Cresty

clashnoir

clashnoir

Active Member
May 19, 2010
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Nr Edinburgh, Borders
I look after a little laminitis prone mare.
They are all still turned out in their winter quarters and I check crest and feet regular for heat in feet and build up in the crest.
Well her crest seems to have lumped over the past day and its not noticable now her mane has grown out. No heat in her feet though.
Damn! Taken her in and will keep her on rations for the night and then it will be muzzle time tomorrow.
Time to move to the summer paddocks and restrict everyone.
The joy of having good doer natives, I might get a really hard to keep one next
 
I know you will have been careful too.
I need some rough turnout but the bit I planned to use has been allocated in some grant system so can't be grazed. Its just rough white grass and I thought that would be safer then anything else.
Muzzle it will have to be and as much as I hate stabling her it will give her abreak from the muzzle. She hates the Dinky muzzles with a passion as they are less destructable than the Shires ones.
 
What a worry :-(
Ginger is laminitic too....he has been muzzled for the last month and watched like a hawk. His crest has been getting firmer for a couple of weeks but just this last few days it has got noticeably worse. I kept him in yesterday for a break from the grass, and this morning his neck is rock hard and he has slightly raised digital pulses in all 4 feet, even though he was off the grass all day yesterday, so it looks like I got him in just in time before things get worse. He's staying in today and we'll see how he is later on, he might have to stay in over the weekend to be on the safe side.

I hate this time of year....so stressful!
 
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Silver is also in today :)

CN Im not sure if I am being careful enough - but I don't have much choice. Piggywig has to go out for his stifles, so its a compromise - a day on their "mud patch" and she comes in footy at the moment. Its awful. The field is a swamp, negligible grass growth as its all in her tummy Ive decided!!!!!!!!!! Im having to cut the lawn every week/two weeks at the moment, so its growing fast! I wonder if a longer grass field would be better as the grass in their field is so short and stressed (winter sacrifice field) but there isn't a better field - the only other two suitable for littles, are both short as sheep/cows on them but a lot more grass coverage
 
Rhia has gone cresty in the last few days :( she has never had lami but I have always been careful- looks like the rain rain rain and lack of grass growth is making horribly dangerous grass grow :( no footiness here but I know your feelings.

I am going to give a tube of Pro-texin, and ration ration ration!

Actually wishing I had 4 TBs right now! It's only Albert I don't have to worry about so much!

Good luck everyone!
 
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I had vet for something else today who commented X was a bit cresty. It's really solid though, not wobbly fat - is that not better? He doesn't have heat in his feet & he's not footy so I haven't thought too much about it other than be worried about his weight. I don't know what to do about that though - he doesn't get extra feed at the mo (as he was snubbing it anyway), so only grass, & I'm unsure about riding him too much because of his back end problem (why the vet was there in first place).
I should really muzzle but he hated it so much when I tried before, it was horrific to watch & I said I'd never do it to him again :( but don't know what other options I have. I'm on a livery yard so can't strip graze or anything like that. I can stable him though & I did keep him in last night. When is best to stable - night or day?
 
popularfurball said:
Silver is also in today :)

CN Im not sure if I am being careful enough - but I don't have much choice. Piggywig has to go out for his stifles, so its a compromise - a day on their "mud patch" and she comes in footy at the moment. Its awful. The field is a swamp, negligible grass growth as its all in her tummy Ive decided!!!!!!!!!! Im having to cut the lawn every week/two weeks at the moment, so its growing fast! I wonder if a longer grass field would be better as the grass in their field is so short and stressed (winter sacrifice field) but there isn't a better field - the only other two suitable for littles, are both short as sheep/cows on them but a lot more grass coverage
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I'm moving them into to one thats been rested since November and stripping it. Seems to work for me and this bare field thats regrowing is definately more productive than it looks. Even my big lad has weight going into his crest. Bloody good doers!
 
tazzy-anne said:
I had vet for something else today who commented X was a bit cresty. It's really solid though, not wobbly fat - is that not better? He doesn't have heat in his feet & he's not footy so I haven't thought too much about it other than be worried about his weight. I don't know what to do about that though - he doesn't get extra feed at the mo (as he was snubbing it anyway), so only grass, & I'm unsure about riding him too much because of his back end problem (why the vet was there in first place).
I should really muzzle but he hated it so much when I tried before, it was horrific to watch & I said I'd never do it to him again :( but don't know what other options I have. I'm on a livery yard so can't strip graze or anything like that. I can stable him though & I did keep him in last night. When is best to stable - night or day?
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No idea about wobbly but think it varies for different horses and when mine gets cresty then the lumps start to get more solid and join up - LOOK OUT!!!
Heat in her feet but she's been in and its vile here today. Baltic and not getting better till tomorrow sometime.
 
We look for the Wobby neck, Acorn has always carried a crest of sorts,if I can hold the top of the neck line and its pliable then I am happy, if the neck starts to solidify and harden and movement is restricted then he would be in like a shot - 24 hours detox then out in the top paddock with nothing but hay and plenty of exercise - infact I would be :furious: that I had allowed him to get like that and not spotted it B4 - I can usually feel the change before it becomes solid on the ridge, years of :poop:checking.

I find heat in the feet is not really an indicator in our case other than for abcess, depends much on where he is, weather conditions and what hes been doing.

Pulses - if there its too damn late IMO if present all round - if one leg only then would be wary as could be anything not necessarily lammi - but for us the Neck is usually first indicator.
 
could someone explain to be the thing about the crest? when it goes hard is it a sign? harry has always had to be muzzled but ive had no experience on laminitis as always made sure he hasnt gotton too big..but kennedy came overweight and YO checked his crest and said he should loose weight, so he is on hay and no feed (was previously on haylage, sugarbeet and pony nuts at old home) and he looks less bloated but someone said about need to be worried if crest falls to one side??
 
my friends haffie that went down with LGL about 3 weeks ago is doing much much better, she has been losing weight significantly since catching the lami. She was on box rest for a week then out 24/7 muzzled and coming in for a bit of hay in the eve. She has gone down from about 450kg to 415kg in 3 weeks. She still has a bit to go though.

She was never really cresty though?! bizarre
 
caroline/halle said:
could someone explain to be the thing about the crest? when it goes hard is it a sign? harry has always had to be muzzled but ive had no experience on laminitis as always made sure he hasnt gotton too big..but kennedy came overweight and YO checked his crest and said he should loose weight, so he is on hay and no feed (was previously on haylage, sugarbeet and pony nuts at old home) and he looks less bloated but someone said about need to be worried if crest falls to one side??
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You need to be worried if the crest goes hard. If the horse is struggling to metabolise the "toxins" in the grass, the crest is where they store them and is one of the first indications that something metabolic is going on that could mean a lami attack is on it's way. It's a different feeling to a flabby wobbly overweight crest.
Ginger isn't overweight but still has a typical laminitic crest. Lemme I agree with you about the pulses, I am kicking myself now that he has got to this stage, it seems to have crept up overnight.

I don't know about a fallen crest, it's something I have no experience of, but I would imagine there would have to be a lot of quite obvious signals leading up to the stage where it would fall??
 
tazzy-anne said:
I had vet for something else today who commented X was a bit cresty. It's really solid though, not wobbly fat - is that not better? He doesn't have heat in his feet & he's not footy so I haven't thought too much about it other than be worried about his weight. I don't know what to do about that though - he doesn't get extra feed at the mo (as he was snubbing it anyway), so only grass, & I'm unsure about riding him too much because of his back end problem (why the vet was there in first place).
I should really muzzle but he hated it so much when I tried before, it was horrific to watch & I said I'd never do it to him again :( but don't know what other options I have. I'm on a livery yard so can't strip graze or anything like that. I can stable him though & I did keep him in last night. When is best to stable - night or day?
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No I would be more worried if the neck is hard/solid - heat in the feet is not always an indicator - only grass - well that can be enough - if you have suddenly reduced exercise due to possible injury that could be enough to tip the balance, if you don't want to ride then unless the vet has ruled out exercise, get him out on in hand walks - leave him in during the day , give him hay don't starve and out on a night is the way I would go,
 
What do any of you feed that have to feed in order to get supplements into them? In our case it's Skratch and a joint supplement and it's virtually more powder than chaff currently so was wondering about a tiny bit of something for it to stick to like fast fibre instead?
 
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You've got me a bit worried now, though vet didn't look overly concerned & didn't say anything other than that.
But he has always had a slightly cresty neck anyway - he's a friesian so sort of comes with the breed.
But it's also always been quite solid too... Oh I dont know. I'm paranoid about everything then can't decide / don't know when there is really something not right!!!
 
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