Epona's Hoofcare Services by Natalie Herman

06/28/2024

Why do ‘cresty’ necks suddenly go rock hard?

This information is relevant and useful to people who own horses with Equine Metabolic Syndrome and are in danger of laminitis or whose horses are intermittently ‘footy’. Understanding this has helped with rehabilitating, not only all the ponies at Jen Heperi’s Mini-HaHa Rescue Haven but many more horses and ponies all around the world.

We learned from Dr Deb Bennett PhD (who has conducted many dissections), that “the horse's "crest" is made of fibro-fatty sub-cutaneous (adipose) tissue similar in texture to high-density foam”.

Have you ever wondered how it is that the ‘crest’ of the neck can harden so rapidly? Sometimes overnight?

The actual reason is because it goes ‘turgid’ (it fills with fluid). Like foam, the crest tissue can take up water like a sponge; so it swells and hardens because fluid ‘leaks’ into it, filling the interstitial spaces until it is hard as a rock, and ‘softens’ when electrolyte balances are corrected thereby allowing fluid to be resorbed.

When the crest swells with edema, other parts of the horse's body like the abdomen and the hooves (significantly the digital cushion is made of similar material, it is a thick wedge of fibro-fatty subcutaneous tissue) -- are liable to be in trouble, too.

Hardening of the ‘crest’ coincides with not only spring and autumn growth spurts but also potassium and nitrogen spikes in autumn and winter grasses. It coincides with early signs of laminitis which are ‘stiffening’ of gait and being ‘footy’.

It is a sure indication that one cause of ‘pasture related laminitis’ is as much to do with mineral imbalances, (particularly potassium and nitrogen excesses concurrent with salt deficit) as sugars and starches. It explains why short Autumn grass can cause laminitis when analysis shows soluble sugars + starch content is only 7.5% while potassium is 3.4%, sodium only 0.154%, nitrogen 5.8%, nitrates 2290mgs/kg (far too high, in mature grass/hay they are undetectable).
It is one of the many reasons clover is such a ‘no-no’ for EMS/laminitis equines and a likely explanation why there are some insulin resistant/elevated insulin horses that can't tolerate Lucerne (alfalfa) and is why Lucerne can perpetuate laminitis when everything else is being done ‘right’.

People who own horses with EMS are aware they need to pay attention to this vital sign: that just before a horse has a bout of laminitis, the normally soft and spongy crest stands up firm and hard. Then they can immediately reduce potassium/nitrogen intake by eliminating short, green grass replacing it with soaked hay and make sure they add salt to feeds and not rely on a salt lick. If action is taken quickly enough in these early stages, laminitis can be averted, you can ‘dodge a bullet’.

Soaking hay for about an hour not only reduces sugars but also reduces potassium levels by 50%.

Therefore a very important aspect of EMS and laminitis is that identifying and addressing mineral imbalances (particularly high potassium/nitrogen & low salt) are equally as important as sugar and starch content when rehabilitating individuals and assessing suitability of forage for these compromised equines.

06/24/2024

06/14/2024

05/16/2024

If you believe that horses need grain in their diet to meet their nutritional needs, you are not alone. However, horses should get most of their nutrients from a good quality forage source such as grass, hay, hay pellets, or a complete feed.

Horses generally eat between 1.5-2% of their body weight each day, so an average size 1,000 lbs horse should eat 15- 20 lbs of hay daily. To help fill any nutrient gaps such as essential vitamins or minerals, a ration balancer may be beneficial. Depending on breed, body condition, and exercise level, concentrates may be added in to provide additional energy but are often not needed.

When deciding on what to feed your horse, it is best to invest in high quality forages as the foundation of your feeding plan. You can even have your hay tested to see exactly what nutrients it is providing. Please consult with your veterinarian or an equine nutritionist about your horse's diet before making any major changes, and remember that any changes should be made gradually over time to avoid GI upset.
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Brought to you by the AAEP Horse Owner Education Committee

05/04/2024

This topic rolls around my head all the time. The more horses I get under, the more I understand equine behavior and their body, the more I am convinced I don’t need to be stronger. Hear me out.

I am 5’6” and 125 lbs. I am a strong and fit person, with limits. Like most people, we all have limits to what our bodies can handle. Working with a 1000 lbs animal, has understandable limits. I have heard more than once, that the horse just needs “a strong man” to get under them and not have it be awful. That a man can “just hang on”. Just because that man can bear down and hold on, doesn’t mean it was any better for the horse than me being slung around. It just makes the human at the end of the lead feel better not seeing me slung around or struggle.

But here is the thing I know. Besides a handful of horses, very very few intentionally want to make it hard to hold a leg up. If they are struggling to stand well for the farrier, it almost always comes down to a few things. The following is said assuming that the farrier is truly a horse person and knows how to help your horse have a positive experience and adjust their approach when necessary.

1. Pain or fear of pain or altered sensation or awareness
2. A reduction in stability and appropriate loading patterns
3. Lack of understanding
4. Lack of emotional agility

As I primarily work with performance horses, I most commonly see 1 and 2. Yet, no performance problems are noted and an obvious head nodding lameness isn’t always present.

It’s tough because I know about how the body and nervous system works and equine behavior more than most farriers, more than a lot of horse people. I understand gait patterns and muscle development. I can feel your horse’s body every time I pick up a hoof. I have picked up 100s of 1000s of hooves (no joke, I did the math, it’s well over 150,000 hooves). Every single one of them is attached to a leg, attached to a horse. I have felt the bodies of so so many horses in every stage of life, from pasture puffs to Olympic level dressage horses and in many different compensation patterns, with all sorts of aches and pains from arthritis and other diseases. I know what a healthy body has the potential to feel like when I pick up a leg. I know what is possible for hoof care when the body is functioning well. I also know the possibilities of what a body will feel like that is struggling with nerve compression in the shoulders, hock arthritis, kissing spine, DSLD, Etc.

If a horse can’t relax, shift its weight, engage it’s core, lift a leg and keep it there, there is work to do to help the horse. Inherently, horses want to stay vertical and eyes level with the horizon to protect their spine, it is imperative to their survival. If they aren’t doing this, there is work to do to help the horse.

I know it can be an uncomfortable topic, especially when nothing seems wrong otherwise with the horse. It’s easier to blame the other human than take a look at the horse in front of us and truly listen.

I can also acknowledge that my approach isn’t right for every horse. I am not saying every visit with every horse needs to be perfect. But I know horses. I know what they feel like and I understand what they are telling us. If I don’t know, I will be the first to say it. I know the potential that exists in every interaction when we listen.

I don’t need to be stronger. I don’t need to hang on. I don’t need to be a man. We need to listen to what the horse is telling us. They don’t tend to be disingenuous with what they are saying. I will always seek to find a way to make hoof care easier and more relaxing for the horse and if I can’t find a way, we really need to look deeper at the horse and see what answers we can find.

Can we stop misinterpreting their behavior and take a deeper look?
Can we stop trying to out muscle and strong arm?
Can we collaborate more for the horse?
Can we start to recognize the subtle changes?
Can we get softer and listen?

04/11/2024

AANHCP

03/23/2024

Hot hooves, a sawhorse stance, severe lameness; these are all signs of laminitis - one of the most dreaded equine conditions for good reason. In severe instances, laminitis can lead to euthanasia of the horse. Laminitis occurs when there is separation in the laminae of the hoof — where the hoof wa...

03/21/2024

Anti-inflammatories like phenylbutazone (bute) do very little for laminitis pain. Learn why in Dr. Kellon's proceedings COMPARATIVE HUMAN AND EQUINE METABOLIC SYNDROME from the 2021 NO Laminitis! Conference. Download is free: https://www.e-junkie.com/i/11jjb

03/15/2024

Have we convinced you yet of the tremendous benefits of shortening the toes of domestic horses (which are typically grossly too long)?

For more detailed information, please read the articles in The Horse's Hoof Barefoot News:

• January 2024, "Bowker on Blood Flow through the Equine Foot"
https://mailchi.mp/thehorseshoof/the-horses-hoof-barefoot-newsjanuary-2024

• February 2024: "Dr. Bowker: The long toe is the #1 problem with the horse's foot!"
https://mailchi.mp/thehorseshoof/the-horses-hoof-barefoot-newsfebruary-2024

Sign up for The Horse's Hoof Barefoot News, it's free! https://mailchi.mp/thehorseshoof/50-giveaway

Are you worried about HOW to get your horse's toes shortened in a practical way? It is in the horse’s best interest to go ahead and get the toes shortened all at once. However, don’t be afraid to go slowly with a very overgrown toe if it makes you more comfortable; in this case, a good rule of thumb is to figure out how much needs to come off, and remove half of that the first day. Come back in a week or two, and repeat (remove half of what is needed). Next time, remove half again! And so on and so on, until the toes are correct. Eventually, you get there!

James Welz says, "Until they see it done, many trimmers are afraid to back up the toes enough. There is a strange myth out there, even perpetuated by otherwise qualified people, that rasping into the white line will cause all kinds of “horrible” problems. This is simply false, as backed up (no pun intended) by the thousands of horses I’ve trimmed, and thousands more that I’ve observed. If all my guidelines are followed, backing up the toes will create immediate positive benefits that you will be able to observe in your horse’s feet even before the next trim takes place. Backing up the toes makes mechanical sense."

We provide lots of helpful advice for shortening toes and improving hoof health on Hoof Help Online. A unique platform for learning: You receive exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, plus a barefoot trimming course, community access, recorded livestream video events, 80 issues of The Horse's Hoof Magazine, 1000's of photos, 100's of articles, 70+ videos, FREE App and more! Learn more at: https://members.hoofhelponline.com/

Happy Hooves! - Yvonne Welz

02/20/2024

Grass is not the optimum forage for the equine species.

02/18/2024

02/14/2024

All right, y’all, I’m going to vent a bit.

I’ve seen plenty of posts on social media of lame horses and owners asking for help with rehab. Unfortunately, hoof issues are a bit of a pandemic, but fortunately - through attention and research- we are learning so much more about the foot and ways to keep it healthy and give it a fighting chance at soundness.

So this morning, when I scrolled across some radiographs of a laminitic horse- where the before and after didn’t seem much better to me- I stopped to read the post.

The horse had been sore for quite some time and nothing seemed to help, so they tried bigger and bigger interventions to the feet, until finally they found an extensive shoeing package that allowed the horse to amble around a bit more comfortably.

My first thought was- wow, that seems really extreme, but I’m glad they found something to make the horse a bit more comfy.

My second thought was- I wonder why this horse needed such extreme measures to improve.

That question was answered pretty quickly when I saw an image of said horse out in a large green pasture of fresh grass.

Up to 90% of laminitis is endocrinopathic. Meaning up to 90% of laminitic cases should not be on grass. Meaning up to 90% of laminitic horses will continue to founder and their laminae will continue to fail until their diet and metabolic issues are addressed.

And we can do all we want to their feet- and some things may help, and some won’t, and some may work for a time until the horse can’t compensate anymore- but ultimately NOTHING will stop the laminae breakdown until the root cause is addressed.

I see so many turn to bigger and bigger interventions, more drastic approaches, when the root cause isn’t even addressed. And don’t get me started on the fact that half of these posts I see are trying to sell a product for these horses.. without even addressing the cause of the issue. Let’s sell a bandaid to people desperately trying to save their horse.

I’m trying not to become too preachy over here, but to be honest just sitting here typing this I’m getting a bit worked up.

Because when we focus on the feet in isolation, we are missing the forest for the trees.

Hooves are attached to an animal and the hoof reveals the health of that animal -in laminitis cases especially.

Doing things to the feet may (at least temporarily) help with comfort, but it will not stop the internal damage until we remove the trigger for the laminitis.

And maybe, if we got to the trigger first and removed it right away, we wouldn’t even need those interventions at all.

Now I’m not naive to believe that every single laminitis case is this straightforward. In fact, I absolutely know they aren’t. There are some where a toxin leads to SIRS laminitis and those feet almost melt apart. Supporting limb laminitis can feel like a car crash you don’t know how to stop. And some metabolic cases can be so tightly managed and still have refractory high insulin.. or we increase pergolide just a few weeks too late for the seasonal rise and those horses just crash and then we are chasing ACTH levels.

There are some who need every single tool in the toolbox and some who we just can’t make comfortable.

But at the very least, we need to start with the basics. ECIR emergency diet. Looking for the root cause. Removing as many triggers as we can think of. AND work on getting the horse comfortable.

But don’t just look at the feet and forget the horse and their living situation.

/rant. (And apologies for the drama).

02/10/2024

Information from Dr. Robert Bowker: Osteoporosis of the Coffin Bone? That's right! The bone creep of long toes causes Osteoporosis. The coffin bone will develop large cavities and thinner bone. X-rays will show fuzzy edges, and coffin bones that are grayish on x-ray and not white. You want DENSE - VERY WHITE - bone on the x-rays, which indicates a healthy bone.

Photo here is from Dr. Bowker ("Osteoporotic Coffin Bones", The Horse's Hoof issue 35, 2009) - a 4 year old already showing signs of bone loss., and likely to have clinical problems later on. "Osteoporosis is a common but unrecognized occurrence in the general horse population." "...by preferentially loading the solar surface, rather than loading the foot more peripherally via the hoof, more and more bone will be deposited within the coffin bone (or, more conservatively, will not be lost)."

Is there an age limit to remodel back to a dense coffin bone? Bowker says, no! However, it will take longer when the horse is older. Unload the wall more and more, and the bone WILL get denser! (By loading the wall, bone is lost from the coffin bone, the mechanics of which was explained in detail to Bowker by engineers).

Remember, Good - Better - Best!

Check out Hoof Help Online! Where we welcome free discussion of hoof ideas! 😁 A unique platform for learning: You receive exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, plus a barefoot trimming course, community access, recorded livestream video events, 80 issues of The Horse's Hoof Magazine, 1000's of photos, 100's of articles, 70+ videos, FREE App and more! Learn more at: https://members.hoofhelponline.com/

The Horse's Hoof offers a free monthly barefoot horse care e-newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/thehorseshoof/50-giveaway

Happy Hooves! - Yvonne Welz

02/09/2024

Can we get an amen?!

12/28/2023

Agricultural service