Black Walnut Shavings and Laminitis Subject of Texas Court Case

Owners who bed their horses on shavings or sawdust need to have a trusting relationship with their suppliers. Occasionally, black walnut shavings find their way into the supply line. While this might not bother the guinea pig or the rabbit in their cages, it's a potential crisis at a horse barn. The latest case is in Texas, where a single horse was stricken with laminitis which was believed to have been caused by a small amount of black walnut in the bedding. (Kristen Fulara photo)

The following news item is reprinted for educational purposes.

Toxic black walnut wood shavings sold as bedding caused an Arabian horse to develop laminitis, a Texas ranch claims in court.

An Arabian horse developed laminitis in August of 2011, according to the complaint in Bexar County.

The ranch says it reached out to a veterinarian when the horse exhibited pain and swelling in its legs and sheath area. While examining the stable, the ranch allegedly noticed dark wood shavings with a distinct smell.

The ranch claims it had just switched out the wood shavings the day before, putting in a batch from a livestock product supplier,which obtained the bedding from a hardwoods product manufacturer.

It is possible that as little as 10 percent black walnut shavings can cause laminitis in horses. The entire bedding does not need to be dark-colored. The black walnut can look like threads among the lighter colors. Photo from Purdue Extension special report on black walnut shavings and laminitis.

Once the veterinarian diagnosed the horse as suffering from acute laminitis, he tested a sample of the bedding, according to the complaint.

The ranch says the supplier identified various woods that might explain the dark shavings, first naming elder, then cherry and mesquite.

But the Texas Veterinarian Medical Diagnostic Laboratories Systems at Texas A&M University ran more tests and identified the true source -- black walnut -- a wood known to cause laminitis when used as horse bedding, the ranch says.

The supplier later "admitted that earlier in 2011 another shipment of shavings from (the manufacturer) had contained black walnut and caused a similar incident with another one of (the supplier's) customer's horses," according to the complaint.

The ranch seeks exemplary damages for negligence, deceptive trade practices, breach of warranty and product liability.

It sued the livestock supplier, the hardwood manufacturer, and its owners.

The horse is undergoing medical care, but its owners say they cannot show or breed the horse.


This report was provided to the Hoof Blog by Courthouse News Service.

The complete transcript of the lawsuit can be downloaded as a pdf file: Texas laminitis black walnut shavings lawsuit. Watch the Hoof Blog for the outcome of the suit.

To learn more: Download the Purdue Extension special report on black walnut shavings and laminitis.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.  

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Farrier History: Negro Ellick Shod Horses for the Confederacy in the Civil War

Today is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of one of the darkest and most painful chapters in United States history: the Civil War. Where I live, every little village has a monument to its men who died in places like Gettysburg and Antietam. The names go on and on. It makes you wonder if anyone came back at all.

I can imagine that in the southern states, the lists could be longer and it would be possible that no one returned.

As much as I read and study about the Civil War, I keep learning new things. For me, the horses are the thing of interest, and the farriers who serviced them, and the foot problems that challenged both horses and farriers.

Farriers for the Union horses were often foreign immigrants. This group looks like new arrivals: their aprons are clean and their hammers shiny.

If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that the Burden Horseshoe played a big role in turning the tide of the War in favor of the Union. Trainloads of horseshoes could leave the factory in Troy, New York and be bound for the huge remount stations or go directly to the front. Not just the cavalry but the entire artillery and the massive kitchens and quartermaster depots moved camp only the horses were shod. And those first machine-made shoes from Troy kept them all moving.

The Confederacy wasn't so lucky. They had a limited supply of iron, and it was needed for munitions as much as for horseshoes. There were no horseshoe factories in the South and orders were given for any raids on Union supply trains to go for two things: cash and horseshoes.

Until recently, I never thought much about who the farriers of the Confederacy were. I knew the Union recruiters met ships in New York and convinced farriers and blacksmiths from all nations to either enlist or to go to work as civilian government horseshoers in the remount stations.

But what about the Confederacy?

This is the enlistment paper for Ellick, an African-American who was brought into military service to work as a farrier for the Confederate States of America, even though it was not approved for white men to conscript blacks into service. This document is preserved in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

This week I learned that the laws of the Confederacy prohibited the conscription of slaves into military service. But African-Americans were there anyway, in fighting and non-fighting roles, and if authors Kevin M. Weeks and Ann DeWitt are correct, the care of the horses may have been one area where they could have been found. Just take Ellick's case.

Ellick was a farrier for the Confederacy, though he had no rank and drew no pay. It's impossible to know if he went willingly. It's quite likely that the Confederate army was desperate for farriers and experienced horsemen. Ellick may have played an important role.

Not only did the Union have new recruits with shiny hammers and unmarked aprons. They had mobile forges built on double wheel axles. In front of the forge you see here was a big bellows. The US Army designed and built these to get the farriers and the shoes to the front, where they were needed. (Library of Congress photo)

How amazing is it that the National Archives in Washington would have preserved the enlistment paper of a farrier after that war was over? This is just one example of the millions of bits of fascinating information that lies buried in those vaults of papers.

Who found Ellick? Kevin Weeks and Ann DeWitt are the authors of the new book, Entangled in Freedom: A Civil War Story. Last week their book graced the cover of Publishers Weekly's Special Independent Publishers Spring Announcement Issue. Entangled in Freedom is a young adult novel written as a first-person account of a young African-American serving with his slaveholder in the Confederate Army. The book has already won the Bonnie Blue Society Award. Ann DeWitt runs the web site www.blackconfederatesoldiers.com.

I'd like to thank them for bringing Ellick to my attention, for pulling him out of the piles of papers in the Archives, and for making him come to life. Maybe we'll never know much about Ellick but for today, he's the star farrier on the Hoof Blog and the Civil War is interesting all over again.

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 © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.
 

Follow the Hoof Blog on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Jerry Black DVM Will Leave Pioneer Equine Hospital for Colorado State University Equine Science Program Role

Hoofcare and Lameness has learned that Jerry Black DVM, co-founder of Pioneer Equine Hospital in Oakdale, California, will leave veterinary practice at the end of June to pursue a new role in the horse industry as Equine Science Program Undergraduate Director at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. Dr. Black founded Pioneer Equine Hospital in 1973 and built it into one of the leading veterinary hospitals in North America.

A statement sent today by Pioneer Equine Hospital on behalf of the hospital "family" read, "We wish him great success and want him to know that he will always be a part of our family here in California. "

Dr. Black brings unique qualities to his new role at CSU. In addition to his experience as a veterinarian who specializes in performance horse lameness, Dr. Black has been a leading breeder and exhibitor of cutting horses, and owner of Valley Oak Ranch, a stallion station and breeding farm in California. He is past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, is currently a member of the board of trustees of the American Horse Council, and has had many horse and veterinary industry roles.

Dr. Black earned his veterinary degree at Colorado State University. The "equine science" program at CSU includes the reproductive and orthopedic research laboratories, among other units, and grants degrees to both undergraduate and graduate students.

14 June 2010 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com 

 © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. 

Photo: Pioneer Equine Hospital