Confessions of a horse nutritionist #1 – Laminitis
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Author: Dr Nerida McGilchrist | PhD Equine Nutritionist and Founder of My Happy Horse
As horse owners we often give ourselves a really hard time for not doing ‘the right thing’ for our horses. This blog post was originally inspired by a conversation with a gorgeous friend whose pony had gotten laminitis.
At the time, my friend was distraught and feeling horribly guilty that she had ‘let this happen’!
I said to her ‘in case it makes you feel better… all of my horses have HAD laminitis… I know so much about this dang disease and it still snuck up and got me (or them really, my hooves were just fine 😂)!’
It did make her feel better… which gave me the idea that I should share more of these moments in ‘Confessions of a Horse Nutritionist’ posts!
So here we go, confessions of a horse nutritionist #1!
In 2014, all the horses I had at the time had laminitis!
Yep, all of them … I had three horses and had 3 from 3 with this dreaded disease!
I made sooooo many mistakes in my thinking, including…
It was in the middle of Summer, that’s a low risk time right… (my first mistake!)
One was a quarter horse (Poet) with no family history of the disease so he will be fine even though he is really overweight (my second mistake!)
Another was a 4-year-old stock horse (Popcorn)… her dam (Quilla) had had laminitis as a youngster but for some reason I thought she was too young to get it (third mistake!)
The third horse was a 20ish year-old stockhorse, who had had laminitis as a 5 year old before insulin dysregulation and metabolic laminitis were even understood… goodness knows what I was thinking with her, I will blame babies and sleep deprivation for this one, and the fact it was summer… no one gets laminitis in summer right… no… wrong!
They were on sub-tropical grass, and it doesn’t accumulate enough non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) to be an issue… Nope, wrong again! This liverseed grass was going from 8% NSC at sunrise to 20% at sunset! Yikes!! Fourth mistake!!
They were overweight, but surely not enough to get laminitis (ahh groan… I’ve learnt my lesson on this one! Fifth mistake!)
Turns out the high sugar grass and the obesity served me up the perfect storm and brought down all of my horses within 2 weeks with laminitis!
Luckily for them, their saving grace was I was onto it REALLY fast. Straight off the pasture, straight onto a low starch, low sugar hay. And within a week they were all sound at the walk and soon after fully sound again.
While the disease can sneak up on all of us, the key to saving your horse (or pony) is to get on top of it really fast!
It is now 2024, and, I am happy to report that I still have Poet and Popcorn with me and neither have had laminitis again.
Looking back I actually think there were two additional factors at play that also may have contributed.
We had had our pastures sprayed for broadleaf weeds (mainly thistles that grew so thick on the property you couldn’t walk through the pasture!) and, for whatever reason, I didn’t take my horses off the pastures. My son was a baby at the time and between lack of sleep and lack of time I think I just couldn’t manage to get them off the pasture for the recommended period of time, so they stayed. Now makes me wonder how much this may have affected their gut microbes and whether a state of dysbiosis affected their susceptibility to laminitis; and
This one is a confession all of its own, but I did a really bad job of properly supplementing my horses when my kids were babies… some days it felt impossible to even get outside, so my horses often went days without getting their vitamin/mineral supplements. Being deficient in nutrients causes all sorts of health issues and it is likely that deficiency contributed here somewhere.
I lived at that property for another 6 years, managed them far more closely with grazing muzzles and strip grazing and did a much better job of correctly supplementing them. Then moved in 2021 and continue to manage them with strip grazing and they now live in a giant track. The soil is much healthier here and the pastures far more diverse.
AND they are always correctly supplemented!!
We have just come through an incredibly lush and green spring (2024) that had the classic below freezing nights and bright sunny days. They stayed on pasture the whole time, albeit restricted to just their track (which is over 1 km long) and their hooves are as healthy and as happy as can be!
So I’ve learnt my lesson! BUT, this disease is so insidious, I never let my guard down!
If you’d like to know more about managing a horse or pony with laminitis, you can ask Dr Nerida AI or read more at ‘Feeding the laminitic horse’.
And our MyHappy.Horse virtual nutritionist would be very happy to help you put together a safe diet for laminitic horse or pony!
Hugs!
Nerida
Xx
About the Author
Dr Nerida McGilchrist
Dr Nerida McGilchrist is an Australian equine nutritionist with a PhD and over two decades of experience. As the founder of Equilize Horse Nutrition, and advisor to some of the world's largest nutrition companies, she’s built an international reputation for blending science with practical solutions. Now, she’s bringing her expertise to My Happy Horse to make advanced nutrition accessible to all.