Need some extra Prayers for our Audrita!

[JennyB]

Audrita one of our best 100% Arenosa fillies has just came down with a bad case of Laminitus

...we have put her in a stall today, given her bute and will just wait and see!...would any of you share any home remedies that have worked for your beloved horses please?...we are so worried and hope she does not have full rotation or we will have to have her put to sleep!..

 

Blessings to ALL during this Holiday Season!

Mel & Jenny

 

[REO]

Oh no! I'm sorry to hear that!

I don't have any experience with that, but I wanted to offer you well wishes and prayers she'll be ok & get through it some how.

 

[supaspot]

Im sorry , I cant help either bit wanted to say Ill say a prayer for her x

 

[stormy]

Cold mud packs, may be best outside if you have snow...take the inflammation and heat out of those feet!

 

[Riverrose28]

I'm so sorry to hear one of your babies has sore feet. I do have one mini mare that had this happen in her front feet two years ago. She wouldn't walk at all when I found her one morning. I had to drag her to the barn at a crawl. The vet came and recommended banimine for pain and inflammation, twice a day, she also gave me some blue styrafoam stuff that I had to cut to fit on her hooves and duck tape on, She also recommended sawdust in the stall, and no grain, just small amounts of hay several times a day. Once she started to improve, I could remove the blue stuff but still had to keep her on the sawdust in a stall and could only hand walk her on soft ground and I had to hose her feet with cool but not cold water, then the farrier had to just lightly trim the flair off of her hooves, nothing major until the vet gave the go ahead. It took awhile, but now she is fine and not had another episode. Hope your girl also has a good outcome.

 

[Genie]

I haven't been faced with this yet but these are things I have heard to try:

. cool the feet

. stand them in sloppy mud

. no grain or hot feed

. soft bedding (kind of contradicts the sloppy mud foot bath)

. banamine/flunixin..... but not bute.

Really sorry you are having this issue and wishing you a happy ending

 

[Minimor]

Just a note--bute is better (as in much more effective) than banamine for relieving the pain of laminitis. I know that one must be very careful when using bute on Minis, but as long as you are careful with dosage and don't use it long term it can be the best pain reliever to use in this situation.

 

[bannerminis]

So sorry to hear that.

You will need to keep her nice and comfortable so an anti inflamatory and pain relief.

A nice deep bed.

My mare has been getting a product called Laminaze but I dont think you can get it in the US. Its from NAF (Natural Animal Feeds) and I must say it has worked wonders on my mare.

Also and this is only something I have tried this yr but Yucca is a natural herbal product that is an anti inflamatory and again has worked wonders on my mare. My mare has had Lamanitis on and off for the last 6 yrs and now has arthritis (she is nearly 21) and she hasnt had any pain relief in the form of a drug this winter. In fact she has never been better.

Also MSM and glucosamine.

Also you could try DMSO liquid that you rub into the legs as it too is an anti inflamatory.

Also you need to keep the gut healthy so a probiotic will help keep the natural flora going if she is on a lot of meds to begin with.

Just some ideas and I hope your mare makes a full recovery.

Also do you know what caused the flare up???

There are many reasons a horse can develop lamanitis and its not always down to obesity.

 

[kaykay]

I am so sorry you are going through this. In the case of laminitis bute is better than banamine. Just watch for ulcers and give probiotics and karo syrup with it.

I would also pull blood to check her thyroid.

Sending prayers

 

[Charlotte]

Oh no.

You've received some very good suggestions here. I'll just add a couple more from my personal experience.

1. remove the situation that caused the laminitis if this is at all possible.

2. put horse on ulcer meds for the duration of time horse is in pain and/or receiving bute or banamine.

We almost had to put our Dinah down due to severe laminitis untill a member here on LilBeginnings suggested we try Triple Crown Safe Starch Forage as her feed. It is a bagged hay product that is low NSC with vitamins and minerals added. It has been a miracle for her. She has been 100% sound since starting that. It was her ONLY feed for a year. I add nothing. No supplements of any kind. It is balanced to supply the foundered horse's needs. I have recently found she can have 'some' blue stem prairie hay mostly for entertainment, but if she ever gets the least bit sore she is on the TC only.

Good luck with your mare. I hope you can get her stabilized and healthy again.

 

[JAX]

Charlotte is right, Triple Crown safe starch forge is GREAT. Diet and Hoof Trim is most important right now. Rotation is NO LONGER a death sentence it just depends on what we are willing to go through to get them sound again. There are horses out there who have been sinkers, lost their entire hoof and still come back to being ridable mounts. It can be done and in my opinion it is much easier to deal with in a mini than a biggie.

http://www.hoof-smart.com/2010/02/18/hoof-care/info-about-equine-cushings-disease-insulin-resistance-laminitis-founder/

 

[Genie]

I haven't been faced with this yet but these are things I have heard to try:

. cool the feet

. stand them in sloppy mud

. no grain or hot feed

. soft bedding (kind of contradicts the sloppy mud foot bath)

. banamine/flunixin..... but not bute.

Really sorry you are having this issue and wishing you a happy ending

I have never used bute on miniatures and have had warnings from other forum members against its' use.

Took this from the web:

There are certain medications that do not interact well with miniatures, bute is one, quest wormer is another. In my goal to help educate those unaware or uncertain, I will post as much documented information here as I can. We will start with Bute.

Someone recently informed me that most meds that are deemed "deadly" receive that classification due to improper dosage. In some cases this is correct, but with Bute the margin of error/correct dosage is too great for a miniature. You need to know the exact weight of the horse, and then tally the correct dosage, bearing in mind that the official recommended dose of bute is two to four grams per day for a 1,000-pound horse, by either the injectable or oral route. The pill form is 100 ml. 1/2 that pill would be 500 ml, 1/4 would be 250 ml.

 

[chandab]

Just a note--bute is better (as in much more effective) than banamine for relieving the pain of laminitis. I know that one must be very careful when using bute on Minis, but as long as you are careful with dosage and don't use it long term it can be the best pain reliever to use in this situation.

Just wanted to second this. I know we need to be very careful with bute and minis, but banamine wouldn't touch my mare's pain when she had her first big laminitic attack. She was on carefully measured doses of bute for a week before I could try anything else (then I was able to move her to B-L pellets, which did help her). [Less than the vet recommended, actually, as I didn't want to overdo the bute with a mini. He wanted her on 1/2gram daily (maybe it was twice daily, can't remember now); but I only gave her 1/4-1/3 gram.]

 

[Genie]

Just wanted to second this. I know we need to be very careful with bute and minis, but banamine wouldn't touch my mare's pain when she had her first big laminitic attack. She was on carefully measured doses of bute for a week before I could try anything else (then I was able to move her to B-L pellets, which did help her). [Less than the vet recommended, actually, as I didn't want to overdo the bute with a mini. He wanted her on 1/2gram daily (maybe it was twice daily, can't remember now); but I only gave her 1/4-1/3 gram.]

Not to be labour the point, but I am just saying, "be careful"

Here's another from the web:

Here is a great article on Bute and the Miniature horse courtesy of Ramblin Rose Ranch http://www.ramblinroseranch.com/bute.htm

We also checked recently with 3 other vets, just to be sure nothing hand changed with the administration of bute, and we were told by all three that it is not advisable for use in miniature horses due to the inability to dose it correctly and the documented adverse reactions in the miniatures. Bute is hard enough on a large horse, and the normally stoic miniature surprisingly does not tolerate it well. Even with correct dosage the adverse reactions are too high.

 

[bevann]

I have an older mare that has benefited from HEIRO a natural mix of herbs developed by a vet.Available from HorseHealth.com I also have a friend with a Shetland mare using it and has had good results.She is feeding a low starch feed from either Legends or Triple Crown feeds.My mare is still on the supplement after several years and can now go out to graze several hours daily.No more sore feet.She gets grass hay, beet pulp, senior feed and alfalfa pellets 2 times daily plus her HEIRO 1 x daily.she is 21 and doing great.Hope your baby improves

 

[horsesdances]

so sorry, my thoughts are with you. Farriers can help a lot later with trims to correct if needed. Also some homeopathy can help a lot. Let me know if you are interested in the homeo I can get the info for you.My homeo is French but I could ask for you. All the possible best!

 

[JennyB]

Thanks everyone for all your well wishes and prayers..I am sure they will really help!

 

As for Audrita I don't think her rotation is bad now as she has not gotten any worse. I have seen horses with bad laminitus and they can barely walk and lay down a lot. She is not laying down and even though she looks like she is walking on egg shells, she could be a lot worse!

 

I have to tell you that this filly, coming 3 next summer has been a wild, wild gal since she was born. We have not done anything to her as far as breaking her to halter because she is so scitzo

...Everytime she has been trimmed, she has ended up on her side with trimming done that way. Please don't come down on us for not doing more work on her sooner...we know very well that we should have, but just was just avoiding her for as long as possible. We meant to halter break her this past summer, but that didn't happen..so we were planning on doing that next summer. Well I guess we will be doing that sooner now. We are not sure where her personality comes from as both her sire and dam were/are sweet as lambs. She is truly fire on ice!

 

We thought maybe she was pregnant last winter as she was as big as a house and I have never, ever seen a young filly that fat, but she wasn't. She had not be exposed to a stallion other than if through the panels..and in all the years we have never had one get PG that way. Anyway I do think she may a medical imbalance as she has been pig fat since she was a long yearling. I have been worried that she would develop this and our worst fears have came true! Much of this is OUR fault and we know this...Killing horses with what you think is kindness is wrong, but easy to do!

 

We made a paneled inside stall for her and it took 5 of us to get her in there..she is VERY upset and as she is not halter broke, we can't give her anything for pain. When they put the water trough inside, she totally freaked hitting the panels hard and jumping into the trough and falling down as she got out. She will kick and bite! Soooooooo...Mel is not going to even touch her until she calms a lot more, then he will start very slow with her..It might take a 2-4 weeks to finally get a halter on her and maybe she will surprise us and do better than we think. I hope so, but nothing can be done now other than what we are doing for her. We can't bed her down because she will eat the straw. We can't get shavings in our area so she will have to stay on the dirt. We are feeding her very, very little grass hay because there needs to be someway to decrease her weight and again that is all we can do right now.

 

I appreciate all the home remedies and feed stuffs. I would like something to give her feed wise that would help her loose weight! That is what she needs the most right now. She thinks her world has come to an end in that stall

 

Please I ask you not to be too terribly angry with what we have not done to this filly as we both feel enough grieve as it is. I guess I better put my flame suit on anyway

 

Thanks again for your kind, kind comments..she deserves them, but not sure we do!

Jenny

 

PS...also I said we had given her bute, well I meant Banimine. My plan was to get her in the stall, and with the 5 of us, get a halter on her and give her the medication. I was getting the halter, lead and meds when she flipped out on them when the trough went in and they decided it was best not to try. I disagreed feeling it was important and would be easier with 5 of us, but they felt she might really hurt herself and yes she might have..I don't know. At this point I am pretty darn frustrated and unfortunatly she is kinda on her own with this for now. I feel bad for her and we are sorry!

 

[chandab]

Jenny so sorry you are going through this with your filly. I know it sounds like she needs to lose weight, but if you have beet pulp on hand, a little bit of soaked beet pulp (if she'll eat it) may be a way to get meds into her without further stressing her (mix the meds into the wet beet pulp). [Or grass hay pellets soaked would work too; if they are easier for you to get. TSC and Murdochs carry Standlee brand grass hay pellets (I think one carries timothy and the other might carry orchardgrass), my horses love them. (although, less so if there is meds in it).]

Don't excessively limit her hay, as you don't want her to go into hyperlipidemia (sp?), but limit her to 2% of her ideal weight, or 1.5% of her current weight (as she isn't easy to handle, you may have to take an educated guess as to her weight, perhaps based on the weight of a similar build and size horse you have). [for example is she currently weighs 350#, then limit her hay (well total feed) to 5.25# daily divided into several meals.]

 

[Marty]

At this point I am pretty darn frustrated and unfortunately she is kinda on her own with this for now. I feel bad for her and we are sorry!

Jenny you need some help. This has to be treated as a 911 situation today, not in 2-4 weeks when someone can get a halter on her. Timing is everything here and to say she is on her own with this for now is so unfair. The pain these horses suffer is over the top. She needs her medication given daily for a few days and her feet soaked to reduce inflammation or chances of recovery without it are pretty grim. I'm sure you don't want to end up with a horse crippled up in pain for life. Is there anyone around you that is horse savvy that can help handle her properly for this? Make some phone calls and try. What about calling in a vet too? I understand about not wanting to bed her on straw as she will eat it and straw could be high in sugar. How about going out of your area to find her some shavings? Good luck with this and hoping for a good recovery.

 

[JennyB]

Thank you ALL...you have given me some great ideas to work on, but Marty you are right about her being on her own. If we get in there she might kill herself, honestly! She has hit those panels so hard already. If she was in a complete wood stall she would climb the walls. She will also kick and bite...when Mel's boys were here I knew they could get her, but Mel wants to do it with time. I have a call into the vet and anything like beet pulp we would have to order in..Star Valley doesn't have a lot to offer, but I am going to check today...I have a call into the vet, but she will not be back until Friday and none of the other vets are good with horses. To say the least we are totally frustrated and until I can talk to the vet I really don't want to give her anything!...gee she had to do this in mid winter and during the Holidays!!!...but no matter we will try to help her as soon as possible and I can't stress enough how wild this little filly is, she is just like a wild horse. I can't say what will untimatly happen to her, but I am just leaving it in God's hands for now.

 

Thanks everyone and thanks for not flaming me for this...I am sure some of you are steaming, but Thanks!

 

Blessings,

Jenny