Lamintis in mare with foal at side :(

[Skylight_minis]

I have never had a horse founder before but this morning i went out to check on the minis and noticed one of my mares had a look on her face that wasnt right. She wasnt standing in the parked out stature that you usually associate with laminitis i felt her front feet though and they are definatly hot. She has a 4 week old colt and she's been bred back. She's not fat. I've had them on grass off and on the past few days cuz the hay was running out. Finally had to get a roll and all i could come up with is oat hay. I havent given any of the mares grain for the past 4 days cuz they were getting grass. Well she must have eatten too much oat hay last night cuz this morning she's a little lame. I gave her bute and hosed her feet for 30 mins in the rain no less. Kinda like washing your car in the rain.

I'm planning on hosing her feet every two hours. Has anyone ever wrapped ice packs on their horses legs for laminitis?

I guess i'll be buying baled hay from the feed store just for her cuz no one around here has any rolls of grass hay. Cant afford to feed all the minis baled hay.

Luckily she seems to have a mild case. She's standing on her feet normally. (not really a good thing for her to do) One front leg seems to bother her more than the other. I'm wondering if leaving the ice packs on her lower legs would help more since it would keep the heat out of her feet longer?

 

[minih]

Has anyone ever wrapped ice packs on their horses legs for laminitis?

We soaked our mares feet in ice water to keep her from laminitis. It worked for her.

*Forgot to add we only soaked for 10 minutes several times a day.

 

[Skylight_minis]

UPdate: Lady is doing way better this afternoon. I've been icing and hosing off and on today gave her 3 doses of bute. Her front feet dont seem as hot and she walks pretty normal. I was wondering when your hosing them how high up should you hose?? I found a long pan that she can stand in but the water level barely goes over her ankle. Should i find deeper buckets?

 

[chandab]

UPdate: Lady is doing way better this afternoon. I've been icing and hosing off and on today gave her 3 doses of bute. Her front feet dont seem as hot and she walks pretty normal. I was wondering when your hosing them how high up should you hose?? I found a long pan that she can stand in but the water level barely goes over her ankle. Should i find deeper buckets?

Since its her hooves that need the cold water, the pan sounds perfect, and you should only need to fill it enough to cover her hooves completely. If you aren't already, its a good idea to give ulcers meds along with bute, since it can be very harsh on the stomach. If you don't have horse ulcers meds, Tagamet (cimetidine) and/or Zantac (ranitidine) will work. I'm not sure of the dose, but usually give one tablet with the bute (I usually only need to dose bute once daily for my laminitic mare when she has an episode).

 

[Sanny]

Glad your mare is doing better.

Did your vet tell you to give her Bute 3X a day though? That seems like an awful lot and a high dose. I know Bute is something you need to be extremely careful with when giving it to a mini and I'd also worry about the foal getting it too through the mares milk.

You may already know all of this but in case someone else is reading this that doesn't know, I will share info I'd saved at some point that was shared by "Dr. Pam" - Pam Ripperda D.V.M. (also a mini owner) about Bute and miniature horses.

"Bute is incredibly toxic to minis, and for some reason a lot of vets out there don't realize this. There is a very narrow safety margin, so you have to be very accurate at dosing them, and there are minis who will have problems even at the correct dose. It should be given at 1mg per pound body weight, which means most minis will get 150 mg to 250 mg--1/4 tablet or less. A lot of vets seem to think the average mini weighs 500 pounds and have owners give 1/2 tablet twice daily.

Bute toxicity can cause severe gastric and intestinal ulceration, to the point of perforation and death (in as little as 5-7 days), kidney and liver damage, bone marrow suppression, and lowered blood protein levels.

That said, I have used bute on selected minis for laminitis, but at a low dose and for short periods of time. For almost everything else I use Banamine (which can also cause problems if dosed too high or too long, but has a much wider safety margin) "

 

[Skylight_minis]

Thanks for the replys about Bute. I called a vet that has minis and she said that I only need to give her the bute once a day now but to skip today. I'm very happy to see that Lady barely has any heat to her front feet. She's walking normal. Should be able to return back to the rest of the herd on monday but definatly wont be out to pasture. I bought some grass hay from the feed store to balance out the roll of oat hay. The vet agrees that the oat hay put her over the top so to speak. I had gotten the mares acculmated to the grass but its till high in sugars this time of the year specially with the rain we've had all week but Oat hay is also high in sugars and carbs so that just really did her in. No one else seems to be affected. "whew" Guess i just got lucky