7th Oct 2006

Poor Peppy in agony with acute Laminitis.

Peppy had been ‘down’ for 2 weeks having had large bar shoes placed on his grossly out of shape feet. Oozing wounds in the soles showed where the coffin bone was peeking through.

The treatment starts...

We took off the shoes, cleaned up his soles, and had him stand on some high density foam rubber which we cut to the shape of his feet. Manuka honey was plastered onto sterile gauze which was taped on over the foam rubber.
At first in our haste we made the mistake of covering the coronets. The coronets need to ‘breathe’ so when the dressings were changed the next day we rectified this as in the photo below.

Some sand was placed in a bay of the shed for his ‘intensive care’. The sand tends to push up into the bottom of the hoof and help support the bone column.
Immediately he was comfortable enough to stand up although clearly still in a lot of pain.
He was fed plenty of soaked hay, with Alleviate & ToxDefy mixed into a feed of EezyBeet.
Dressings were changed every second day until his soles healed up.

For two weeks he stayed in his sand yard. As the days went by he was moving around the yard more and more and only then was he was moved out to the sheep yards which had been sprayed out so there was no grass.

It is really important not to force them to move when they are clearly not comfortable to do so. That is what the sensation of pain is for!!

Jan 2007

Brand new hoof with great ‘connection’ very obvious

Peppy’s new hooves grew quite distinctly from the old, almost like he was shedding his old hooves. You can see the new hoof - distinct from the old growing down in this photo

Peppy made a wonderful recovery as you see in the photo at the top of the page after 4 months of...:

• ZERO GRASS
• SOAKED HAY
  (plain grass hay, no rye/clover or lucerne)
• Eezy-Beet
• Alleviate
  (large doses, 2-3 scoops/feed)
• Hand-walking daily
  (only after he was comfortable and keen to do so)

February 2007

The new hoof has grown down with great connection.

Not long after this photo, the remainder of the old hoof was trimmed off and you would never have known that he foundered at all.
He is now a happy pony and out competing again, a far cry from the sad fellow in the first picture.

Important: Not all cases are this straightforward. If you think your horse or pony has foundered professional help should be sought immediately.
Peppy’s case gives you a basic outline of the process of recovery. It is an ‘intensive care’ situation for many weeks but very worthwhile.

NB Back then we did not know about feeding salt and GrazeEzy. When cases like these present themselves now, those 2 items are immediately added to the feed to correct the electrolyte imbalances which are major contributors to this disease.