Tag: laminitis

Chronically obese horses face daunting task to lose weight

Posted on: December 5, 2011

A handout titled “Assessing energy balance” by the University of Kentucky looks at the overweight horse’s nutritional needs. In the section titled “My horse is too fat,” it says quick weight gain in a horse is easier to turn around than chronic overweightness. For example, a horse whose diet wasn’t reduced when it quit exercising has an easier time losing that weight than a horse that has been obese for a long time. The chronically obese horse likely has some lameness issue that may have been caused by being fat, so it’s dietary needs are very low, meaning it’s difficult to reduce a diet enough to get this horse to lose weight.

The article gives a lot of numbers, unfortunately in kilograms, but it basically says that a normal horse should consume 1.5 percent of its body weight, or 15 pounds of food for the 1,000 pound horse. To lose weight, the horse has to cut back. We’ve done the numbers-crunching too many times, and it all comes down to how many calories are in the feed you are feeding, with hay having a lot of variables.

But, here’s what I found interesting in this article and not in a good way. It says a horse being given fewer calories has lower maintenance requirements because all the things associated with eating — chewing, digestion, nutrient absorption and pooping — are reduced. So, if you reduce the feed for your horse, the horse’s calorie requirements are even lower and you have to reduce the feed even more to get the weight off.

Adding insult to injury, as the horse loses weight, those needs to go down even further. So, a horse that’s on an extreme diet isn’t going to get to come off that diet if it wants to maintain that weight.

Not surprisingly, the article cautions that feeding a low enough level of food for the obese horse to lose weight might not be the best for the digestive track or the horse’s mindset.

And, it suggests rather than restricting average quality hay, feeding a low-calorie hay. A three-hour search online of “low calorie hay” will get you nowhere. Look for more material on that in the next post.

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Editor’s note on June 15, 2015:

I wrote this post before reading Juliet Getty’s post on treating the insulin resistant horse. I no longer think counting calories is a good way to treat a laminitic horse. Read Getty’s article for an excellent summary of everything that goes wrong in the insulin resistant horse and how to approach treatment.

More reports on negative effects of excess iron on horses

Posted on: December 1, 2011

On Nov. 11, 2011, Dr. Mehmet Oz probably made a few enemies in the multivitamin world when he recommended all but women of child-bearing age stop taking multivitamins containing iron because of a recent study that showed excess iron caused problems in the aorta.

In trying to find the study (which I never found), I came across other interesting reports on iron and eventually searched for items related to horses.

An article in “The Horse Journal” written by a veterinarian who isn’t identified by name says chronic excess iron leads to deficiencies in zinc and copper, leading to skin problems, tendon and ligament weaknesses, faulty production of joint cartilage and foot problems including laminitis. Excess iron also can cause anemia by creating a copper deficiency.

In trying to find out how common excess iron is, the vet turned to Uckele Animal Health, which does hair mineral analysis on horses. The vet says Uckele reported that high iron levels are one of the more common abnormalities it finds in horses.

My horses had a hair analysis done in 2004 after Angel foundered, though I remember my vet didn’t put too much stock in it, and I don’t know if it was the same type of test that Uckele does. It was done by a different company, and that company doesn’t appear to be in business now based on a quick online search.

We tested three horses: Angel (foundered in 2004), Goldie (foundered in 2002) and Kurt (white horse, completely normal at the time). What we noticed at the time was that Goldie and Kurt both had really unhealthy levels of arsenic (I have arsenic-treated wood for fencing), but Angel did not. And while I explained the difference in Angel by saying Angel had lived elsewhere for three years on a lease, Angel was the one that had just foundered, prompting the hair analysis, so it was hard to pin laminitis on elevated arsenic levels, especially since Kurt with his elevated arsenic showed no signs of laminitis.

As I review these old hair tests now and look at the iron levels, Kurt’s level was normal, Goldie’s was high at 410 ug/g and Angel’s was excessively low at 46. The normal range was 60 to 400.

Goldie’s copper was too high and her zinc was normal. Kurt’s copper and zinc were both too high. And Angel’s copper and zinc were both normal. Very unhelpful.

Well, at least Goldie’s iron was high and she foundered, and Kurt’s iron was normal and he didn’t founder. Can’t explain Angel.

The vet in the “Horse Journal” article gives a case study of a racehorse that was sound but nonetheless had many health problems, including dry skin and skin infections, tendinitis, desmitis and tying up. And his black hair was rust-colored, looking sun-bleached. When the horse was tested by this vet, the blood iron and ferretin levels were massively elevated. The horse eventually improved with supplementation of high doses of vitamin E, selenium, manganese, zinc and copper. And the vet notes that this problem will be with this horse for life; he will need the correct supplementation.

I have had nothing but skin problems with my horses during all the laminitis. Completely unexplained open wounds all over, especially in Goldie and Angel, and, while people have tried to convince me for years that it was sweet itch, I never really bought it. Also, Angel’s black hair was almost always rust-colored while here; she didn’t get enough sun the last couple years to explain how bad her hair looked. This is an interesting revelation.

Does using several piles of hay work for the laminitic horse?

Posted on: November 10, 2011

In 2008, a veterinarian recommended that I invite to my farm an academic scientist and horseman who had been advising people on their laminitic horses to see if he had any thoughts on why I had such a high incidence of founder.

The scientist suggested the horses were foundering from stress.

At the time, I had been trying to feed the horses as little as possible (and I now know they were still getting more calories than they should have), and the scientist said the stress might be coming from them having so little to eat.

He recommended instead that I give them all the hay that they wanted but that I spread it in the far reaches of the horses’ pastures and paddocks so they had to keep moving if they wanted to eat. I didn’t follow his recommendation to the letter because I knew my horses couldn’t consume large quantities of hay.

But for the last three years, on days when it hasn’t rained or snowed, I have taken one extra flake of hay at each meal and divided it into four tiny sections and placed it in four places in my pasture. And it has forced the horses to move around more than normal to go get that extra flake of hay.

In light of my newfound information on how many calories a flake of hay has — 2,640 at last count — I’m now interested in whether the amount of calories the horses expend to go get the hay is enough to offset the calories they get eating that extra flake. Admittedly, this is an imperfect way to figure this out.

Each horse would get an extra 1,320 calories per meal.

It takes my horses 80 seconds to walk around the back of my house and get to that pasture from their shed. They have to walk about 408 feet to do it.

The National Research Council estimate a horse burns 1,000 calories per hour walking. That would work out to 16.66 calories per minute. For my horses to walk 80 seconds is about 22 calories. They may walk out to that pasture six times in the evening to check if the flake of hay they ate has magically reappeared. So, six times out and back to their shed is 12 trips times 22 calories is 264 calories. Those 264 calories they expend can’t begin to balance the 1,320 calories each horse is taking in, so I’m going to conclude that it’s a failed strategy to try to put a little extra hay out to make the horses walk from a calorie burning standpoint.

Totaling up the caloric excess: Each horse is taking in 3,960 extra calories per day from the extra half flake per meal per horse. Each is expending 792 calories per day doing the extra walking. Maybe.

If I just take the two flakes of hay the horses get per meal and split those flakes between their pasture and shed, we’d be in better shape calorie-wise, but, as I’ve said, trying to split up two flakes into multiple piles is a bit daunting. In fact, I do split those two up already, but it makes four little piles that get scarfed down in maybe a half hour.

I feel like, if I really want to feed two overweight, insulin resistant, laminitic horses correctly, I should just walk along and sprinkle hay bits in a little trail around my farm, Hansel and Gretel-style, and make the horses walk around to get it, which would limit their eating to crumbs basically. If I lived in California, with its consistent weather, that might actually work. I don’t think it’s going to work in Missouri during the winter.

We are killing our laminitic horses with calories

Posted on: November 9, 2011

Editor’s note on June 15, 2015:

I wrote this post before reading Juliet Getty’s post on treating the insulin resistant horse. I no longer think counting calories is a good way to treat a laminitic horse. However, the included material related to calories is correct.

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We are killing our laminitic horses with calories.

That’s my conclusion. I had been thinking I had been starving my chronically laminitic horses for years only to discover I wasn’t even close.

I spent some time on the phone in November 2011 with an expert in equine nutrition, Dr. Scott King, a veterinarian who is now the equine products manager at Bayer Healthcare in the Animal Health Division. He used to be in charge of new product development at the Purina division that overseas equine feed and before that he was a practicing large and small animal veterinarian, who happened to be my vet.

He was doing me a favor in answering a question on a topic unrelated to calories, but that was all that was on my mind that week, and the conversation eventually turned to the appropriate amount of calories, officially kilocalories, that a horse should eat.

He said he believes that a maintenance horse needs fewer calories than the NRC recommendation of 15,000 calories that I’ve been quoting. He says the maintenance calorie requirement is 13,000, and he studied low-calorie diets for horses extensively, so he should know.

Prior to this conversation, I had taken my hay into my local feed store to make sure I had the weight correct. Using a USDA-calibrated scale, my flake was about 2 14/16 pounds, and I rounded up to 3 pounds for ease of doing the math, since flakes vary in size anyway.

Dr. King said brome hay tends to average 800 calories per pound. My brome was a bit more at 880 calories. Alfalfa is 900 calories.

If I multiplied 880 calories by 3 pounds, I got 2,640 calories for one flake.

I told Dr. King I thought that was impossible, adding: “That means that, if it’s raining and I decide to throw my horses an extra flake of hay to keep them busy while they stand in their shed, I’ve just given them several thousand extra calories.”

He said that’s right. Referring to horse obesity, he said: “I believe it’s all about the calories.”

As noted previously, each of my two horses had been getting six flakes of hay per day, or 15,840 calories a day.

They also had been getting a total of 1 pound of Purina’s Nature’s Essentials Enrich 32 (I weighed that, too), which has 1,100 calories per pound.

And the horses got a carrot a day, which was roughly 50 calories.

For a grand total of 16,990 calories.

If a pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories, and the horses were getting 3,990 extra calories a day by Dr. King’s standards, it didn’t take much to figure out why the 14-2 hand pony looked wide enough to be two ponies.

Dr. King recommended that I ride one at a walk and pony the other, since my efforts to make them do real exercise had failed due to mobility issues.

Note that all my horses foundered while in work, and a horse in work gets to eat considerably more calories..

Once a horse is foundered and cannot work, you definitely are dealing with a whole new meal plan, and likely most of us are overfeeding our laminitic horses immensely once they turn into lawn ornaments, thus cementing their fate as chronically laminitic horses for the rest of their lives.

Knowing what I’ve learned about how many calories are packed into a flake of seemingly harmless hay — what I once equated to a bowl of salad for humans — I now have to believe overeating played a major role in these recurring founder cases, even if I find out that excess iron or some other environmental factor gave the horses a big push.

Calories in hay and feed for laminitic and foundered horse

Posted on: November 7, 2011

A typical hay sample report shows the hay’s megacalories per pound in addition to the sugar and starch content. A megacalorie is 1,000 kilocalories, and a kilocalorie is what we know as a calorie. The rest of this article will use the familiar term of calorie.

My recent hay sample of brome hay says it has .88 megacalories, or 880 calories, per pound. If my horses are eating 20 pounds per day, they are getting 17,600 calories a day from their hay, which is wee bit over the 15,000 calories a day that the National Research Council is suggesting for a sedentary 1,000-pound horse, which might explain the big rolls of fat on my horses’ sides. For years with these hay results, I’ve been looking at the sugar and starch content to determine if I had the right hay. But, now I’m taking into consideration the calorie content, and the horses are getting too many calories. Reviewing my hay tests going back to 2004, the calories per pound all fall within a similar range. This particular hay is not extreme.

As for feed, the Animal Health Foundation, a laminitis research foundation, compiled the calorie amounts of many common equine feeds and distributed the list in 2007. I’m attaching a copy of that here since I can’t find it online. Most feeds have 1,000 to 1,500 calories per pound. My horses are getting a pound each of forage supplement.

The hay is particularly frustrating because my horses go through two flakes of hay at each of their three meals in no time and look at me as if I’m starving them. And, my strategy for exercising them has been to spread the hay out in several areas so they have to walk to get it. I can’t leave much of a pile in each place if I’m trying to stick to the two flakes per horse rule. And if I leave too small of a pile on a windy day, it just blows away. To find out that I’m 2,600 calories over their limit while struggling to stick to two flakes per horse per meal makes it all feel a little hopeless.

How many calories does your laminitic or foundered horse burn exercising?

Posted on: November 6, 2011

Editor’s note on June 15, 2015:

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The National Resource Council’s equine nutrition report, released in 2007, provides information on how much energy horses expend during exercise in addition to giving dietary requirements.

The NRC says that an 1,100 pound horse burns 5,000 calories if it trots for two hours. And the horse burns 2,000 calories if it walks for two hours.

Breaking that down a little bit, a horse trotting for one hour burns 2,500 calories. Trotting for 10 minutes works out to 417 calories. That’s pretty good for 10 minutes of work.

A horse walking for one hour burns 1,000 calories, and a horse walking for 10 minutes burns 167 calories.

By contrast, the average male running for an hour burns about 940 calories or 157 calories in 10 minutes, according to NutriStrategy.

Ten minutes is important in looking at laminitic horses, because some research suggests that 10 minutes of exercise a day is enough to lower a horse’s insulin level.

In 1992, researchers at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Louisiana State University reported that 10 minutes of exercise significantly reduced insulin resistance and helped ponies lose weight in as little as six weeks. The ponies were put on a treadmill and required to walk for one minute, trot for one minute and canter for eight minutes (hard to imagine making a pony canter on a treadmill). This was their only exercise. The rest of the time, they were stalled. The ponies lost a significant amount of weight during this time, changing body shape, losing girth size and seeing more muscle definition. Researchers noted that improved insulin sensitivity was maintained in the six weeks after exercise was stopped.

If your horse burned 417 calories in that 10 minutes, and everything else were kept equal, the horse would burn 2,919 calories a week.

To lose a pound of body fat, a horse must create a deficit of 3,500 calories, either from eating less or exercising more. If the horse burned an additional 2,919 calories a week trotting for 10 minutes every day, the horse would be pretty close to losing that pound.

If your horse needs to lose 200 pounds, 1 pound a week may not sound very helpful, but every diet has to start somewhere.

How many calories should you feed your insulin-resistant laminitic horse?

Posted on: November 5, 2011

Most owners of laminitic horses that have the insulin form of the disease are willing to move mountains to help their horse, but they don’t know where to turn. Often, they bring in the best farrier possible to try new shoeing techniques.

But the problem at least in part is related to the horse’s diet. Fix the dietary problem, and you have a much better chance of saving the feet.

Figuring out the content of what you’re feeding a horse is not an easy challenge. But some of this information is available. The process does require having your hay tested for content, as well as your grass, if your horses are on pasture.

The National Resource Council of the National Academies (top scientific minds in the country) released updated horse nutrition recommendations in 2007.

Horses’ food usually is assessed in megacalories. A megacalorie is 1,000 kilocalories, or calories as we refer to kilocalories in the human world.

The NRC says a 1,000-pound sedentary horse needs 15,000 calories a day of digestible energy, plus 1.2 pounds of crude protein, 18 grams of calcium and 13 grams of phosphorus. The numbers go up for a 1,200-pound horse to 18,000 calories, 1.5 pounds crude protein, 22 grams calcium and 15 grams phosphorus.

To lose a pound of body fat, an individual, including a horse, must create a deficit of 3,500 calories, either from eating less or exercising more. Generally, health officials suggest a person do this by reducing caloric intake by 500 calories a day for a loss of a pound a week. It seems reasonable that a horse could do the same since a horse gets a much bigger allotment of calories. But there are many challenges in pursuing that goal. There is no easy way to figure out how many calories a horse is eating. And a horse that is chronically obese apparently has a much more difficult time losing that weight than a horse that put on exess weight recently.

Insulin resistance in horses: Part 2: How food turns into elevated insulin and leads to laminitis

Posted on: November 2, 2011

Let’s look at insulin resistance in horses. Research released in June 2011 suggests that any elevation in insulin levels in a horse is dangerous.

A horse with elevated insulin and would be similar to a prediabetic person.

There don’t seem to be hard numbers on how many laminitis horses exist in the United States, but there were at least 57 million U.S. adults ages 20 or older who had prediabetes in 2007, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The United States has about 313 million residents in 2011, which would indicate about one in five people is prediabetic.

Another sobering statistic: Diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in humans in 2006, according to the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse.

In people, type 1 diabetes results in the pancreas producing little or no insulin. Type 2 diabetes results in the body not using that insulin effectively and blood glucose reaching dangerous levels.

Horses normally don’t reach the point of being so insulin resistant that they develop diabetes. The problem is what elevated insulin does to their feet.

So what is insulin and blood glucose and why is it killing humans and horses alike?

Insulin is a hormone, a chemical substance produced by the body that is carried to target cells waiting for that hormone to give them instructions. Hormones control and regulate the activity inside those cells and are essential for digestion, metabolism, growth, reproduction and mood control.

The pancreas produces insulin to regulate glucose (the pancreas also produces enzymes to digest food).

Glucose is a carbohydrate. Carbohydrates are found in plants and can be simple or complex.

Glucose is the most simple carbohydrate, the smallest possible sugar molecule. Glucose is a major source of energy for cells.

Starches are complex carbohydrates and can be made up of hundreds or thousands of glucose molecules.

In the small intestine, starch is broken down into individual glucose molecules. The glucose then enters the bloodstream, and the blood glucose level rises. Blood glucose levels rise considerably after a meal.

Blood glucose is carried throughout your body. As elevated blood glucose hits the pancreas, beta cells in the pancreas release insulin. The insulin transports glucose into the cells for use as energy, at which point blood glucose levels drop back to normal. Cells cannot access glucose without the help of insulin.

Glucose that is not needed for energy is turned into glycogen and stored in the liver and muscles. Glycogen is used for brain functioning, maintenance of the central nervous system and performing high-intensity physical activity.

If blood glucose levels get too low, alpha cells in the pancreas release glucagon. Glucagon is a hormone that tells the liver to release glycogen for energy. Insulin and glucagon maintain consistent levels of blood glucose using this pattern.

If blood glucose levels rise too rapidly due to high sugar and starch intake, and the pancreas churns out more insulin, the cells can become less receptive to the onslaught of insulin; over time, it may take more insulin to transport glucose into the cells. This is one form of insulin resistance and leads to excess insulin and glucose in the bloodstream.

Horses have no insulin receptors in their feet. According to research released in 2011 by researchers in Australia, excess insulin in the bloodstream can bind with receptors in the equine foot that were designed to receive insulin-like growth factor 1. Scientists theorize the insulin-like growth factor 1 may have limited use in making the hoof grow outward as a foal turns into a horse. In adult horses, these receptors are fooled by the insulin and bind to it, leading to abnormal hoof growth and laminitis. Insulin-like growth factor 1 also has been shown to be responsible for metastitis of malignant tumors in humans, according to the Animal Health Foundation, which funded the equine insulin research in Australia (http://www.ahf-laminitis.org/2011/06/major-breakthrough-in-understanding.html).

Meanwhile, the excess glucose in the bloodstream due to insulin resistance is converted into fat and stored in adipose tissue, leading to weight gain.

According to the website of Dr. Frank Reilly of Equine Medical and Surgical Associates, after a grain meal, the insulin level goes up three to four times the regular level due to insulin responding to glucose pouring into the bloodstream. This is normal and lasts a few hours.

In insulin resistance, the base level of insulin can be constantly elevated three times higher, and a grain meal can cause the insulin level to go up 30, 40, 50 or more than 100 times the usual level and remain there for longer periods.

Reilly says people with insulin resistance and diabetes have their lifespans shortened by seven to 12 years; for horses, this translates to 2.5 to 4.5 years, he says.

Horses that develop laminitis may have a considerably shorter lifespan.

Insulin resistance also can be caused by excess fat. Fat cells can release a toxin that interferes with insulin’s action on the cells. The higher the insulin and blood sugar levels, the more excess glucose is converted to fat in adipose tissue, and the fatter the horse gets.

Insulin resistance creates yet another vicious cycle by lowering thyroid levels. The thyroid gland produces hormones that regulate the body’s metabolism. When the thyroid gland produces less of these hormones – thyroxine (T4) and tri-iodothyronine (T3) – metabolism slows, leading to weight gain.

Other causes of insulin resistance are Cushing’s disease and stress (stress leads to increased cortisol, which increases blood glucose and interferes with insulin).

Insulin resistance in the laminitic horses: Part 1: Digestion and how food passes through a horse

Posted on: November 1, 2011

Let’s look at how a piece of food passes through the laminitic or foundered horse. This will serve as the framework for the second part of the series on how high insulin levels and insulin resistance can cause laminitis. This part does not segue into the next part but rather serves as a short tutorial on where the food goes and what happens to it. Learning this process may come in handy if you have an emergency and a vet tries to describe to you a problem in the digestive track. It’s hard to make informed decisions when you can’t picture what’s going on.

Intake

When a horse sees food it wants to eat, it starts salivating and producing stomach acids. Once the horse puts the food in its mouth, digestive juices from the salivary glands start breaking down the food chemically while the horse’s teeth break the food down mechanically. The tongue combines this finer material with the saliva to make a moist bolus that can be swallowed. Horses have three pairs of salivary glands that produce up to 10 gallons of saliva per day. Saliva is made up of bicarbonate, which buffers the stomach from amino acids, and the enzyme amylase, which assists with carbohydrate digestion.

Esophagus

The food enters the esophagus, a tube 50 to 60 inches long. The esophageal muscles push the food down toward the stomach by relaxing in front of the food and tightening behind it, known as peristalsis, a one-way process in the horse. The force of the food tells the lower esophageal sphincter to open, allowing the food into the stomach.

Stomach

The stomach in a horse is small. It holds 8 to 16 quarts but functions most efficiently when it’s only about three-quarters full.

The stomach muscles churn the food, while gastric juices continue to break down the food into a fluid called chyme. Hydrochloric acid breaks down solid particles, and pepsin, an enzyme, digests protein. The chyme then goes through the pyloric valve into the small intestine. Food can pass through the stomach in as little as 15 minutes.

Small intestine

The small intestine is 70 feet long and 3 to 4 inches in diameter and holds up to 48 quarts, or 12 gallons. It has three parts: the duodenum, jejunum and ileum. This is the organ where most digestion takes place. Partially digested food is digested more, and nutrients are absorbed through the walls of the small intestine, entering the bloodstream. Food passes through the small intestine in 30 to 90 minutes. The faster the food passes through, the less it is digested.

The chyme is met by digestive juices from the pancreas and liver as well as from the wall of the small intestine.

The pancreas contributes enzymes that help break down proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

The liver produces bile, which aids in the digestion of fat. Horses do not have gallbladders, so bile from the liver flows directly into the small intestine.

The small intestine handles 30 to 60 percent of carbohydrate digestion and absorption and nearly all amino acid absorption. The small intestine also absorbs vitamins A, D, E, and K and minerals such as calcium and some phosphorus.

Carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars, and sugar entering the bloodstream causes the pancreas to release insulin. It is this process that can lead to laminitis (see Part 2 on Nov. 2, 2011).

Nutrients are absorbed through the walls of the small intestine. Food can pass through in less than an hour.

It then enters the large intestine, or hindgut, where fermentation takes place.

Note that this fermentation differs from the function of the small intestine, where digestion and absorption of sugar, starch, protein and fats takes place.

Large intestine: Five parts

The large intestine is made up of five parts: the cecum, 4 feet long and 1 foot in diameter; the large colon, 12 feet long and 10 inches in diameter; small colon, 10 feet and 4 inches in diameter; rectum; and anus.

Cecum

The cecum, which holds 8 to 10 gallons, breaks down the complex carbohydrates and fiber found in hay and grass. The cecum and other parts of the hindgut break down food through fermentation by bacteria. The cecum absorbs fatty acids and vitamins. Food stays here for up to seven hours.

But the microflora, or the bacterial population, in the hindgut is sensitive to changes in diet. An overload of high-sugar food or high levels of fructan can upset the normal population. Lack of proper digestion and fermentation can result in laminitis and colic. The microbial population does adapt to changes in the diet, but this process takes about three weeks.

Food stays in the cecum for about seven hours.

Large colon

The large colon, or large intestine, holds 80 quarts. The large colon has a right and left ventral colon and dorsal colon. Nutrients such as B-vitamins, minerals and phosphorus are absorbed.

Food stays here for up to 2 1/2 days.

Small colon, rectum and anus

The food then passes to the small colon, but by this point, most of the nutrients are gone.

Moisture is absorbed, leaving behind fecal balls, which are passed out the rectum and anus.

Horses normally produce 33 to 50 pounds of feces per day.

Digestion takes 36 to 72 hours.

A study on iron overload and insulin resistance as it might relate to laminitic horses

Posted on: October 26, 2011

Since I wrote about iron and insulin resistance in horses two days ago, I stumbled over a paper by Dr. Eleanor Kellon that appears to have been created in 2006. The title is “Iron status of hyperinsulinemic/insulin resistant horses.”

Kellon conducted a study to determine if insulin resistant horses and ponies also show iron overload in their blood.

Insulin resistant horses and ponies were divided into two groups: those that received a balanced mineral diet and those that ate whatever minerals crossed their path. Another group of adult horses and ponies free of obvious disease served as controls.

There was a significant elevation in body iron in the insulin resistant horses on uncontrolled mineral intakes.

Kellon says: “Risk factors for equine insulin resistance have not been completed identified but likely represent an interaction between genetic predisposition, underlying disease states and the environment. Since genetic factors are beyond our control and drug therapy for PPID (Cushing’s) does not necessarily lead to resolution of IR, identifying external factors has the potential to improve control. The role of iron overload as a risk factor for IR and therapeutic effect of lowering body iron levels has been documented in man.”

And she concludes: “Animals on mineral balanced diets had normal TSI and ferritin levels, and improvement in their insulin resistance, but since other measures were undertaken concurrently (e.g. reduction in NSC of the diet), the effect of the mineral balancing per se could not be determined. More extensive prospective and intention to treat studies are necessary to clarify the role iron might play in equine IR.”

Boot inserts for laminitic and foundered horses

Posted on: October 14, 2011

If you use any sort of therapeutic boot on your laminitic or foundered horse, I think I’ve found a good solution to the problem of the inserts always wearing out.

I spent months testing material at a company called McMaster-Carr, and the 1/4-inch neoprene rubber appears to be a winner as a basic insert.

You can order online. The material is shipped the same day, so you likely will have it the next day. Return the product if it isn’t what you needed.

The right material needs to be thin enough that it doesn’t add weight to the boot but thick enough not to fall apart. It needs to have some cushion for sore horses but again not fall apart. And it needs to have enough stiffness that it won’t bunch up under the horse’s foot.

What worked perfectly for Robin in 2012 was a medium-strength neoprene rubber plain back, 3/16-inch thick, 12-by-24 inch and 40A durometer (which is medium soft) for $19.74.

The website is www.mcmaster.com, and you can order by phone if it’s too confusing.

I have since tried the 1/4 inch thickness in the same material and liked it, too. And when Robin’s feet got sore recently, we went with 1/2-inch thick neoprene foam on top of the thinner neoprene rubber.

I have no affiliation with this group. I love its service, and I’m not spending $10 to $70 for boot inserts when I can get eight for $20. I thought others might share my concern for the cost of equine boot inserts.