Dominic Wheelwright Dip WCF Farrier

12/01/2023

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.

30/11/2022

05/09/2022

Laminitis Care

As we are in the middle of the seasonal rise of ACTH, alongside weather changes affecting sugar levels in the grass, we often start seeing laminitis creep up in metabolic horses.

Recently I was chatting with someone about options for comfort for horses experiencing acute laminitis. We were talking about how some hoofcare providers can come in and apply a shoeing package to make these acute cases comfortable, sometimes even rideable, despite these internal issues and pathology.

But.. Should they?

Now let me clarify. I am not going after the hoofcare providers here. I am one! I think it's incredibly important we get these horses comfortable. I never want to see a horse in pain. And I give immense credit to pros who have the skill and experience to make an immediate change that allows for that comfort. I also appreciate pros who are seeking their client's comfort - we have the same goal, and we both care about how our clients are doing.

That being said, we know that up to 90% of laminitis cases are endocrinopathic, and require changes in management from the owner and/or barn. If they don't make any changes and simply rely on the farrier to "fix it," even if the horse is comfortable - even if the horse seems "sound"!- the internal damage may be worsening to the point where soon, comfort may not be achievable.

Laminitis is most often indicative of a systemic issue that needs to be addressed. Anything we apply to the foot for comfort won't change the blood insulin levels, or the ACTH levels. It likely won't change the breakdown of the laminae, even with the best leverage reduction and conscious decision-making about distributing the horse's weight properly. That's because the lamellar breakdown is most often due to a dietary issue or hormone issue, not a "what's on the foot" issue.

The call is coming from inside the house, as they say.

Patching up the issue isn't strengthening the laminae, and riding the horse can allow for further damage on compromised laminae if changes aren't made... Even if the horse appears comfortable.

So while I want to give credit to hoofcare providers giving comfort to sore horses, I want to give an exhortation to horse owners and barn owners to look for the cause of the issue. We don't want to just put a bandaid on a bullet wound.

When we remove the trigger for laminitis, the horse should become comfortable very quickly - I've had clients go from barely able to stand, to pasture sound in less than 2 weeks when a dietary trigger was found and removed, or ACTH bloodwork was assessed and changes were made in medication.

The comfort that comes from when the trigger for laminitis is removed results in a tighter laminae connection growing in, a healthier foot, better sole depth, and yes - can even result in rotation growing out to clear radiographs. But this can only happen with proper management.
It can be frustrating searching for what triggers your horse (a client of mine found that a 1/2 cup per meal of a "safe" balancer was the main trigger for recurring founder for her pony!), but it is more than worth it!

03/08/2022

For some owners, their horse's laminitis seemed to have come "out of nowhere."

The thing is, up to 90% of laminitic cases are endocrinopathic/metabolic - so we know that diet and exercise play a HUGE role in prevention and recovery.

And of course, there is the other 10+% whose founder cases aren't endocrinopathic. These can be caused by a SIRS reaction to a toxic w**d, high fever, illness, colitis, retained placenta, etc, or an injury that results in supporting limb laminitis from overweighting a non-injured limb.

Each of these instances requires a different approach to rehab.

So how do we determine what caused the laminitis in the first place?

That is where working with a veterinarian is invaluable. Bloodwork to determine metabolic status (checking ACTH levels for PPID, and insulin levels for EMS) can help to clue into the cause on the vast majority of laminitic cases.

After that, troubleshooting can come down to the individual horse. Some metabolic horses are more sensitive than others, so if a generic "low sugar" diet doesn't seem to be working, don't rule out endocrinopathic laminitis just yet. The ECIR forum online can help pinpoint dietary triggers for metabolic horses. And remember, just because it's marketed as "low sugar" doesn't mean it is safe!

You can't treat the symptom without identifying the cause. While you're implementing the ECIR emergency diet to be safe, pursue diagnostics to determine if your horse is dealing with metabolic laminitis, SIRS laminitis, or supporting limb laminitis, and go from there.

To learn more about how to approach each kind of laminitis case, check out the laminitis episodes on The Humble Hoof podcast. The episodes with Dr. Van Eps and Dr. Taylor especially go into how to rehab metabolic vs. SIRS vs supporting limb:
https://thehumblehoof.libsyn.com/size/5/?search=Laminitis+

If you know you have a metabolic laminitis case, this episode with ECIR members will help explain what's going on and how to manage it!:
https://thehumblehoof.libsyn.com/managing-the-metabolic-horse

08/07/2022

Let’s talk 💥 diet.💥

One of the main things I evaluate when trimming a horse is the diet. “But you’re a trimmer. What’s that got to do with the hooves?” As Daisy Bicking likes to say, trimming is a subtractive process. I can only trim what’s there, but I can’t change what is growing in. What the horse is receiving (or not) nutritionally influences the strength of the hoof walls, sole, and laminae.

It can be surprisingly difficult to convince some owners that diet changes and mineral supplementation will improve the quality of the hoof material growing in. Brittle walls, ripples down the hoof capsule, thin soles, and thrush problems are all signs of mineral imbalance and deficiencies, high sugar/starch/carbs, and inflamed omegas, resulting in inflammation, breakage, and infection. (Whew!)

For the most part, my clients have been wonderful and seek the education and make the changes. It can be hard being patient and waiting to see results but I reassure them that they will see a wonderful line of new, stronger growth make its way down the hoof and the old weaker, inflamed growth slowly get trimmed away. It’s encouraging for them to have a visual marker and reinforces their choice to modify diet and keep up with it. 👏🏻

*Note: It is important to know the difference between the line of new growth and an event line. Immune and inflammatory responses can result in a mark on the hooves. This can be illness, colic, allergies, etc. In these photos, the new growth line correlated with the timeline of diet changes, and the wall above the line is consistently straighter and the wall connection tighter.*

22/06/2022

09/06/2022

LAMINITIS

Spring is upon us, and for some areas, that means an uptick in laminitis cases. Dr. Alicia Nolfi said in one of The Humble Hoof podcast episodes that we should assume hoof-based lameness is laminitis until proven otherwise. Why? Because treating lameness as laminitis doesn't hurt if it isn't laminitis, but if it IS, waiting and not doing anything can lead to further laminae damage, or worse or catastrophic rotation or distal descent.

So how can we identify laminitis and work to get the horse comfortable?

Laminitis in horses can have less-than-obvious symptoms:

🔴Moving more "gingerly" over harder surfaces, especially if they were previously comfortable on them. This is still concerning even if they seem to be moving perfectly fine on soft surfaces!
🔴Trotting instead of their usual canter in the paddock. Walking instead of their usual trotting. Seeming more "sluggish" than normal.
🔴Recurring abscesses
🔴Thin soles- possible symptom of weakened laminae connection causing poor suspension of P3 in the hoof capsule
🔴Heat in the hoof or increased digital pulses
🔴Moving more stiff throughout their body
🔴A "new" sensitivity or soreness after a conservative trim - damaged laminae can become suddenly more painful even with minute changes to the "status quo" the horse was using to compensate.
🔴In extreme cases, rocking back onto hind feet

I know I've said it many times before, but I never view hoof sensitivity, thin soles, abscesses etc as "normal" - to me this is a weak hoof that requires further investigation into diet and metabolic status. A horse with "chronically weak feet" may already be dealing with some chronic laminitic symptoms.

So what do you do if your horse is experiencing laminitis?
🔵Call your vet, and consider getting bloodwork for insulin and ACTH levels, as 90% of laminitis is endocrinopathic. Let your farrier know what is going on.
🔵Remove all access to grain and grass (even w**ds or "grazed down to nothing" paddocks - short grass is stressed grass and sugars can spike!)
🔵Implement the ECIR emergency diet to remove any dietary triggers to allow the horse to become more comfortable - see link below
🔵I prefer to utilize therapy boots like Easycare Cloud Boots with their therapeutic pad inside, to relieve weightbearing on the laminae and prevent distal descent. Many horses become significantly more comfortable immediately in therapy boots. Using boots for rehab allows frequent small changes to the trim to help realign the bony column and hoof capsule. Shorter trim cycles can mitigate the need for drastic trims that can be more painful for the horse.

Once the trigger is found and removed, the horse should become more comfortable. If the horse is still uncomfortable - keep investigating to find a possible trigger!

Please note, the other 10% of laminitis cases include SIRS (Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, think high fever, colitis, illness, retained placenta, ingestion of a toxic w**d, etc) and Supporting Limb Laminitis due to lack of perfusion in an overweighted limb in an acute injury case. These cases will not respond to diet change or metabolic bloodwork management. Winter laminitis is a subset of metabolic laminitis but also doesn't respond to diet change etc, as it is often due to AVA shunt damage in the hoof causing lack of proper circulation in the winter - it might be similar to the painful feeling that people with Raynaud's may experience in cold weather.

If your horse is experiencing acute laminitis, please join the ECIR forum online at ecirhorse.org - they are a volunteer non-profit group that has over 20 years of experience helping owners to troubleshoot management and recovery of laminitis, and getting horses back to soundness and even productive, happy lives.

27/05/2021

Foal feet 😊

23/05/2021

A bit of a controversial one for a Sunday afternoon perhaps, but....

If your vet prescribes your horse medication without first asking about
- their diet
- their management
- Type and amount of exercise done
- potential stress factors
You don’t have a vet, you have a drug dealer

If your trainer works with your horse without first considering
- their diet
- their management
- Type and amount of exercise already done
- potential stress factors
- pain, injury or disease
You don’t have a trainer, you have a correctional officer

If your hoofcare specialist works with your horses feet without considering
- their diet
- their management
- type and amount of exercise
- the body as a whole
You don’t have a hoofcare specialist, you have an ego

Every day, horses are treated and trained with no real understanding of their life outside of that consultation.

Imagine every different aspect of your horse is a specific colour - how can we possibly hope to understand, treat and teach our horses when we only look at things in monotone?

19/05/2021

16/05/2021

Why is your horse difficult to shoe?
Is it a sign of pain?

Similar to Dysons ethogram, Mannsman et al. (2011) suggested a pain ethogram for the shoeing process. The study expressed that the behaviours can be the result of bad training, improper handling, or the recall of past pain/punishment but its findings correlated with Dyson and concluded that pain must be considered first!

When shoeing horses we can be asking them to make unnatural body compensations to facilitate our work. The image below shows how shoeing the hinds can affect all the way along the dorsal myofascial line. Horses presenting with pathology along that line will struggle. A common "behaviour" can be hopping around, also snatching or slamming the leg down. Something I have experienced often in horses presenting with negative plantar angles. However, often these horses can have great feet and we are experiencing the effects of higher pain.

Very often the amount of difficulty can be proportionate to how poor the feet are, as they improve with remedial farriery the signs of pain reduce.
In the meantime simple considerations can be made. A horse with very thin soles or pr*****ed frogs, leave the opposite shoe on and do one foot at a time, for example.

As farriers we are well placed to note these "behaviours" as possible early signs of otherwise unrecognised discomfort, or even reactions to obvious poor hoof conformation. Not label the horse as "bad"!

In my experience, and supported by Mannsman et al. (2011) these behaviours desist with the improvement of the feet or higher issues.
Horses, in general, are genuine animals. Recognising pain in the horse is an obligation for anyone working with them and mentioning shoeing observations can be the first step in saving horses from unrecognised higher issues.

Further reading at this link..
https://www.theequinedocumentalist.com/post/recognising-pain-in-the-horse

05/05/2021

10/03/2021

Respecting that hoof wall

19/01/2021

New year's resolution to myself, take more pictures!! Nothing too fancy, some nice Jim Blurton Heartbars help this lovely chap out tremendously.

18/01/2021

11/10/2020

01/10/2020

A really nice little thoroughbred I shod today for the first time

15/08/2020

New horse today that needed a little help with foot balance and hpa. Shod him with heartbars all round to achieve this and give him the much needed support.

08/08/2020

First make and fit in over 10 years on this lovely 15 year old quarter horse mare. 12" 3/4×3/8 off the hammer 🔨🔥