalled horses with only a few hours of turnout tend to this problem more than animals with full turn out. If you care to get into deeper detail pm I have a specific family line I have studied and been personally acquainted with and though not a formal published study can tell you the results of various feeding/housing systems.

With what I know now I would not reccomend breeding an animal that has stifled badly.

On the injury front...a blow to the stifle can cause this but it would likely also leave a limping horse not a locked one and it can be seen on xray

 

[rabbitsfizz]

I have had, in all my years with horses, ONE locked stifle from an injury and I know of SO many - bred form animals with the problem, in the ring today it would make your toes curl!!

And I have to say the horse who locked out due to injury recovered and never locked again- it was an injury, it recovered, that was it.

I have never personally known of an animal that locked out and continued to do so from an injury, and, although it has been said often on here so I have to respect others peoples experiences, I have never personally known of a youngster who had it during a growth spurt and then "grew out of it"

 

[ChrystalPaths]

Like Rabbit I had one that began locking after an incedent in the stall of being cast, vet felt being almost 2 the horse's ligaments were still quite loose and the casting did a minor inury. In time he out grew it and is now a magnificent horse.

 

[justjinx]

In some cases a foal can get stifle problems from a growth spurt, then outgrow it. this happened to a beautiful filly i purchased. as a Now, as a 3 year old she has had NO stifle problems since she was a yearling. i am, however, looking for a pet home for her as i do not want to chance breeding her. my vet felt in HER case it was just a growing spurt and she would outgrow it, which she did. this may be the reason some vets want to wait until horses are older to perform surgery. outdoor exercise is the best for these horses.

jennifer :saludando:

 

[Margo_C-T]

I am glad to see this serious discussion of a serious subject. Like kaykay and others, I too believe that this is one of the more serious problems in minis, yet it is often discounted/sidestepped, and the horses exhibiting it, bred right along. I agree that injury *could* happen, but is almost certainly NOT the primary cause in the vast majority of cases-and as another said, injury as a cause should be able to be determined via x-ray, I would think.

The most expensive stallion prospect I ever purchased, back more in the 'glory days' of miniature horse prices, turned out to have serious stifle problems. Not evident at around 8 mo.of age, when I bought him-as the months went by, his bite started to go 'off', and continued to, despite tooth work(though I now know that he *might* have benefitted somewhat from even earlier work on his mouth-done by a very experienced equine vet, BTW--this was some years ago)--the MORE SERIOUS issue, IMO, was the stifle problem, which 'surfaced' at about a year. This colt had intermittent locking in BOTH stifles; he had fulltime access to good 'moving around' space, also received regular turnout in the BIG arena-not round-penning-and was not being 'overfed'. The 'multiple partnership' I had bought him from just sort of wrung their hands and collectively shrugged(and I had no real recourse, as some of them were my friends, and a more detailed contract hadn't seemed necessary-live and learn.) His sire was a multiple National award winner (AMHA), wno went through a rough time when the original owners split (don't ask me what I think of what their horses went through!) was kindly 'rescued', and has fairly recently 'surfaced' again; paternal grandsire was a National Champion, if I recall! After trying all of the recommended non-interventional things, I gelded the colt at between 2 1/2-3 years, told the registry he had died, gave him away to a vet tech who lived on a large ranch south of here, where he would always have LOTS of running around room-last I spoke to her, he still had intermittent locking of the stifles, but not to a degree to require surgery. I believe having that total freedom to move around was what kept him able to 'go on'. Interestingly, too-this was a gorgeous, balanced-looking colt as a youngster--however, the older he got, the 'worse' he looked, quite gradually, but definitely, to my eye-and I have wondered, now, if he wasn't, in reality, a truly minimal expression dwarf. Just my own thinking-but another reason why I so look forward to the results of ongoing research on dwarfism.

I also know of someone locally who had the 'blistering' procedure(internal injection of iodine)done on their young stallion, purchased from a then well-known person out west who was a writer. He could not mount a mare due to the severity of his problem-so they 'fixed' it so he could breed! The owners, older folks who'd never owned horses until the minis, would not 'hear' of any reasons not to do this....needless to say, I was not recommending that anyone go there to purchase foals.

All that said, I absolutely agree that one should ASK about any incidents of stifle lock when shopping! I have never had this occur in any other of the horses I have;would NEVER breed either stallion or mare who manifested this, unless I had SEEN a precipitating injury occur. IMO, a stallion who manifests this should be gelded, and a mare, never bred(yet another reason to wish for the development of a safe and reasonable-in-cost method of spaying mares!)

Margo

 

[Lisa-Ruff N Tuff Minis]

I wanted to answer the OP question that yes there are sometimes other alternitives to surgery one is called blistering.. it is injecting Iodine into the area I have known a couple horses who have had this done and talked to my vets about it and it isnt a permanant fix. The ones I knew of continued to lock after a few months.

has your horse stayed locked the entire 4 days or is he locking and unlocking alot?

The damage really isnt all about the surgery the arthritis can come from the grinding that goes on when the horse locks.

I have seen young horses who have locked during growth spurts somewhat like epythsytis(sp) and have grown out of it. YEs some horses can "grow out " of it so to speak which is why in large horses most vets will suggest working the horse on flat ground or up and down slopes to try and build up the ligaments in the area. However most agree after 3 the odds of it going away are slim.

I have found it to be MUCH more abundent in minis and I do think a huge portion of that is bottom line more minis tend to be bred then large horses even with there herditary faults

It can be very sporadic showing itself only a few times a year.

As you can see though most agree that it is a herditary thing 99 percent of the time especially if it involves both stifles.

If your horse had surgery it doesnt mean he cant go on to have a very productive life I that life just in the opinion of many shouldnt include breeding

 

[Sue_C.]

As this is considered a hereditary fault, it is certainly worth looking into. I found this article awhile ago, and it makes sense to me. Two other breeds that have this as a too-common fault, are Arabians, and Morgans, from what I have been told...and they too tend to breed for that straight top-line. What I wonder is...are we breeding it into our horses as a result of what "we" find to be the perfect horse?

Flat or Horizontal Croup [20]
Associated with flat pelvis. The topline continues in a relatively flat manner to the dock of tail rather than falling off at oblique angle at the hips. Ischium and sacrum of pelvis point upward, with the rest of the pelvis structure too long.

Seen especially in Saddlebreds, Arabians, and Gaited horses

Encourages a long, flowing stride with ground-covering trot because the horse can push rearward with hindlegs with ease. This helps a horse go faster, especially when a flat croup is sufficiently long to allow a greater range of muscle contraction to move the bony levers of skeleton. Racehorses do well with croup angles of 20-30 degrees, trotting horses with 35 degrees. A driving horse that carries no weight suffers no ill effect from flat croup.

To prevent upward fixation of patella, a horse needs to have a long femur to create sufficient stifle angulations.

It is more difficult to engage the hindquarters, so the back tends to stiffen. Thus it is hard to excel in dressage, jumping, stock horse work. Minimizes the ability to develop power at slower paces needed by draft horses.

A flat-crouped horse is best for distance trail/endurance, showing, and carriage driving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_conformation

 

[Buckskin gal]

Thank you Sue, for the information. It is something to be considered. Breeding for extreme's in most any way is not for the best of the breed. I sure hope I continue to learn more about the LS and hope more people will step up and give out information about it. I do hope that breeders will give a lot of thought to what they are doing when breeding animals which may be passing on such faults. Mary

As this is considered a hereditary fault, it is certainly worth looking into. I found this article awhile ago, and it makes sense to me. Two other breeds that have this as a too-common fault, are Arabians, and Morgans, from what I have been told...and they too tend to breed for that straight top-line. What I wonder is...are we breeding it into our horses as a result of what "we" find to be the perfect horse?

Flat or Horizontal Croup [20]
Associated with flat pelvis. The topline continues in a relatively flat manner to the dock of tail rather than falling off at oblique angle at the hips. Ischium and sacrum of pelvis point upward, with the rest of the pelvis structure too long.

Seen especially in Saddlebreds, Arabians, and Gaited horses

Encourages a long, flowing stride with ground-covering trot because the horse can push rearward with hindlegs with ease. This helps a horse go faster, especially when a flat croup is sufficiently long to allow a greater range of muscle contraction to move the bony levers of skeleton. Racehorses do well with croup angles of 20-30 degrees, trotting horses with 35 degrees. A driving horse that carries no weight suffers no ill effect from flat croup.

To prevent upward fixation of patella, a horse needs to have a long femur to create sufficient stifle angulations.

It is more difficult to engage the hindquarters, so the back tends to stiffen. Thus it is hard to excel in dressage, jumping, stock horse work. Minimizes the ability to develop power at slower paces needed by draft horses.

A flat-crouped horse is best for distance trail/endurance, showing, and carriage driving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_conformation

 

[runamuk]

The interesting thing I have seen is that often the horses with stifle issues do not have level toplines. So the level topline alone is not to blame. Poor conformation with weak hips, straight stifles, and a rapid rate of growth all can be found in horses with stifle problems.

 

[user 488]

Please read this information. It answers a lot of questions that have been asked here.

As stated before the reason this problem is so rampant in Miniatures is because of the overwhelming number of miniatures with extremely poor rear end conformation. People need to really study what is right and what is wrong before buying. If the horse is too straight behind I don't care how nice the horse is everywhere else......you are looking for trouble. Until people educate themselves on conformation and stop breeding these horribly weak rear ends and straight angles this problem is not going to stop.

Upward Pateller Fixation (please read)

What causes upward patellar fixation? There are 3 primary causes of upward patellar fixation in the horse:Lack of fitness: Lack of quadriceps and/or biceps femoris muscle tone results in an inability to quickly pull the patella up and off of the medial femoral trochlea.

Straight or upright pelvic limb conformation: This places the medial femoral trochlea further distad in closer proximity with the patella, facilitating patellar fixation.

Excessive distal patellar ligament length: This places the patella proximad in closer proximity with the medial femoral trochlea, where it can inadvertently "catch" or "lock"

It should be noted that the factors which cause upward patellar fixation are often interrelated. For example, an unfit horse will generally have increased laxity (and therefore increased length) of the distal patellar ligaments. Furthermore, if unfitness is secondary to another disease process (such as neurologic disease), intermittent upward fixation may also occur secondarily. Therefore, it is important to assess the horse as a whole prior to determining the cause for upward patellar fixation.

Please take the time to learn this stuff. It isn't difficult once you know what you are looking for.

No horse is perfect but there is just no reason to buy a horse with hind limbs that are too straight...........refer to diagram below........not great but the only one I have.

 

[Buckskin gal]

I definitely have that information in my files. Can a person trust a horse not to get LS if they have a good rear end providing they have the proper exercise? I know you may think this is a dumb question but really would like to know. I strive for really good rear ends and don't want to encounter LS. thanks, Mary

but itseems in minis one can have the good rear ends but still have LS so I am wondering if it there isn't more to it or can we trust a horse to not get LS if that rear is correct.

Please read this information. It answers a lot of questions that have been asked here.

As stated before the reason this problem is so rampant in Miniatures is because of the overwhelming number of miniatures with extremely poor rear end conformation. People need to really study what is right and what is wrong before buying. If the horse is too straight behind I don't care how nice the horse is everywhere else......you are looking for trouble. Until people educate themselves on conformation and stop breeding these horribly weak rear ends and straight angles this problem is not going to stop.

Upward Pateller Fixation (please read)

What causes upward patellar fixation? There are 3 primary causes of upward patellar fixation in the horse:Lack of fitness: Lack of quadriceps and/or biceps femoris muscle tone results in an inability to quickly pull the patella up and off of the medial femoral trochlea.

Straight or upright pelvic limb conformation: This places the medial femoral trochlea further distad in closer proximity with the patella, facilitating patellar fixation.

Excessive distal patellar ligament length: This places the patella proximad in closer proximity with the medial femoral trochlea, where it can inadvertently "catch" or "lock"

It should be noted that the factors which cause upward patellar fixation are often interrelated. For example, an unfit horse will generally have increased laxity (and therefore increased length) of the distal patellar ligaments. Furthermore, if unfitness is secondary to another disease process (such as neurologic disease), intermittent upward fixation may also occur secondarily. Therefore, it is important to assess the horse as a whole prior to determining the cause for upward patellar fixation.

Please take the time to learn this stuff. It isn't difficult once you know what you are looking for.

No horse is perfect but there is just no reason to buy a horse with hind limbs that are too straight...........refer to diagram below........not great but the only one I have.

 

[Buckskin gal]

Mary Lou, Would you eventually add this thread to "The Best" so newer people have easy access to it. Really something that needs to be looked at for those just starting out in particular. Thanks, Mary

 

[SweetOpal]

I would have to agree with Vertical on this one, the reason it is so rampant in the miniatures is becuase if you look at some of these threads about what people are breeding, it is not always the highest quality of horse. If you breed horses with severe conformation faults you are bound to get something that will have a less than near perfect conformation. You could breed conformationally sound horses and still get something that is less than desired as well. Now this isn't a what should you breed thread so I will stop at that.

I have owned a little guy who I bought as a herd sire. He was 6 and had locking stifles, I owned him for 8 months before noticing that he was locking. It did get very severe when the winter came, at which time I opted after seeking the advice of 3 vets to have the surgery done. He then was gelded. However this horse had been shown and had done well(nationals and locally), I don't think he was straight in the stifle (according to the pics above anyways) and he did have a nice level top line, looking back now and knowing what I do know he was probably a tad straighter in the stifle then I would look to buy now. Now I will say that the surgery was done and took about 8 weeks to have a full recovery with no pain, I then went on to break him to drive, he was doing just beautiful in the cart, he was also a jumping horse and had no ill effects on his jumping performance after the surgery.

I do hear alot of people on here refer to one of thier horses having this condition, and I personally don't know how anyone could let them suffer. I really do feel that my horse was in pain and that I was letting him suffer with no treatment. He was in a huge stall, had daily turnouts and was as fit as they come, so no amount of exercise would have changed his condition.

Obviously our breeding lines are all pretty common and tied together so there is always going to be that risk you take when buying or selling a horse that something may come out of it that you weren't expecting. And I honestly think that there are alot of people out there that just don't know some of the conformation faults to look for. I for one can admit that I was guilty, it was in the early stages that I had bought this horse, knowing what I know now I wouldn't hopefully make the same mistake but it is all a crap shoot.

 

[runamuk]

I definitely have that information in my files. Can a person trust a horse not to get LS if they have a good rear end providing they have the proper exercise? I know you may think this is a dumb question but really would like to know. I strive for really good rear ends and don't want to encounter LS. thanks, Mary

but itseems in minis one can have the good rear ends but still have LS so I am wondering if it there isn't more to it or can we trust a horse to not get LS if that rear is correct.

I want to answer this as no if the animal is correct it wont happen BUT having seen first hand an animal that was plagued with problems end up being put down by age 4-6......this wasn't a mini either it was a full sized horse with an excellent rear end but bad management.

If you overfeed (too much protien and proccessed grains) a growing foal and keep it confined ie stalled and minimal turnout you run the risk of even more than just stifle issues. The muscles and connective tissue must also be considered if the muscling is underdeveloped due to lack of conditioning then you have no support structure.

Also not all stifle locking is created equal.......my gelding would lock but it was nothing like the toe dragging stuck legs I have seen in other mini's. He would lock much more like a full sized horse a minor "hitch" in his git along or if you picked up his hind foot to pick or trim it would sort of stick then pop up.........he was never lame or painful and he did grow out of it as he developed muscling on his rear.

 

[Minimor]

I would disagree with the wikipedia posting that Sue quoted, about level toplines being to blame for stifle problems. The majority of bad stifles I see do not go with level toplines. Some of the worst actually go with very peaked/dropped off croups.

It is about straight stifles, but in addition to angle, it's important to look at the shape of the stifle, though thin stifles do often go hand in hand with straight stifle conformation.

It's true Morgans do tend to have straighter stifles than some breeds would consider ideal. Compared to Minis though, Morgans have good stifles. I've never seen problems with locking stifles in Morgans--they're out there, but not nearly as common as in Minis. I do have personal knowledge of one Morgan sire line that has very poor stifles--his offspring don't seem to lock, but they do have some stifle lameness problems.

 

[kaykay]

i do agree with everything minmor said above

When I disucssed this with the University of Illinois they told me that they did a study on this. What they found was this USED to be a very big problem in Shetland ponies. But because the Shetland breeders culled ruthlessly the problem is now very diminished in Shetlands. Then he went on to say that because miniatures were bred down during that period but not culled like the ponies the problem started to take off. He also said that in his opinion the miniature horse gene pool is too small and there is too much inbreeding which again makes the problem worse, and "stamps in" the too straight stifles which leads to LS.

Now dont flame me!! those were the veternarians statements not mine! LOL. But I will say i pretty much agree with everything he said

 

[Buckskin gal]

Thanks for posting your experience. It does sound like it is possible that even high quality (National Winners]can still have the problem so as mini enthusiasts we have to be aware that it possibly can show up in even the best??? When the surgery was done, did the vets make any comments on whether it was hereditary or possibly caused from injury? Thanks, Mary

I would have to agree with Vertical on this one, the reason it is so rampant in the miniatures is becuase if you look at some of these threads about what people are breeding, it is not always the highest quality of horse. If you breed horses with severe conformation faults you are bound to get something that will have a less than near perfect conformation. You could breed conformationally sound horses and still get something that is less than desired as well. Now this isn't a what should you breed thread so I will stop at that.

I have owned a little guy who I bought as a herd sire. He was 6 and had locking stifles, I owned him for 8 months before noticing that he was locking. It did get very severe when the winter came, at which time I opted after seeking the advice of 3 vets to have the surgery done. He then was gelded. However this horse had been shown and had done well(nationals and locally), I don't think he was straight in the stifle (according to the pics above anyways) and he did have a nice level top line, looking back now and knowing what I do know he was probably a tad straighter in the stifle then I would look to buy now. Now I will say that the surgery was done and took about 8 weeks to have a full recovery with no pain, I then went on to break him to drive, he was doing just beautiful in the cart, he was also a jumping horse and had no ill effects on his jumping performance after the surgery.

I do hear alot of people on here refer to one of thier horses having this condition, and I personally don't know how anyone could let them suffer. I really do feel that my horse was in pain and that I was letting him suffer with no treatment. He was in a huge stall, had daily turnouts and was as fit as they come, so no amount of exercise would have changed his condition.

Obviously our breeding lines are all pretty common and tied together so there is always going to be that risk you take when buying or selling a horse that something may come out of it that you weren't expecting. And I honestly think that there are alot of people out there that just don't know some of the conformation faults to look for. I for one can admit that I was guilty, it was in the early stages that I had bought this horse, knowing what I know now I wouldn't hopefully make the same mistake but it is all a crap shoot.

 

[Minimor]

Mary, you do have to realize that just because a horse is a National winner, doesn't mean that it has the best stifle. Note I'm not directing this at Sweet Opal's horse; I have no knowledge of him whatsover--I am just speaking generally. There are a lot of bad stifles out there in the showrings--some of them are even winning at Nationals. Sadly many people look at the overall pretty horse and the fancy titles, and they totally forget to really look at each of the parts that makes up the horse as a whole.

If a horse has a truly good stifle--good angle, good depth--I would be very very surprised to see it lock up, unless there was some injury that caused it. It's highly unlikely that a well conformed stifle will have any locking issues. If all Minis had stifle conformation like this one:

I venture to say that locking stifles would be a non-issue in the breed.

By the way, Rori, thank you for the compliment when I posted this photo on the "hind end" thread recently!

 

[Buckskin gal]

Yes I do realize that there are National Champions that lack good stifles/rears. What I wanted to emphasis is that even National champions can be far from perfect and it needs to be watched when chosing minis that National champions aren't always the ones to choose from. Sorry if I confused you. I just so strongly want people who are starting out and wanting a good program to be very awarw of this problem. Lots of good opinions here but like Sweet Opal said, it can be a crap shoot when choosing minis for ones program. It would be nice if breeders would disclose possible problems in a horse but not many do. JMHO Mary

Mary, you do have to realize that just because a horse is a National winner, doesn't mean that it has the best stifle. Note I'm not directing this at Sweet Opal's horse; I have no knowledge of him whatsover--I am just speaking generally. There are a lot of bad stifles out there in the showrings--some of them are even winning at Nationals. Sadly many people look at the overall pretty horse and the fancy titles, and they totally forget to really look at each of the parts that makes up the horse as a whole.

If a horse has a truly good stifle--good angle, good depth--I would be very very surprised to see it lock up, unless there was some injury that caused it. It's highly unlikely that a well conformed stifle will have any locking issues. If all Minis had stifle conformation like this one:

I venture to say that locking stifles would be a non-issue in the breed.

By the way, Rori, thank you for the compliment when I posted this photo on the "hind end" thread recently!

 

[Margo_C-T]

Minimor, that is one BODACIOUS mare! To my eye, she is an OUTSTANDING example of PROPER QH/stock horse type--plenty of refinement, but plenty of substance. (Wish we could see her feet; the straw she is standing in may create the optical illusion, to some, that her legs are short-which I am sure there are NOT..the photo is otherwise an excellent one!)

Her overall balance, and outstanding LENGTH and angle of both shoulder AND hip(yet, with a 'level' croup that should satisfy any in today's halter 'world' ), and amount and development of muscle development over the stifle and back from it(through the 'britchen')are as close to ideal as I've seen....congratulations-you could leave her under my Christmas tree ANY time!!

I agree that a horse can have what appears to be good to excellent conformation and still may have stifle problems-as noted, improper feed, care, and usage management *can* contribute to such problems. However, I believe that most times, this IS a genetic issue.

As for horses with such issues winning in the show ring? A number of years ago, at AMHA Nationals, I observed a stallion who'd won BIG, in both halter AND driving, whose hind leg was so overly straight, it looked as if it was 'on backwards'--I found it distressing that such a horse could win as he did--but, it happened....

Carol is SOOO right; if you're going to BREED ANY horse-or for that matter, ANY animal, IMO, you need first to educate yourself DEEPLY as to what is correct and properly FUNCTIONAL conformation. You need to work continuously and always to develop your 'eye', so that you can and will SEE, and be able to well-evaluate, every aspect of that conformation.

Margo