Horse owners please read (farriers plese Critique)

[T.N. Trosin]

Horse owners:
If I have one piece of advice for all of you is break your horse to stand in a foot tub. What is a foot tub you ask (believe me most people don’t know)? It is the little black rubber tub that most owners feed supplements in. It has a 6” to 12” rim and is made by fortaflex. This and ice water or Epsom salts and hot water is one of your best weapons to beat acute hoof soreness.
90% of hoof problems are compounded because owners don’t take proactive steps when faced with acute hoof soreness. I would like to emphasize the following points.
1. The quicker the pain cycle of lower limb lameness is broken, the quicker the horse returns to soundness. I’ve seen this with all types of lower limb lameness not limited to the foot but with knees and ankles as well.
2. You have to teach the horse to stand in the device before you have the problem. Like you and me, we are hesitant to put ice on ourselves when we have strains, sprains and the like because we don’t like the discomfort that the cold causes us, but we do it because we know that ice will help alleviate the pain. A horse like a child doesn’t realize this at first, so you must teach the horse that you are doing this to help. When a horse feels pain they are less likely to cooperate.
3. In the aspect of acute lameness, don’t try to wish it away. Call your professionals immediately.
4. Learn. A growing problem with owners is they have no earthly knowledge of first aid for the equine. Talk to your professionals and be prepared to not like their answers, but as I always say truly experienced professionals never lie.

Your horse is an expensive investment; please do all you can to protect this investment.

[Phil Armitage]

Hey that is good advice, came across a little strong, but good advice just the same. Thanks T.N.

[squantotune]

I think cooling down the feet for a long time is no solution. cooling down should be done in periods maximum 15 min.
when cooling down a long time, there's less feeling, but this is only for a short period.
before a few years, they let the horses stand still for a whole day in a stream. when they examined the horses after this period they were a lot better, but not for long.
It's the same with humans, when we are putting ice on a leg or a hand, the longer we put on ice the lesser we feel, but anly for a short period.
Maybe I'm wrong, please advise


ST

[Ronald Aalders]

Hi Peter,

Obviously after the cold treatment is stopped 'feel' returns to a horse's leg.

When a horse is sore in its feet and such soreness is related to any type of swelling of tissue (trapped as it is) in the hoofcapsule its easy to see how breaking the pain-swelling cycle by cooling feet can help a horse. In cases of bruises or a lot of work on hard ground cooling of feet does wonders! You need to do it long enough though! Way longer than 15 minutes. You want to do it for like one or two hours or even longer.

In his laminitis research Dr. Chris Pollit had horse's legs cooled from the carpus down with a water/ice mixture at about 3 degrees celsius (34 F) for 24 hours and longer. Not only did this not cause any apparent discomfort to the horse, it also appeared to prevent laminitis in the cooled foot.



Ronald Aalders

[Gary Hill]

T.N. your post makes a good point! Owners don't "ready" their horses for anything other than riding or feeding! Exposing horses to all kinds of things makes life alot easier when it comes to doctoring on them. I always warn my clients to work with their feet if they give me problems because ,they might cut their legs and then the owners will have to doctor the feet themselves. Not enough owners are true horsemen in the first place! Cold water theropy helps lots of problems related to the horse and other animals for that fact. Thanks , Gary

[squantotune]

so a horse with feet problems should be in the open? I mean, is it better to let him stand in a pasture or coral (with mud and water). Or keep him in his stable.
Most of the time, horse owners and vets, like to keep the horse inside untill he's healed.
Is this a good solution or not? I understand that a horse needs to be inside for something serious, but we like to do this everytime.
For example a horse with warm feet, litle pulse, ... , . should we not take him outside and let him stay there fot the whole day. I mean the watter and the mud are also cooling, or am I wrong.

Peter

[T.N. Trosin]

Mud is great if you can get the horse owner to mess up a perfectly nice pen.
But in cases of acute lameness I still feel that ice is best

[Red Amor]

Hya
lissen some of you farmers will or may know that if you add amonia nitrate , detra prill anpho it has several names its sold under but its a fertilizer mainly or has other industrial applications that I wont mention

any way if you add some to water it will almost freeze the water
so to put some in a plastic bag and add water then seal it you can bandage it to a injured led as an effective ice pack that will last far longer that the average ice pack , if the bag is large enough it will wrap around the leg nicely make sure you pre pad or wrap the area to where the pack is to be fitted
this would be good for helping ease the pain for the acute laminetic horse
Id recon only 20 to 30 minutes to leave one on for , and then off for the same then on again , this told to me by a vet be ask your vet or local expert their thoughts
OK this is something many of you would never use but if your out to buggery in the bush with nothing better you'll be glad for the knowlage of this

it works well , its cheep and most farms have it on hand
its also very handy to shrink bearings and bushes to alowe easy fitting

[Phil Armitage]

Good on Ya Red, and thanks. :D

[Moses Shaw]

Somthing even more readily available is ice salt and isopropyl alchohol, mix that up and your less than 32 degrees in a hurry. had a yearling halter horse get run to death by an older horse and it resulted in concussion/road founder . I iced him that way per pollits instructions from the carpus down and as of 1 year later no measurable rotation present. oh yeah iced him off and on for the first 24 hours. Vet tubed him w/ DMSO a couple of times as well. i give credit to pollits research because im not convinced of the DMSO thing. Be Safe Mo Shaw CJF

[Ronald Aalders]

Hi Moses,

Whats the DMSO supposed to do anyway? Just increase bloodflow right or does it have an extra effect that I don´t know? (Me horse shoer....)


Ronald Aalders

[mwmyersdvm]

DMSO is a very effective free radical scavenger. I have had it make metabolic laminitic cases more comfortable when phenylbutazone wasn't working very well. I give it intravenously at the rate of 1ml per 10 pounds of body weight mixed with 500 to 1000 ml saline or Lactated Ringer's. if I feel the horse has some bone resorption issues I mix it with a calcium/phosphorus solution. This is given every other day for three to five doses.

M. W. Myers, D.V.M.

[Katy Watts]

Hya
lissen some of you farmers will or may know that if you add amonia nitrate ,

Handy stuff. I did a study this summer and found that 35 lb/acre N as AmNO3 increased pasture grass dry matter 3X and reduced non structural carbs by 29% compared to unfertilized grass. Just be careful to wash up after playing with ammonia nitrate before you handle anything that might have to later go through airport security. My laptop computer is no longer welcome.

Katy
www.safergrass.org