Basic HTML Version
FEEDING
HORSE
There have been massive steps forward in
the study of laminitis in the last 10 years and
what is becoming very clear is that there is
more than one nutritional cause of laminitis,
although the clinical signs might be the same.
THE
Fact 1
66% of laminitis
is pasture associated.
Fact 2
Equine Metabolic Syndrome
is on the increase
and with it associated laminitis.
2
Fact 4
Laminitics have
3 times the levels
of free radicals
compared with non laminitics.
5
Fact 5
Horses and ponies with a fat score >3.7 (0-5 modified
score) are at greater risk of laminitis and foot related problems.
6, 7
Fact 3
Until recently researchers thought that fructans found
in grass affected the hind gut in a similar manner to an overload
of starch detrimentally changing the fermentation in the hind gut.
However recent work has shown that the fructans do not reach the
hind gut but are fermented in the small intestine of the horse.
3, 4
Fact 6
It is likely that if a mare is on a diet deficient in protein,
vitamins and minerals (suboptimum nutrition in utero) her foal will be
born with
insulin resistance.
8
Fact 7
If fed in excess; high fat diets predispose a pony to
insulin resistance more than high sugar diets.
10
Fact 8
Ponies and horses with insulin resistance are at a
higher risk of laminitis.
11
Fact 9
Restricting a horse's dry matter intake increases the
risk of stereotypy, colics and gastric ulcers.
12, 13, 14
Fact 10
Exercise is protective against insulin resistance.
15
DR TERESA HOLLANDS
BSc(Hons), MSc(Nutrition), PhD, R.Nutr
DODSON & HORRELL LTD
11 EQUINE REVIEW
SPRING 2010
Equine Metabolic Syndrome
and Insulin resistance
Watching what you feed your horse or pony
isn't enough on its own to minimise the risk
of the life threatening disease of laminitis;
you have to make lifestyle changes too…
preventing laminitis is a way of life. In
fact we now know that it isn't just what
you feed today or tomorrow that
increases the risk but what you
have been feeding over a long
period of time. Diabetes has
recently been diagnosed
in the horse
16
and
Equine Metabolic
Syndrome (EMS) is
very similar to
its human
equivalent.
Feeding the laminitic
Dietary insult
If your horse has developed laminitis because
he has had a dietary insult that has changed
the fermentation in his hind gut (e.g. a very
large meal of starch) or something that has
caused endotoxaemia, then it is important that
the correct gut flora is re-established and the
dietary cause removed.
LAMINITIC