Horses N Such Barefoot Trim Blog

Laminitis is a disease of the horse; not just of the hoof. There is always an underlying reason why it happens and its up to us to figure out by process of elimination what that is. I’m going out in a limb to write that laminitis is 99%directly diet related. I would even go so far as to say that it happens probably more frequently to horses that have very consciencious owners…due to overfeeding sugars. Protein is not the problem. Its the sugar and the horse’s inability to metabolize it. What happens to a diabetic when he eats a piece of apple pie and doesn’t take any insulin. The body has an inflammatory response and every organ is at risk. It is similar in the horse, except they don’t have a pancreas and don’t secrete insulin. What goes in must be used or it becomes toxic in the hind gut. Next leeching into the blood stream, ultimately affecting the poor laminae of the hoof. Destroying the connection between hoof wall and coffin bone. Also a huge misunderstanding even among master Farriers is that the bone rotates. This is a complete fallacy. The hoof wall is no longer attached so it is pushed out and away from the bone due to forces from the ground.
What I have found works is to fix the diet first. Feeding rinsed beet pulp or a grass hay with NSC value of 10% or less like Timothy will reduce glucose levels. Next trim the hoof to where the peripheral wall is non-weight bearing. Lower the heels and rasp the toe back from the top without reducing its height. Trim this way every three weeks religiously and the new hoof will grow in about 8-1215-20 months. No shoes. No expensive medicines. Just time. Oh…and exercise.

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This entry was posted by purdylady on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Trimimng posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.