Foundering

STEVE: Founder, essentially is presented as a lame horse, bilaterally and typically the front limbs but they can founder in the hind limbs as well. What we see is that it’s a inflammation of the Lamina, or the supportive tissue along the dorsal wall of the Coffin Bone, it’s cell P3 here, third phalanx Okay? And what this horse presents as is that they’ll have a very, very stiff stilted gate, they’ll be very reluctant to move and they will be a tremendous visible discomfort on, trying to pick up one foot and check the other one, that sort of thing.

And what we will see is they will test short array at the toe, where the Coffin Bone, essentially has lost its support, it’s making more sole contact or it’s possibly rotating a bit down into the sole.

We also notice that these horses, besides having this extended, gate to where they try to position your feet out, in front of them, they will also have a tremendous amount of pulse in their both front feet. And it’s very, very discernible, you can pick it up right away by reaching around. I put my hand around the horse’s foot and I checked the pulse right here. You can feel it right here, the digital pulse, they call it, right here, along the Pastern. And you can pick up the foot and actually you know, in the cases that have been going on for a while, you can see the, actually outline of the Coffin Bone itself, along the sole, and which we don’t see here, but you can in the horses that are chronic. What do we do about it?

Well, therapeutically you got to address the inflammatory process as soon as possible, so any inflammatory drugs, there are also drugs that will increase the circulation to the foot to try and help the area that’s becoming starved from blood. Acepromazine is one drug that works really well. Phenoxybenzamine is another one, that which has an alpha blockade effect, which essentially gets the, stops this, anterior vein is shunt that stops the area from getting circulation.

So, it’s really, really necessary for both, for any inflammatory, phenylbutazone, banamine and Phenoxybenzamine,or Acepromazine geting it to stop this process so we don’t starve this area, it gets back the normal nutrition and blood supply to the area.

Mechanically, some guys will put a reverse shoe on a horse, so you make a little bit more sole contact or heel contact and less sole. And you know, basically, we’ll put a pad around here to make him comfortable, so where they don’t make, you basically have to be, you should be directing your therapy toward increasing circulation, decreasing inflammation and giving support to the back part of the foot so you don’t make so much contact here.

Another thing that works really well is if you put the foot, submerge it in cold water and or ice, to take as much heat and inflammation out of the foot as possible. And try to get it stopped and reversed as quickly as possible, so the longer it goes on, the less, the more support you lose in its dorsal wall and more circulation you lose and therefore, more rotation you get which the horse can eventually succumb to and they can, the coffin bone can come through the sole of the foot. You know, as far as maintaining feet, you’ve got to make sure the horse’s overall health is maintained in order to not have these secondary compensatory problems.

Sometimes Laminitis is not the primary cause but its a compensatory problem from pneumonia, form colitis, from colic, from a number of different things or just from overload. If you just overload one limb, the horse is not symmetrical. We always talk about symmetry, so you know, the horse can have an abscess in one foot and overload in the other foot, they can founder in the support a foot because it just has too much load. So that’s one thing you got to be aware of. Whenever you have a primary problem, secondary problem of Laminitis or Founder, can be the thing that you can lose your horse to.