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| Does it take a university research study to prove that horses need exercise and diets? |
Showing posts with label prevention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prevention. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Equine Obesity Research: Breeds Respond Differently to Changes in Diet and Exercise
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Autumn Laminitis: Prepare to Prevent--Instead of Treat--Seasonal Flair-Ups of Endocrine Conditions in Horses
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| This is what a foot looks like after laminitis...could this damage and deformation have been prevented? In Great Britain, a study found that 43 percent of horse owners waited more than a week after suspecting laminitis before seeking veterinary intervention. (Boehringer Ingelheim photo) |
If Labor Day is over, can autumn laminitis season be far behind?
This summer's drought has been relieved in some states, but many of the horses in the United States are standing in parched pastures, munching on hay, as they have been all summer. The drought put a quick end to the grazing season in many states, and horse owners have been saddled with increased hay bills.
Horse owners who grow their own hay found that they were feeding it as soon as they baled it. Second cuttings were poor in many areas. And a third cutting probably isn't even going to happen.
Fall rains usually send a dark green growth spurt up through brown pastures and with this signal comes the warning to horse owners that the fall can be just as dangerous as spring for horses to develop laminitis as they gorge on the grass.
This video from the British Veterinary Association's Animal Welfare Foundation is a quick primer on the general disease of laminitis and features veterinarian Ben Mayes, president of the British Equine Veterinary Association.
Recent research has shown us that the lush grass does not, by itself, cause laminitis. If two horses had a grazing contest, it's possible neither of them would develop laminitis no matter how much they eat.
But if one or both horses has an endocrine system vulnerable to cycling hormones that may cause laminitis when and if they are pushed, the results can be a stretched white line, hoof rings, a gimpy gait, or full-fledged laminitis.
The time to be vigilant is now, while it is still technically summer and the nights are still pretty warm. But across the country, night-time temperatures are dipping, and snow will soon be showing up on high peaks of the mountains.
Laminitis is a wholly preventable disease, and in the case of endocrine-related laminitis, it is part of a larger syndrome that indicates the horse may have a problem in the way the body processes glucose, in that the condition of insulin resistance prevents normal glucose metabolism or that circulating hormones are elevated by pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID).
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| Is this your perception of a horse with Cushings syndrome (PPID)? While there are still plenty of older horses with the problem out there, the obvious change in hair coat is not seen in the early-teens horses whose blood tests yield information about high levels of the pituitary hormone ACTH. (Photo © Dr. Christian Bingold, Pferdeklinik Großostheim, used with permission) |
Some of the recommended management suggestions include evaluating a horse's weight and condition and stepping up the exercise for horses kept at pasture during the fall months when risk is increased.
Another simple thing that horseowners can do is get their hay tested. Some hay can have as much or even more sugar than pasture grass. Soaking hay or feeding lower calorie hay to horses with higher laminitis risk quotients may be helpful.
Additionally, horse owners can ask for help from farriers this time of year. Ask to see or photograph the horse's feet after they have been trimmed--is the white line tight or is it stretched? Are there red spots in the line? Ask the farrier if the hoof wall is smooth and healthy or if it is ridged and has "fever rings" that are telltales of some disruption in the horse's diet or metabolism in recent months.
Finally, testing a horse's ACTH levels is now recommended to be done in the fall. Boehringer Ingelheim, manufacturers of the PPID medication Prascend, has recommended that the testing for Cushing's be done in the fall, when differences in test results would be most evident.
Dr. Don Walsh of the Animal Health Foundation explains the basic tenets of laminitis prevention, including insulin resistance and Cushings syndrom (PPID) in this brief video.
Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica's data shows that one third of laminitic middle aged horses (defined as between the ages of 10 and 15 years) test positive for PPID (Cushing's)(5).
Horse owners may have to pay for the ACTH and insulin resistance tests in the United States, but there is no price that can be put upon the peace of mind of knowing more about a horse's potential risk for laminitis.
To learn more:
Visit the Animal Health Foundation laminitis web site and watch more videos there.
Boehringer Ingelheim's "Talk About Laminitis" web site is meant for British horse owners, but most of the information is relevant worldwide; Prascend is available in the USA.
Read "Six Steps to Prevent Autumn Laminitis".
Plan to attend the Laminitis West conference in Monterey, California in November 2012.
References from the text:
- Donaldson, M.T., Jorgensen, A.J.R and Beech, J. (2004) Evaluation of suspected pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction in horses with laminitis. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 224, 1123-1127.
- Karikoski, N.P., Horn. I., McGowan. T.W. and McGowan, C.M. (2011) The prevalence of endocrinopathic laminitis among horses presented for laminitis at a first-opinion/referral equine hospital. Domestic Animal Endocrinology 41,111-117.
- Ireland, J.L., Clegg, P.D., McGowan, C.M., McKane, S.A., Pinchbeck, G.L., 2011. A cross-sectional study of geriatric horses in the United Kingdom Part 2: health care and disease. Equine Veterinary Journal 43, 37-44.
- Knowles, E.J., Withers, J.M. and Mair, T.S. (2012) Increased plasma fructosamine concentrations in laminitic horses. Equine Veterinary Journal 44, 226-229.
- Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica. Resting ACTH results of 724 horses aged 10 to 15 years.
© 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.
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Laminitis: Video Lecture on Metabolic Pathway for Hoof Blog Readers
Please allow sufficient time for this video to load.
Settle down...You needed to get out of the heat anyway. Take an hour to catch up on the latest information about laminitis, with a special emphasis on insulin resistance and Equine Metabolic Syndrome.
What this is: a one-hour video Powerpoint lecture by Dr. Don Walsh on the latest research and horse management information related to laminitis, primarily via the metabolic pathway common in pleasure horses. A preliminary explanation of the septis-related form of laminitis is provided to differentiate between the two main forms of the disease.
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| Dr. Walsh |
It's not enough just to soak up the information shared in this webinar. It's not enough even to share this video and the information in it with horse owners or horsecare professionals. Please help by sharing information about the Animal Health Foundation, too and by supporting it with your donation--no matter how small--and encouraging others to do the same.
Without a doubt, horses who have laminitis--and horses who might be risk for laminitis--have benefited from the work of the Animal Health Foundation. Directly or indirectly, you have too. Please give back; the Animal Health Foundation will put your donation to work immediately.
Click on the "Donate Online Now" button to go to the Animal Health Foundation PayPal donation page and click on the "donate" button for PayPal. Donations are fully tax-deductible in the United States and may be submitted from any country, in any currency, via a number of credit cards, any time of the day or night. Thank you.
Donation checks may be sent to:
Animal Health Foundation 3615 Bassett Rd. Pacific, MO 63069
Photo of Dr. Walsh by Julie Plaster. Thanks!
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Read this blog's headlines on the Hoofcare + Lameness Facebook Page
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.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Laminitis Prevention Research: Ponies Adapt to Grazing Time Reduction by Eating More in Less Time
Intake of large amounts of fructan and other rapidly fermentable carbohydrates by grazing ponies has been linked to the development of laminitis. As a result, it has become common practice for horse owners to follow advice from researchers, farriers, veterinarians and nutrition experts to restrict their ponies’ access to pasture, especially at key times of the day/year in order to reduce the risk.
The study, which was conducted at the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University in Wales, in collaboration with the WALTHAM Equine Studies Group, aimed to investigate the effect of grazing restriction on herbage intake and grazing behavior in ponies.
The grazing behaviour of eight ponies was measured daily over a six-week period to assess their voluntary intake of herbage and to monitor the effects of restricting their access to pasture. Two groups of four pony mares were used. Group A had 24-hour access to pasture while the ponies in group B had three hours of pasture access per day and were stabled for the remaining 21 hours, with ad libitum access to haylage and water.
Herbage intake was estimated during the three hours when all the ponies were at pasture by monitoring the change in weight of each individual over the period. Grazing behaviour was analysed from video footage of the two groups using interval sampling. The ponies in group B had higher estimated grazed herbage intakes than those in group A during the three hours studied and this difference was significant during the final week, when they consumed 40% of their total daily dry matter intake as grass in the three hours at pasture. This compared with an intake of grass of around 25% of their daily dry matter ingested during the first week.
Clare Barfoot RNutr is the research and development manager at SPILLERS®, the British feed company. On learning of this research, she said: “This suggests that ponies with reduced access to pasture are capable of ingesting considerable amounts of grass during the time they are turned out and may indeed progressively increase their intake during this time, indicating that the behavior could be learned. The implication is that reducing ponies’ time out on normally managed pastures with the view to limiting the intake of rapidly fermentable carbohydrates may not be as effective as first thought.”
Reference: J. Ince, Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS). Aberystwyth University; A. Longland, ELNS, Pantafallen Fach, Tregaron, SY25 6NG C. J. Newbold, Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS). Aberystwyth University; ;& P. Harris, WALTHAM Centre For Pet Nutrition. (2011) Changes in proportions of dry matter intakes by ponies with access to pasture and haylage for 3 and 20 hours per day respectively for six weeks. Journal of Equine Veterinary Science (in press)
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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.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Hoofcare & Lameness Presents World Horse Welfare's Laminitis Video Conference (Part 1)
Welcome to an amazing educational opportunity. World Horse Welfare and feed company Dodson and Horrell have created a series of videos from their recent "laminitis roadshow" conference in Great Britain and the Hoof Blog will be posting the videos here for you to watch at your leisure. This first brief video is the introduction and summary, featuring equine nutrition researcher Teresa Hollands of Dodson and Horrell.
In this first "feature-length" 24-minute video, you will meet Professor Derek Knottenbelt, who is no stranger to readers of Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. His article on pemphigus (sometimes called coronary band dystrophy and the subject of more articles to come) is one of the most popular articles ever published by Hoofcare and his work on hoof diseases is extraordinary in the way he integrates research and treatment with other areas of medicine.
Professor Knottenbelt was recently a guest speaker at Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and I highly recommend him as a speaker. You'll see why when you watch this video, which includes one of his clever improvisational dramatizations--he becomes the hoof's laminar bond! His simple explanation takes the mystery out of insulin resistance and how it is involved in the mechanical collapse of the foot in laminitis; this video also helps with explaining many other key concepts of laminitis and its prevention for horse owners.
More videos from the road show conference will be added to the blog in the next few days. Please watch them all, share them all, and refer back to them.
Many thanks to World Horse Welfare and Dodson and Horrell for their leadership in laminitis education for horse owners. This is critical information that needs to circle the world, wherever horses can be cared for in a way that helps prevent laminitis. It is, after all, a preventable condition in most cases and so much pain and suffering could be spared if horse owners can be educated about management practices.
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Thursday, May 25, 2006
Diagram of Support Shoe Package for Barbaro
This artwork was provided by Rob Sigafoos and New Bolton Center. In order to post it here, it had to be reduced in size and resolution. I hope you can still see it. My narrative post (see above) explains the layers and construction of the device.
To learn more about Sigafoos shoes and copper sulfate silicone hoof packing, please visit: http://www.soundhorse.com/
If you wish to contact Rob Sigafoos directly, and of course many people do want to, please DO NOT call the central switchboard at New Bolton Center. They are swamped with calls.
To reach Bill Kirkpatrick at Sound Horse Technologies, manufacturers of the Sigafoos shoes and the other products used on Barbaro, please call call 1 800-801-2654 in the USA or 610-347-0453; fax: 610-347-1822 or email horseshoes@soundhorse.com.
Text and photos © 2006 Hoofcare Publishing. Text and photos posted on “The HoofBlog”. Learn more (and subscribe online using our secure server) at http://www.hoofcare.com or write to Hoofcare Publishing, 19 Harbor Loop, Gloucester MA 01930 USA. Tel USA 978 281 3222; Fax 978 283 8775, or email hoofblog@hoofcare.com.
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