Laminitis

Balanced Nutrition

By Stephen Ashdown of Global Herbs

When rich food upsets the balance between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria in the bowels, bad bacteria multiply more than normal and produce more toxins. When these leak into the rest of the body, the blood supply to the laminae is reduced and the laminae get damaged, causing pain, heat and lameness. Grass is most commonly the culprit and improving digestion is the best way of reducing the risk of laminitis.

In the wild, horses naturally balance their digestion, travelling many miles a day to ‘self medicate’ choosing from a wide variety of grasses and herbs to maintain a balanced diet and that meets their individual dietary and health needs. Today, our domesticated horses lead a very different life, often restricted with grazing and limited paddocks which are not rich in a variety of grass or herbs. Our horses now solely rely on the diet and routine managed by their owners.

Our fertilised pastures are often dangerous and can produce grass that is unnaturally rich and hard to digest. However the most dangerous is spring pasture in the mornings because of the presence of ‘fructans.’ These are special growth sugars that grass uses to grow quickly in the early days of spring. Horses find fructans hard to break down and ‘bad’ bacteria feed well off them. The best grazing for a laminitis pony is sparsely covered well-grazed mature grassland. Such grass should be slow growing and not rich.

If effective digestive support is provided for sensitive horses and ponies, many more types of grassland can be slowly introduced as normal grazing. A natural supplement uses herbs to support the way that a horse breaks down its food.  In such a way improved nutrition is able to make richer food safe again. However without digestive support many laminitic ponies need to be removed from all pasture.

Owners also need to consider:

1. Restricting grazing times e.g. before 10am and in the evenings or just sparse paddocks.
2. Strip grazing
3. Grazing masks

The key to avoiding laminitis is getting the feeding right with digestive supplements and minerals and vitamins. Modern feeding and management can weaken the digestive process. Although there is a trend for higher roughage diets with less use of concentrates there is still a very large horse feed industry that is encouraging concentrates.

With a well-managed fibre based diet supported by digestive supplements ponies can be kept free of problems indefinitely. The main problem is sudden flushes of grass, which are out of the norm. Such surges in lush food can cause problems and it is wise to plan for such situations well in advance. An effective digestive supplement can be given along with box rest while the situation settles down.

Other factors do very rarely cause laminitis and disturb blood supply e.g. stress, steroid injections, roadwork & concussion, infections, Cushings disease and obesity.

Classical grass based laminitis is quite easy to control and eliminate without too much interference with normal grazing. However you do need to use the best modern nutritional supplements for improved digestion.

Laminitis Prone Supplement from Global has been developed to support digestion, blended with bitter herbs such 'trailing eclipta' and 'creat' to perfectly and safely rebalance equine nutrition. Reduce the harmful affects of toxic overload and introduce nutritional balancing agents as part of your management plan.

For further information on Laminitis Prone Supplement from Global Herbs or for further advice please call Global’s Technical team Tel – 01243 773363 or visit www.globalherbs.co.uk