Please tell me about founder/laminitis

[ducks4you]

TOTALLY agree with Pat. Also, is your pasture and are your turnouts in ANY property that used to be a farm? Your horse could have picked up a small nail.
Old farm properties have "garbage dumps", where the family threw away ALL of their garbage, including glass and wire. I kept my horses on a farm where the farmer "conveniently" rented ME the turnout that used to be his family's dump. For 14 years, I would find glass, wire, styrofoam, pieces of metal, springs, nails, screws, even engine parts!! It became my habit to keep my eyes open for trash, and I kept a trash can to dispose of it, which I took home with ME, so he wouldn't throw it somewhere else.
My current property unearths garbage, but not to the extent of his place. I am now mostly finding broken pieces of the previous fencing, but mostly it's when I till.

 

[Eliza]

what's the temp of the hoof? when you put water on it, does it dry fairly quickly? How old is the horse? Is there a pulse in the foot (check by putting your fore finger and thumb around and behind the fetlock, if there's a pounding pulse you got laminitis. Hose it with cold water and then soak in hot water alternately. Don't hand walk. You can have laminitis in one hoof (been there got that! in a 24 year old mare that was experiencing thyroid issues - which triggered the laminitis). don't feed grain, no corn.

stone bruise, abcess? could be, but pulse is usually a good place to check.

 

[patandchickens]

Note that a bounding pulse at the pastern is NOT diagnostic of laminitis, you can have laminitis without a bounding pulse and you quite frequently have a bounding pulse in the pastern from other inflammatory causes of lameness.

Just sayin',

Pat