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Laminitis in summer on a grazed down, dry field? That can’t be right!

As soon as the first grass growth has been eaten away, many horse owners put their horses that have a sensitive metabolism and are at risk of laminitis out onto that field, as ‘then there is nothing left that could cause laminitis’.

The idea behind this is understandable: the first spring grass growth is very nutrient rich and not recommended for good doers, especially those with a history of laminitis. What is often forgotten, however, is the fact that grazed down pastures are not necessarily less dangerous.

Horses normally only eat the grass up to about 10-12cm above the ground. They leave the rest and move on – unless there is a fence that stops further travelling.

Overgrazed fields bear hidden risks

If the horses have no alternative food source, they will eat the grasses until there is nothing left in the field, which they would never do naturally. This instinct not to eat the grass down to the root is a very healthy one.

This is because the sugar content increases disproportionately in the lower 10cm of the grass. The same applies to the content of endophytes, which are toxic to horses and live as symbionts in the grasses. If you have an area with lean grasses and herbs, then it’s not so problematic, as the total amount of sugar and endophytes per plant is comparatively low

But the more often you allow your field to be eaten down to the sward, the more you displace the sensitive and less stress-resistant lean grasses and herbs. They won’t regrow the next year.

What spreads on these areas are stress-resistant performance grasses, also known as high-sugar grasses, whose seeds are carried by wind, birds and game from neighbouring performance meadows and then they will start to spread.

And this is precisely the problem: if these grasses now come under stress (eaten down to the sward, drought, waterlogging, trampling by horses’ hooves on the bare areas), the already high levels of sugar, fructan and endophytes in these grasses increase excessively.

Then even small amounts of these grasses, which the horse ‘nibbles off’, are enough to throw an impaired metabolism off track and trigger laminitis.

Therefore, the following applies to all horses, but especially to those with a sensitive metabolism: Horses off the overgrazed field.

This does neither the horse nor the field ecology any favours. If you only have small grazing areas available, it is better to only let the horses out for short periods each day, possibly with a grazing muzzle, and to rotate fields frequently.

Even if our eyes think that there is still a lot of grass in the field, it is better to change field a little earlier and give the area a rest.

Pasture management and ground care

Through appropriate soil care, regular reseeding of lean grasses and occasional rest years in which the area is used for hay or fresh grass production instead of as grazing pasture, the areas can be ‘leaned out’ and ‘de-stressed’ again and the vegetation can be made more horse-appropriate overall.

Of course, grazing is irreplaceable for the horse’s psyche and grass is also a wonderful source of nutrients. But it is not helpful, if the areas make the horses ill due to overgrazing and incorrect vegetation.

In those cases, it is better to put the horses out in a dry lot area, with hay, branches and twigs from non-poisonous trees and bushes to nibble on, and perhaps cut strips of green from the fields and put them in the pens as a fresh feed supply. This is easier to regulate than the feed intake in the pasture.

If laminitis has already developed, the vet should be consulted immediately, as it is and remains a potentially fatal disease.

Additional measures in the event of illness

At the same time, you can immediately give HoofCool forte from OKAPI, which was specially developed to support acute laminitis. Cooling hooves in the first 48 hours is a quick way to reduce pain, whether with a water hose, placing the horse in a stream or a bucket of ice water.

HoofCool forte
© OKAPI GmbH

While cooling with ice or cooling boots, please check the temperature at short intervals to prevent cold damage. Leeches have also proven to be effective as they appear to take pressure off the hoof capsule and relieve the pain locally.

Naturopath practitioners offer leech therapy and always have a few of the slippery little helpers at home and can come round immediately in an emergency.

Acupuncture can also provide rapid relief and pain relief, as can acupressure massage or shiatsu. Please do not put an overweight horse with acute laminitis on a radical diet to lose weight, as this can lead to fatal hyperlipidaemia in horses due to their body’s way of metabolising fats.

Horses with acute laminitis may and should be given appropriate hay (1.5-2kg hay per 100kg body weight, distributed over 24 hours, possibly mixed with straw and/or in a hay net), a salt lick and water.

In order to stabilise the newly formed hoof horn Zinc chelate and Sulphur Plus can be fed accompanied by a handful of soaked hay cobs as a carrier. All other feedstuffs should be critically questioned.

Diagnostics essential

Horses that are at risk of laminitis should not only be going through an appropriate therapy treatment plan, that includes optimising the feed intake, but also to clarify why the horse has an over reactive metabolism when the feeding isn’t entirely equine-appropriate and shows symptoms such as laminitis. These are often the reasons:

• an unrecognised insulin resistance (although unfortunately mistakes are often made during diagnosis, resulting in a false-negative result, i.e. the insulin resistance remains ‘hidden’ despite the supposed blood test), which in combination with high sugar content in the grass (performance grasses / high sugar grasses, stressed grass) can have a fatal effect.
• Dysbiosis (incorrect fermentation) in the large intestine, which together with high fructan levels (sunny days + cold nights, stressed grass, performance grasses) can lead to sudden pH drops in the large intestine, which can trigger endotoxin laminitis.
• Disorders in the detoxification balance, either as a result of suboptimal biotransformation in the liver (kryptopyrrole, KPU) or subclinical renal insufficiency, which is often accompanied by long-standing insulin resistance.
• or a combination of these factors.

It is therefore advisable not only to adjust the feeding and management of affected horses in such a way that laminitis cannot be triggered (i.e. get off the grazed down fields!), but also to look diagnostically at the cause(s) of the laminitis tendency and take targeted therapeutic measures to address the source(s).

If the metabolism starts to work normal again and the fields are managed correctly for the horse to graze on, chances are great for these horses to be going out into the field again (in shorter intervals and possibly with a grazing muzzle) after successful treatment of the causes, it’s so important for the horses psychological wellbeing to spend time with friends in the field.

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Team Sanoanimal
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