Super Bowl Scoop: Hoof Boot Solves Budweiser Clydesdale Safety Concern

When you saw the new Budweiser Clydesdale commercial, was your first thought, "Why on earth would anyone ask a Clydesdale to canter on pavement?" Mine was. This actor was brave to stand in front of the horse as he approached. Notice the horse is barefoot. (photo courtesy of KC LaPierre)

You read it here first. But you're not going to read much. But here's something to talk about during half-time in the Super Bowl: the hoof connection to the Big Game. (You knew there'd be one!)

Favorite Video: Horse Owners Beware of Seasonal Weight Gain Over Winter Months

by Fran Jurga | 2 December 2008 | www.hoofcare.blogspot.com

Most horses and ponies are not as overtly obese as this pony. The videos posted for you today explain the subtleties of weight gain in horses and their not-so-subtle effects on a horse's health. Chris Pollitt photo. (thanks!)

The red line on the thermometer is dropping. The blankets are out. The feed bucket gets an extra half a scoop. Soon it will be an extra whole scoop. Or two. In the deluxe barns, the heat comes on. "Can you bring the horses in early tonight? It's awfully cold...and make sure Bilbo has both his blankets on, ok?"

As countless horse owners continue to struggle with low-grade chronic laminitis and its more serious counterparts, we still seem to have as many overweight horses standing guard in winter paddocks as we did last winter. In spite of all the diet grain mixes, horse owners still love to feed their horses, just as they love to dress them in blankets. It's a visible sign that the owner cares, and is providing the best possible conditions for the horse. (Isn't it?) When the weather gets cold, adding more grain to the feed tub seems like a sensible, caring thing to do. (Isn't it?)

And when laminitis strikes, horse owners run through a gamut of emotions, from grief to guilt to an outpouring of excessive care and nursing. When, in most cases, it could have been avoided.

In this post you will find a three-part video from World Horse Welfare (formerly the International League for the Protection of Horses), a British-based charity that puts laminitis very high on its list of educational priorities.

World Horse Welfare horse care team leader Samantha Lewis shares good practical information with a horse owner in this video. She talks about the risks of laminitis, winter grazing, blanketing, weight taping, and a lot of other key concepts for horse owners.

She had my attention from the very first sentence: 80 percent of horses in Great Britain are overweight. How can that be? When she examines horses of different sizes and conformations, I start to understand that weight is a very deceptive variable in horses. And I may have been guilty of misjudging some horses in the past, according to Samanta's system.

I hope the regular readers of this blog will refer horse owners to this post to learn about the relationship of weight to laminitis and other health problems. If you're a vet or farrier, please recommend these video clips to your clients.

NOTE: In the shaded portion at the end of this blog article, you will see a small icon that looks like an envelope. If you click on it, you can forward this article (or any article in the entire archive of the Hoof Blog) to anyone you'd like to have this information. I think that the email icon shows up in some browsers and not others; sorry for this inconsistency.

This video set might make a great Christmas present instead of a bag of horse cookies.

Thanks to WHW for making these clips available. There's lots more information about obesity in horses on their website. For information about laminitis, please visit Dr. Chris Pollitt's laminitis research web site.

Here's Part 1:

 

 Here's Part 2:

 

 Here's Part 3: 

 

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. All images and text protected to full extent of law. Permissions for use in other media or elsewhere on the web can be easily arranged. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online or received via a daily email through an automated delivery service. To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness, please visit our 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. Comments to individual posts are welcome; please click on the comment icon at the bottom of the post.

Duct Tape Laminitis Treatment for Ex-Racehorse Wins Prize

Dan Gardner, a retired farrier from Gladstone, Virginia, took home the $5,000 grand prize and a year’s supply of duct tape in this year's "How Duct Tape Saved the Day" competition sponsored by Henkel Corporation's Duck® brand duct tape.

While Dan's use of duct tape may be commonplace to most Hoof Blog readers, it was a novel use for the judges at Henkel.

Here's Dan's story:

"In 2003, I was volunteer working at a local equine rescue center. One day a winning Thoroughbred horse, named Early Start arrived at the facility. He had broken down on the track and for some time had been left unattended. He subsequently foundered which means the wall of his hoof and the internal tissue and bone had separated causing serious lameness.

"The choices were obvious. The humane thing to do would have been to destroy the horse, but the rescue facility wanted to try and save him. As a retired farrier, I took on the task. Beginning that day, I used a disposal infant diaper with antibiotic salve to protect and cushion the foot and wrapped the dressing with duct tape. Duct tape is the only suitable wrap that can withstand the wear until the next daily treatment.

"It took over 2 years and hundreds of rolls of duct tape to bring Early Start to a complete recovery. Today, he 10 and he is my youngest daughter's foxhunter and event horse. Simply, duct tape saved everyday for Early Start making my family and this horse winners for life."

(Remember: he's telling about using the tape; obviously trimming was done and other care was given to aid the horse's recovery; duct tape and diapers alone can't do it!)

Second prize went to a woman from a search-and-rescue posse in the Arizona desert who duct-taped her horse's shoe back on while searching for a lost child.