There are a range of feeding techniques to avoid/eliminate laminitis in horses.
Most recommendations involve buying expensive supplements for your horse, that have a million ingredients and heavily processed, so it can be difficult to know what youre actually feeding your horse.
Magnesium deficiency can lead to laminitis as does anything with high sugar and protein content. It is therefore important that you do your research before planning your horse's meals, especially if you have a horse that suffers from laminitis.
General Advice for Horse with Laminitis
Laminitis in horses can be caused by ongoing physical trauma to the feet, i. e. by working the horse too hard and too often. Laminitis can also occur if your farrier trims the horse's feet too short, and makes it unbalanced. Lastly a poor diet can also cause laminitis. General advice on how to manage a horse with laminitis:
- Trim feet every 3-4 weeks
- Feed wheaten chaff (rather than oaten or lucerne)
- wheaten hay
- tbsp rose hip
- pinch tumeric
- restricted access to grass
- handful of epsom salt once per day (only once per day if your horse is not currently suffering badly from laminitis)
- try to stay away from high sugar, high protein feed
Why Epsom Salt
Epsom Salt is popular when treating horses with laminitis due to the following reasons:- Contains magnesium which most laminitis horses are deficient of
- Affordable
- Natural remedy
- Scientific Proven results
