Spring is in the air, and the grass is green and growing fast. Is there anything more idyllic than watching your horse graze belly deep in a lush, green pasture? Except that she probably shouldn’t.
Editor’s note: Originally published in April of 2015, this post is still relevant, and very timely for horse owners in our lush, green springs.
Horses today, in general, don’t work as hard as they did, once upon a time.
They’ve also developed a lot of the same problems as the typical American. They can develop a condition very similar to Type II diabetes. It’s called Equine Metabolic Syndrome, or EMS, and it leaves tissues less sensitive to insulin, which in turn causes the pancreas to produce more of this vital hormone. One dangerous disease that often results from EMS is laminitis, also known as founder. Laminitis is the modern name for an old disease. The word refers to the weakened structures in a horse’s foot, the lamina, that result in this crippling form of lameness.
Just to be clear, the word isn’t “lamentitis,” though that’s an appropriate response to the condition (and a killer name for a new book of the Old Testament!). And it’s not “flounder” — that’s a fish.
Horses can founder for a variety of reasons: endotoxicity, Cushing’s disease, and concussive injury to the feet, are but a few. But grass founder is by far the leading cause.
You can manage the situation with several strategies. One would be to put the horse or pony on a dirt (dry) lot until the grass settles out and starts to turn brown. Bummer for everyone. The grass goes to waste and the horse stands around in a small lot, drooling.
You can founder a horse by putting them on an insulin drip for 48 hours, or simply by turning them out onto the equine version of a Snicker’s bar — a green spring pasture. The high sugar content of the grass signals the body to produce even more insulin.
Take a look around the dry lot. Is there any way the horse can contort himself to gain access to grass on the other side of the fence? Remember, dry lot means no grass, not short grass. This time of year grass is growing quickly everywhere, and you’d be surprised how much the horse is actually eating. Besides, stressed grass like that often contains higher sugar levels.
Exercise is the single best way to treat EMS. (Do I sound like your own physician?) So, locking Flicka up in a small pen is at odds with combatting the problem.
A second strategy is to limit the time the horses are in the pasture, preferably favoring the morning when the sugar content of the grass is lowest. However…horses are smarter than they pretend to be: if they know they’ll get only an hour to eat they’ll gorge as quickly as they can. (Many people adopt this strategy in all-you-can-eat buffets!)
The solution I like is a grazing muzzle. This allows the horse to be out walking around all day with her pals, and drastically reduces the amount she can eat. The downside to this approach is that some horses are escape artists, like Houdini, and will slip the muzzle off. Or they’ll wear out the muzzle’s bottom, so it’s no longer an impediment to scarfing large quantities of sugary grass.
So, that’s spring, its rewards and risks. The other time of year when I drive around the countryside treating horses for laminitis is in the fall, when the rains start up again. Once again, the grass turns brilliant green and starts producing sugars.
So, despite your best efforts, your horse has foundered. To respond, you first confine him to a stall where there isn’t even a ghost of a trace of grass. For the foreseeable future, he’ll be eating plain grass hay and not much else. No alfalfa, no grain, no orchard grass, no apples — you get the picture. Bed the stall deeply, this will cushion his feet and perhaps encourage him to lie down. Next, call the vet and let your farrier know what has happened. You won’t need the farrier immediately, but soon.
The objects of the game for treating founder are to stop inflammation in the foot and to establish support. However, nothing will stop the process if the cause (too much sweet grass) isn’t removed. (This is one reason treating foundered Cushing’s horses is such a challenge, but that’s a story for a future post.)
Mechanically, we’ll trim back any long toes to reduce pressure. Next, we’ll pack the foot with styrofoam or another packing agent to take the stress off the hoof wall. Just doing this makes some horses noticeably more comfortable.
Next, we dig into the pharmaceuticals. Number one out of the box is Bute (phenylbutazone). It’s a potent anti-inflammatory (NSAID) and will help make the horse more comfortable. (For those of you nervous about Bute, we’ll use Equiiox (firocoxib). I’ll also use DMSO, administered by a tube, run up the nose and into the stomach. It’s another anti-inflammatory, but it’s not an NSAID, so we won’t create a toxicity problem. Besides, I like making your barn stink. (Just kidding!)
Icing the feet is another good move. In the old days, they’d stand the foundered horse in the creek. Icing is safe and cheap, but it can be a trial in patience. Today, you can stand the horse in a tub of ice water for at least a half hour at a time, repeating as often as you’re able. Here’s an article devoted to just the topic of icing your horse’s feet.
You can’t do this too much. In fact, it would be ideal if you could stand your horse in ice water 24 hours a day, letting him out only to sleep. Of course, you’d get frostbite, but the circulation in his feet isn’t like yours. Wild horses, for example, can stand all day in snow or freezing mud.
If your horse appears to be struggling with EMS, we may add thyroid supplementation to the mix. This isn’t because your horse is hypothyroid. (There are some simply riveting debates in the scientific literature as to whether horses can even BE hypothyroid.) It’s because the thyroid hormones will make the tissues more sensitive to insulin, and will consequently lower his insulin production levels. We’ll eventually wean your horse off of this supplement.
When the farrier comes out — when your horse becomes comfortable enough to stand with a leg up — she can trim the foot and perhaps even put on therapeutic shoes. She should conserve the heel and chop off the toes. This reduces the tension on the deep digital flexor tendon. It’s this tendon that attaches to the bottom of the coffin bone and pulls it backward, creating rotation. By lifting the heel, you reduce that tension. The foundered foot needs a lot of help and can take months to resolve, so you should schedule appointments with your farrier for every four weeks.
We can take radiographs of the feet to assess how much rotation has occurred. The degree of rotation will give you an idea of how much damage has been done. Just a little, you still have an athlete. Over 15 degrees, and we’re looking to salvage the horse as yard-art.
And oh yeah: founder also predisposes horses to other laminitic events: flat feet, bruises, and abscesses. It’s a crippling disease — so watch the green grass!
