The Tragedy of Laminitis
I decided that I am going to do a daily report on Captain. He is an 18-year-old Arabian Gelding. He foundered in September 2009. My husband has been caring for him ever since.
Captain is fed twice a day grass hay. A mixture of Orchard grass and 30% Alfalfa. He also gets Senior Feed made by Nutrina. It has a lot of Molasses in it. Which is bad for a foundered horse. I think I have my husband convinced that we need to switch his feed to something with no sugars in it.
I am going to post pictures, I will try to get a daily photo on here. Plus an update daily. I don’t think some days will be much of a change but we will see. I just checked out some sites talking about Oats as a good source for feed supplement. From what I read it sounds like just the ticket. We did buy some different feed today only because the feed store was out of Senior Feed. Of course we will be switching him over slowly to the new feed. This will be a two-week process as recommended.
Captain has been on Bute for two years now and he is still alive amazingly so. I will get photos of his feet. They are a God-Awful mess. You will see them tomorrow when I post his first photo.
Currently he has a good attitude, looks forward to his food and company. He is a very loving horse. With all the pain he is going through, you would think he would have a sorry attitude.
He was severely losing weight a couple of months ago and so my husband increased the amount of Senior feed and his weight did come back on. But, he is now getting three times the amount of sugar.
So you all will take a journey with me from the beginning of his new feed program. It will be a few weeks before he is on the oats. We will share his journey.
Wish us luck, and may God bless Captain.
