Posts Tagged ‘founder’

by Jo Pogson,  England  –  Tellington TTouch for horses Practitioner 1

MISSY (Hit and Miss) Part 3

All the photo’s below were taken on 26th November 2009 before Mark did the significant trim and clearly showing the new and old horn growth.

These are the pictures taken a month later on 30th December 2009 still showing clear definition between new and old horn growth, but the hooves are now a more useful shape.  The pictures of her soles show the perfect newly formed Read the rest of this entry »

MISSY (Hit and Miss)

by Jo Pogson,  England  –  Tellington TTouch for horses Practitioner 1

In the initial stages I used owl touch on her chin as she was too tense to allow mouth work, but having done the owl on her chin I was then able to do llama around her muzzle and then gently work inside her top lip.  I also did octopus daily on all four legs, raccoon around her coronary band and inchworm on her neck.  I found she also liked inchworm with one hand behind her ears and one in front of her withers and then with one hand behind her withers and the other on her loins and then a third inchworm with one hand on her croup and the other on the skin where her tail meets her body.
At one point,

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MISSY (Hit and Miss)

 by Jo Pogson,  England  –  Tellington TTouch for horses Practitioner 1

On May 11^th 2009 I went to pick up my pony, Missy, who had been on loan for the previous 5 years to a very knowledgeable woman who had successfully taken her from preliminary to advanced-medium dressage, qualifying for the regional finals every year.  “She’s been a bit footy so I shut her into the barn, but she broke out last night and stuffed herself so she’s a bit sore today” she told me that morning.  I fought back the tears as I slowly led my crippled mare across the field to the waiting lorry.  She loaded well despite her obvious pain and my friend Sarah’s partner Steve drove her very carefully home.

Inspection of her condition showed her to be grossly overweight with mud fever on all four legs, thrush in all four feet and laminitis in all four feet. 

And so it began.  She got worse before she got better: the disease had already taken a firm hold Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday I will post part 1 of a wonderful 3 part article about a horse called Missy and her journey of recovery from severe founder/laminitis. So, as a related subject and very relevant to the season right now, I decided to post an article about… GRAZING MUZZLES, and the important role they can play in giving our founder prone horses a better, more natural life during these dangerous Spring months.

Many people have mixed feelings about grazing muzzles… Read the rest of this entry »

By Marijke van de Water, B.Sc., DHMS

Insulin Resistance

When a horse (or human for that matter) ingests sugar or starch the blood receives sugar very rapidly from the small intestine. Once in the bloodstream the sugar must find its way into liver and muscle cells where it is either burned for immediate energy or is stored as glycogen and used later. In healthy animals this is accomplished with insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates blood sugar by attaching itself to specific receptors in the liver and muscle, thereby opening those receptors and allowing the passage of sugar from the blood into the tissues. Eventually, in the presence of a long-term high sugar diet, these cell receptors become damaged by increasingly high insulin levels, at which point they can no longer open – the receptors are now resistant to the effects of insulin. Read the rest of this entry »

By Christina Cline

Laminitis is a word no horse owner wants to hear associated with her horse. It is a crippling disorder that takes weeks or even months for the horse to recover from, and that is if all causative factors are removed and the best equine husbandry is provided. It can be permanently debilitating if not dealt with properly and promptly, leading to much pain and suffering for the horse.

The term laminitis is often used interchangeably with founder, but technically the two are different, though related, phenomenon. Laminitis is inflammation of the laminae in the hoof. The laminae are the velcro-like connections that attach the coffin bone to the inner hoof wall, holding the foot together; because the laminae are trapped between a rock (the coffin bone) and a hard place (the inner hoof wall and sole), any inflammation is painful for the horse. Chronic inflammation over time, or a catastrophic laminitis episode, will lead to degeneration of the blood vessels that feed the laminae and necrosis of the laminae themselves.

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