Morning Grazing Or Afternoon Grazing Laminitis

This will also help maintain an appropriate body weight body condition score which helps protect against development of laminitis and some diet related disorders.

Morning grazing or afternoon grazing laminitis.

Carefully select pasture plants. Limit grazing or stop it completely when daytime temperatures are warm and nights are below 40 f spring and fall. Avoid grazing lush pastures especially between late morning and late afternoon hours since plant sugars are the highest during these times. Laminitis risk from grass is likely to be related to the amount of simple sugars eaten the result of the amount of grass eaten x the amount of sugar in the grass so.

Use grazing muzzles or turn out horses on drylots. If you do graze do it between 3 a m. Fructans are extremely fermentable and if large meals of fructans are consumed it could quickly cause gas colic scouring and laminitis. Grazing in the late afternoon or evening on a warm sunny day is risky.

Fructan levels in pasture grass can change throughout the day and are at their highest in the late afternoon especially in mild climates and also in mornings after a frost. Restrict pasture intake during spring or anytime the pasture suddenly greens up. Then consuming a lot of sugar from the pasture on a particular day means a tipping point is reached that results in laminitis. Susceptible horses should have limited grazing or no grazing.

High amounts of sugars in grasses can bring about laminitis in horses susceptible to the disease. Generally veterinarians and nutritionists recommend horses sensitive to sugar in pasture grass such as those with insulin resistance equine metabolic syndrome or a history of laminitis graze. For many leisure horses and ponies grazing on even average pasture can provide way more energy than they require resulting in weight gain and obesity which predisposes them to laminitis. Grazing strategies that limit access to dangerous fructan levels.