A friend of mine and myself have our young horses kicked out on pasture at the same boarding stable, hers is a 3yr old half warmblood half TB, mine is also 3, full wb gelding. They are out with 6 other babies 2-4 yrs old, they are all at a reasonable body score if not a bit chubby, but nobody is obese. my friends filly appears to be starting into a laminitic episode, all the other babies are totally fine and barn owner says she has never had a laminitis problem with any horses at her place (mostly warmblood babies and broodmares) they are all on decent sized pasture but nothing crazy. Has anyone ever had anything like this happen? Vet is perplexed and doubted it could be laminitis on such a young horse but bloodwork did show elevated insulin. X-rays are actually fine but could just be that it was caught very early. We are still waiting on another update from the vet on what he wants to do next but for time being they are treating like laminitis to be on the safe side.
Sudden change of diet, hay to all the grass they can eat? Yes, it can cause laminitus. Stomach does not have the flora that can digest the grass, causing blockages in the digestive system, then going on into laminitus.
I suspect you did catch it early! I WOULD NOT put filly back on grass for several days while her system cleans itself. BO is very lucky not to have had any previous issues with laminitus. We have “supposedly” learned better than to manage ANY age or condition horse with such drastic diet changes. Filly may just be more reactive to diet changes, needs a longer, slower feed change to get used to free grazing time. My horses take a month or more of timed grazing turnout daily, getting used to grazing on pasture. 15 or 30 minutes to start is ALL they get that day! It is amazing how MUCH a horse can consume in very short times!
Do X-rays show no rotation? Filly may have missed the bullet, but still not be “back to normal” in just a couple days of recovery. Her system has sustained a shock, needs some time to recover. I would be real careful with her, feeding only hay, seeing if she stays sore-footed. Get some hoof X-rays if you have not done any yet.
Then move on to a timed grazing time to allow body to develop stomach flora able to digest grass. This can’t happen in only a week or two!
Best of luck with her recovery and acclimation to pasture grazing.
She absolutely can be laminitic, even at that age, even if no one else is, even if no horse ever has before.
What’s the location, what sort of pasture are they on, any supplemental hay/feed?
Out of curiosity, do you have any photos of the pasture?
I had a just turned 4YO get Spring laminitis in 2021, but he is an easy keeper Fjord that was on too much grass even with a grazing muzzle. He wasn’t grossly overweight, but could stand to lose which he did after the fact. He was off work from May through about mid July before I started any riding. Did a lot of hand walking and ground driving to keep him moving.
I am willing to let him be muzzle free on a sparse pasture, but my definition of that may be different than yours. Basically a dry lot with some green that’s mostly weeds. He was on pasture like that with a roundbale last summer and it was just enough he got to pretend to eat grass.
I don’t even hand graze him for fear of too much grass.
This was our sparse pasture last year:
EMS doesn’t care about age. It IS much less common to be a problem at 3, but not at all unheard of. The proof is in the bloodwork.
The horse needs to come off the pasture, be fed tested or soaked hay, until she’s very sound again, and then MIGHT be able to spend some time on grass always with a muzzle, and preferably only in the morning when sugars are lowest. In by 10am or so if it’s sunny, maybe a little longer if it’s cloudy.
Point her to the emergency diet protocol
sparse pasture like that usually means what grass is there, is quite high in sugars, and a lot of horses will prefer to nibble all that, rather than eat boring hay. That’s why nobody is really obese, most likely. But also, the hay could also be high NSC. I would strongly encourage getting it tested if there’s enough for at least a few more months, using Equi-Analytical’s 601 or 603 test
Just curious how you can safely let him have 24/7 access to hay ( as per pictures) ??
He doesn’t have 24/7 access to hay. He gets roughly 1.5% of his body weight in forage in his stall between hay in extreme slow feed nets and hay pellets in an auto feeder when his hay net runs out overnight.
When he’s turned out he has a grazing muzzle on grass or not. Right now he’s in a dry lot with with second cutting hay. Last summer the round bales were such garbage I didn’t need the muzzle. I also tape him every week or so to make sure our weight is ok.
that can be true, yes. I should have asked what test was done, and how was the horse “fasted”.
As long as she had only been eating her normal forage, no concentrates for the previous 8 (12?) hours, then that is the proper fasting. Total fasting - no food at all - is too likely to cause a false negative.
Did they happen to also look at glucose?
“extremely abnormally high” is unlikely to be a false positive.
Another factor to consider is your weather; are you in a colder area?
In particular, are your days relatively sunny, but your nights cold?
Has your area experienced a cold snap?
Alright, just trying to think of other ideas.
A lack of rain could also cause an increase in grass sugars.
QFP:
“A friend of mine and myself have our young horses kicked out on pasture at the same boarding stable, hers is a 3yr old half warmblood half TB, mine is also 3, full wb gelding. They are out with 6 other babies 2-4 yrs old, they are all at a reasonable body score if not a bit chubby, but nobody is obese. my friends filly appears to be starting into a laminitic episode, all the other babies are totally fine and barn owner says she has never had a laminitis problem with any horses at her place (mostly warmblood babies and broodmares) they are all on decent sized pasture but nothing crazy. Has anyone ever had anything like this happen? Vet is perplexed and doubted it could be laminitis on such a young horse but bloodwork did show elevated insulin. X-rays are actually fine but could just be that it was caught very early. We are still waiting on another update from the vet on what he wants to do next but for time being they are treating like laminitis to be on the safe side.”
As others have said, of course it can be laminitis.
I had a mare who was turned out in the same pasture for 20+ years. But one spring, she foundered. It was the only time in her life she did (though we moved her to a smaller paddock with almost no grass for her last few years). We never figured out why that spring, why only her, but it happened.
I recommend x-rays of both front hooves (if not done already) to be on the safe side. She may have some rotation that can be corrected with proper care and shoeing.
Just as a side note, and this is rare, but did they happen to have their shots recently? I’m only asking as my 2 year old pony had laminitis last year the day after his rhino/flu shot. No changes in diet, not on pasture, low NSC grain and not chubby. He then had his spring shots and had laminitis again the next day. Again no changes in his feed. I spoke with the vet, and though very rare, they confirmed it was from his vaccines.
I didn’t think it was from his shots the first time and I was scratching my head. It didn’t dawn on me until the 2nd time or I would have taken a different protocol. I now have him on a product called Heiro and he wears a grazing muzzle. Luckily both times I caught it quickly and he recovered the first time in 3 weeks and now we are on week 2 and he almost 100% sound.
It was just a thought…
@DiamondJubilee I had this happen to a WbXTb gelding of mine a few years ago …got his fall vaccines and within 24hrs had full blown laminitis…he never had it prior , wasn’t obese , had always been on pasture without issue , was on low nsc diet already -that was the only different thing that occurred …was completely normal prior to vaccines
