What feed is best for laminitic horses?

Should a horse with laminitis be on a starvation diet?

It’s a big mistake to place a horse suffering from obesity-induced laminitis on a starvation diet. Instead, the horse should be given low starch diet rich in nutrients so that the laminae is encouraged to heal. Horses require a minimum of 1.5% of their bodyweight in roughage per day for optimal health and wellbeing.

Can you feed a horse with low sugar forage?

If your horse needs extra feed in addition to the low sugar forage you are feeding you must be VERY careful when selecting a suitable feed. You should NEVER feed a feed to a laminitic horse if it has any of the following ingredients: Oats, corn, wheat, rice or barley. Millrun, millmix, bran (rice or wheat), pollard.

Is Hay good for laminitic horses?

These hays may provide an ideal solution for laminitic and metabolic horses and ponies, without the need for soaking or steaming. Hay is economical as it is inexpensive to buy and if correctly stored will stay in good condition for a relatively long period of time.

How do you use chaff on a laminitic horse?

For laminitic horses and ponies it can be used with a balancer or vitamin and mineral supplement to make up a low calorie balanced diet, and for older laminitic horses with dental problems as a forage replacement. It is important to consider when choosing which chaff to use what the ingredients are.

What are the risk factors for laminitis?

Horses with equine metabolic syndrome or Cushing’s disease are at an increased risk for developing laminitis. Horses with these conditions that develop laminitis should be removed from pasture. Other nutritional trigger factors such as hay and concentrate intake should be reviewed and diet revisions made, if necessary.

Is it hard to feed a laminitic horse?

The good news is, feeding a laminitic horse doesn’t have to be difficult. The following are some guidelines for making it easier; first is getting the basics right. Then we fine‐tune for weight changes.

Can you feed a horse with low NSC forage?

If your horse needs extra feed in addition to the low NSC forage you are feeding you must be very careful when selecting a suitable feed. You should never feed a laminitic horse with a feed that has any of the following ingredients: Oats, corn, wheat, rice, triticale, rye, barley or other cereal grains.

How much forage to feed a horse per day?

Feed up to 2% of your horses body weight (10 kg/day for a 500 kg horse) per day as low quality, low sugar forage, including mature or stemmy tropical grass hays and/or weather damaged lucerne hay. Balance the diet with a low dose rate vitamin and mineral supplement and good quality protein from full fat soybean.

Is there such a thing as low-sugar feed for horses?

Much has been written about sugar levels in feeds and forages because they play an important role in equine health. It is inappropriate to describe low-sugar feeds as “low-carbohydrate” feeds because there is no horse feed that is low in “carbs.” The fiber in forage/hay is carbohydrate in nature.

Is your horse’s forage low in starch and sugar?

Ideally, have your forage tested to ensure it’s low in starch and sugar; if you can’t have it tested, consider soaking to lower the sugar content. Recommendations about starch and sugar amounts for such horses varies depending on who you ask and the specific condition being managed.

What is mechanical overload laminitis in horses?

In mechanical overload laminitis, such as when a fracture or infected joint causes the other leg to bear all of the horse’s weight, it’s thought the excessive and continuous weight bearing may negatively affect the blood supply to the laminae.

What kind of chaff do you feed a laminitic?

When choosing which chaff to feed a laminitic, it’s important to consider the sugar and starch content. Even though the chaff is fed in a small quantity sugar content between different brands of chaff varies widely from 2.5% right up to 20%. Yes! 20% of sugar in a chaff!!! Which can be crucial for a laminitic.

What is chaff used for in horses?

Chaff is an important part of a horses diet. For laminitic horses and ponies it can be used with a balancer or vitamin and mineral supplement to make up a low calorie balanced diet, and for older laminitic horses with dental problems as a forage replacement. It is important to consider when choosing which chaff to use what the ingredients are.

Is teff Hay safe for laminitic horses?

Both really low NSC levels and well below the 10 – 12% threshold considered safe for laminitic horses. Variation between samples was also minimal which is also our experience with other C4 Type grasses like Rhodes for example. Horses in this study ate 1.5% to 1.8% of their bodyweight in teff hay, with the lower intakes being on the more mature hay.

What is the best hay for laminitis in horses?

If a horse has a history of chronic laminitis, my first concern would be addressing the metabolic issues contributing to the problem, usually obesity and/or pituitary dysfunction, both of which are treatable. If the horse is truly insulin resistant/glucose intolerant there is no one “type” of hay guaranteed not to trigger a bout of laminitis.

What do you feed chaffs to horses?

Because chaffs are a forage, not a complete feed, it is important to feed them as part of a complete diet. Depending on your horses’ overall diet you may choose to add a vitamin/ mineral supplement or Ration Balancer into your feeds to help provide a nutritionally balanced diet.

What is the best forage for horses with laminitis?

Another alternative to traditional long stemmed forages is to use a short chop hay replacer, which can be deemed one of the best forage based horse feeds for those with laminitis. This can be useful when the nutritional content of the forage is unknown, forage is in short supply, or when the horse struggles to chew long-stem fibres.

Is haylage bad for horses?

Haylage may be too rich for horses with metabolic issues or those that are prone to laminitis, and there is a risk of botulism contamination. Botulism spores that lay dormant in soil will grow in warm, slightly alkaline conditions in the absence of oxygen.

Can you feed hay to a laminitic horse?

Feeding hay to laminitic horses or ponies. For more sensitive metabolic and/or laminitic horses and ponies, however, it is often necessary to reduce the sugar content of hay, so that total Non-Structural Carbohydrates (NSC) – basically sugars plus starch, are 10% or less.

Is haylage better than hay for laminitics?

If well made, the NSC of haylage can be lower than hay, but this isn’t always the case. When it comes to hay or haylage for laminitics, another factor to consider is your horse’s weight. Traditionally, haylage was cut earlier than hay, meaning that the grasses were more digestible.