Laminitis Low-down

Laminitis Low-down

With spring just around the corner, better weather and longer days will be welcomed by horses and owners alike, but unfortunately the risk of laminitis increases sharply at this time of year and careful management is required to prevent susceptible animals suffering from this painful disease. Joanna Palmer, nutritionist for Allen & Page Quality Horse Feeds offers advice on how to prevent laminitis whilst ensuring your horse’s nutritional needs for health and performance are met.

To prevent laminitis, it’s important to ensure that every horse and pony’s diet is reflecting their nutritional needs, most notably in maintaining a healthy weight. Spring grazing is likely to lead to significant weight gain, particularly in good doers, and it’s well recognised that overweight and obese horses and ponies are more at risk of developing laminitis. Therefore, it is important to implement weight loss/control measures as early as possible this spring to prevent weight gain and laminitis, particularly in horses who are coming out of winter already carrying a little extra weight.

By maintaining your horse at a healthy weight and body condition score, the risk of laminitis developing or recurring in the future can be lessened. Regular use of a weightape and undertaking hands-on body condition scoring will help you to notice changes in your horse’s weight and condition at the earliest opportunity. You should be able to feel your horse’s ribs easily when you run your hand lightly across the ribcage and there should be no fat deposits or signs of a crest developing on the neck. Do not over rug, instead allow your horse to use his fat reserves to keep warm through the colder night-time temperatures of spring and help keep his bodyweight in check.

Reduce energy and sugar intake from grazing

During the spring and summer months, grass will be the largest part of most horses’ diets and the biggest contributor to their energy (calorie) and sugar intakes. Alongside obesity, consuming a high sugar diet is a major risk factor for developing laminitis and for this reason lush, fertilised grazing should be avoided. Unproductive, poor quality grazing is best for all horses that gain weight easily, and restricting grass intake is an effective way of helping to prevent laminitis.

Strip grazing, implementing a tracked grazing system and using a grazing muzzle can all significantly reduce your horse’s grass intake while helping to maintain natural grazing and herd behaviour. Where possible, if your horse is at risk of laminitis, he should be turned out at night when sugar levels in the grass are at their lowest and brought in again by mid-morning when the sugar levels rise again. Using a dry paddock (e.g. a bark chipped pen) as a turnout area is a useful alternative to stabling when trying to restrict grass intake.

Choose a low starch, low sugar bucket feed

While grazing and forage may satisfy many good doers’ energy needs, it will not provide a balanced diet and a suitable supplementary bucket feed should be fed. To help prevent laminitis, feed a high fibre diet that is low in starch and sugar. A horse’s hind gut is populated with millions of bacteria which break down fibre by fermentation. Starch and sugar are normally digested in the small intestine, but when too much is fed some passes into the hind gut where rapid fermentation by the bacteria causes lactic acid to be produced. This acid production alters the pH of the hind gut and disrupts the careful balance of gut bacteria. The acidic environment can also damage the gut wall and allow dead bacteria and other endotoxins to enter the blood stream; this causes an inflammatory response in the body resulting in laminitis. Feeding a high fibre diet, particularly one which utilises ingredients such as beet pulp, oat fibre and alfalfa will not only supply the horse with essential nutrients but will also help to maintain a healthy hind gut microflora as well as providing anti-inflammatory properties.

Fast Fibre is an ideal choice for good doers and those at risk of laminitis as it is free from molasses and whole cereal grains, making it low in starch and sugar – falling well below the combined starch and sugar level of 10% that is recommended for laminitics. When fed at the recommended amount for your horse’s size and workload, Fast Fibre will provide a balanced diet with all the vitamins and minerals needed for all-round health and a low-energy level to help avoid unwanted weight gain. Veteran Light and L Mix are other feeds that are suitable for good doers and those prone to or at risk of laminitis.

Did you know?

• in 10 horses and ponies are affected by laminitis each year (according to the British Horse Society).

• 90% of laminitis cases occur in horses and ponies with an underlying endocrine disease that results in insulin dysregulation (ID) i.e., equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) and pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID; also known as Equine Cushing’s disease).

• Horses and ponies at risk of laminitis should only be fed feeds that have a combined starch and sugar level of less than 10%.

Provide safe calories from fibre and oil

Laminitis doesn’t just affect the typical overweight ponies we usually associate with the condition; poor doers and hard working horses can also be affected. For these horses that require a higher energy diet, ingredients like beet pulp and alfalfa are particularly useful. Not only are they high in fibre but they are also excellent calorie sources, containing as much energy as many cereal grains but without the high starch content. However, as straight ingredients, these feeds are not nutritionally balanced, so it’s important that they are fed alongside a suitable balanced feed as a calorie boost rather than the main component of the horse’s diet. It is also important that these feeds are unmolassed to keep the sugar level of the diet as low as possible.

Oil is also an excellent source of extra calories that is low in starch and sugar; in particular linseed meal or oil would be a useful addition to the diet for any horse requiring an energy/calorie boost to fuel work or aid weight gain. Linseed is high in omega 3 oils and well known for its excellent anti-inflammatory properties within the body.

Watch out for late frosts

Frosted grass on a sunny day can be particularly high in fructans (sugar) as it’s not able to grow when temperatures are low. Instead, fructans created through photosynthesis in sunlight accumulate in the plant and if grazed by a susceptible animal can significantly increase their risk of developing laminitis. As some parts of the UK can experience overnight frosts well into May, keep a close eye on your local weather forecast and avoid turning out any at risk horses or ponies when grass is likely to be frosty.

Feed a low energy forage

To maintain essential fibre intakes, provide your horse with supplementary forage when stabled or on very restricted grazing. For horse that are overweight or at any increased risk of laminitis, feed hay with a known low sugar content or, if necessary, soak hay for 12 hours. Soaking hay leaches out the water-soluble carbohydrates making it much lower in sugar and calories than unsoaked hay. Being lower in sugar means more can be fed to satisfy the horse’s need for a near constant supply of fibre without increasing the risk of laminitis. Feeding low sugar or soaked hay before turnout will mean the horse goes out with a full stomach and is then less likely to gorge on the grass.

Increase exercise

Endurance horses in training and competing will usually be in a high level of work at this time of year and not as susceptible to obesity as other less active horses and ponies. If you have horses in a low level of work, at rest or retired, any small amount of additional exercise you can do with them will use calories and help prevent unwanted weight gain. Although laminitis is common in horses and ponies with Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) or Insulin Disregulation (ID), regular exercise helps to stabilise blood insulin levels which in turn can reduce their risk of developing laminitis. While regular exercise is important for all-round health, it’s vital that your horse is fit enough for the work you are asking him to do. Ensuring exercise intensity is gradually increased during training and avoiding fast work on hard or stony ground will limit excess concussion to the hooves and help prevent laminitis.

For more information

For further advice on preventing laminitis, contact our friendly, awardwinning nutrition team on 01362 822 902 , email us at helpline@ allenandpage.co.uk or visit our website www.allenandpage.com