All right, welcome back, and in this lecture we're going to kind of finish up on, you know, this hoof care and, and, you know, hoof anatomy talk with a talk on laminitis, and I felt it was really important that we devote a little bit of time, kind of talking about laminitis because it is such a terrible affliction for horses, donkeys, and other equids Now I start this lecture off talking about Barbaro and for many people that may remember Barbaro, in 2006 he won the Kentucky Derby in fantastic fashion and there was a lot of talk that this was the next Triple Crown Winner and, and I know that we, we kind of say that every year with the, the Kentucky Derby winner, but Barbaro was just such a phenomenal athlete, that people were really starting to, to believe this. And, he was going to the Preakness, which is the second leg of the Triple Crown, and he was the heavy favorite, and he, in the initial stretch run you know, passing through in front of the grandstands, he was suddenly pulled up by his jockey. The jockey jumps off and you can see there, these were some pictures that were taken immediately, and he had broken his cannon bone, his sesamoid bone, bone and the long pastern bone. And so he was immediately out of the race and everybody's attention you know, turned away from you know, we don't care about the race we now care about Barbaro. So, he was carried by an ambulance that was covered by the new, all the news channels here in the United States, as they went up the highway to New Bolton Center up in Pennsylvania which is a, a world renowned equine hospital. And he went under, underwent surgery to repair those, those broken bones, as you can see in these X-rays. That's the, the initial broken right hind leg, and then, after all the surgery he went through, which was led by Dr. Dean Richardson and his surgical team did this. And I was actually very fortunate to, to listen to him speak after this incident happened. And kind of the phenomenal, you know, skills that these veterinarians have in repairing the leg. So, Barbaro went through surgery and, and his right hind leg was, was healing well. He, he was, he was on the mend and, and things were looking really, really good for him, but then unfortunately, a few months later, he started to show signs of, of laminitis in his hind left leg, and as you can imagine, you know, he couldn't rest his weight on his right legs, so he rest it all on his hind weight on his left leg, and that had a, a dramatic impact on the hoof health there. So he went through another round of surgeries, and this is a picture after some of the surgeries, where they, they went in and tried to, to help repair some of that damage in that hind left leg with the laminitis, and again he seemed to rebound and do really well, and he was on the mend. But then unfortunately again, you know, with not being able to put weight on those hind legs, all the weight was on the front end of, of Barbaro, his, both his front legs started to become laminitic, and he started to, to lose function of those hooves. And just due to the, the, you know, poor quality of life that, that he was leading and, and Dr. Richardson actually, you know, you could still hear the, the pain in his voice. They euthanized Barbaro in January 2007. And I, I use this story just to kind of, you know, capture your attention and, and to really underline how important it is to care for a horse's feet, or a donkey's feet, or, or a mule's feet, and, you know, how to take care of them and prevent some of these things that can cause laminitis. Now, so now we'll kind of go in to what is laminitis, and sometimes you'll hear this referred to as founder, so that's a common term that, that people use it. But what happens is, you know, laminitis, laminae, remember going back to our hoof anatomy, is you get inflammation in that laminae, and so there's an interrupted blood supply, and you start to get some, some breakdown of the lamina sheets that's holding everything together in there. So we go back to our hoof anatomy, and we remember this, this laminar interface where we have these interlocking fingers and sheets of laminae that are holding that outer hoof wall with that inner hoof, and then you also have the coffin bone here. So, all of that, that laminae is holding that in place. Well, when you get some of this inflammation and some breakdown of that interface, you start to get some what we, we see rotation of the coffin bone. So what's pulling on that coffin bone is, if you remember that deep digital flexor tendon that's running down here, okay. So when you get disrupted blood supply here, and this laminar interface starts to break down, it will start to pull and rotate that cannon bone. And I have some more, better pictures of it, it's going to illustrate this for you. But that's where we start to see the breakdown in, in the hoof. Now, again, this is a very painful condition for horses, and if you can imagine, just like our finger bed, finger bed, our fingernails in, in the bed. You know, if we ever get tears there, or even little infections, you know, it's extremely painful because of so many nerve endings down there. So again, like with horses, they also, you know, have that nerves there that's very painful. Now, if we look at the normal anatomy of the hoof you can see that and you know, with almost the coffin bone almost pointing straight down, but not quite, it's almost like they're on their tippy toes. But, again when we get that breakdown, and you can see that, that green arrow that's showing you that's where you start to get that, that breakdown of the lamina, and it starts to pull that coffin bone. Now, looking at these slides, you can see where that coffin bone starts to rotate, and then it also sinks down so as that tendon just keeps pulling, pulling, pulling and it breaks away from the, the hoof, the outer hoof wall, it can sink. And then you can see there's different case, different severity of laminitis where it can be a mild form, where you get some mild rotation, some moderate or very, very severe. And these severe cases are the ones that are, that are really, you know, you get worried about. And here you can see on an X-ray of a real horse where that bone has rotated severely. And then also here in the bottom picture, you know, a cross section where you can see those white arrows are highlighting where there's inflammation. And then you actually have instances of that coffin bone poking through the bottom of the hoof. So again, a very, very serious disease, a serious condition in horses. So what can cause this, and what, what can you do to manage, to limit your horse from getting laminitis? Well, one of the main causes is, is overeating, or specifically overeating of grain. And what this does is, is, is grain's a very energy dense meal, lots of carbohydrates that gets in the gut and, specifically, the hind gut of the horse, and we'll talk more about nutrition next week, and the bacteria there goes, they go crazy because there's so many nutrients and then they, they start to die off and and when they die off they release endotoxins that're absorbed by the horse. And then carried down through the blood stream, again remember that, that blood supply to the hoof. And then that's where you start to get the breakdown of the lamina interface. Now, another cause is what we call road founder, and these are on horses that are either worked too long or too hard on, on you know, hard asphalt or concrete. Now if you go back to the hoof care, that's where we get into, we were talking about shoeing, you know maybe get some of these rubber shoes, maybe with a little bit of extra cushion, especially on these horses that, that have to work on these surfaces for, for long periods of time. And then there's a thing called water founder, and this is, you know, imagine a horse that's going through some intense exercise or riding and then you allow them and they get really overheated and then you go allow them to drink lots of cold water. You know that's, again, a shock to the system, and can result in, in founder. Couple other causes, sometimes we see this in, in mares after, you know, giving birth to their foals, or through parturition. If they suffer from a uterine infection after give, after giving birth, or if they have a retained placenta, so a placenta that's been in, you know, retained for four hours or more, you know, they're at risk of laminitis. And then there's another one is, is called grass founder, and this is horses that are eating lush pasture. Now next week again, we'll talk, we'll get more in to nutrition and feeding strategies, but it, it's worth mentioning here. Young pastures, or lush pastures, is really the young growth, like, you meant, you know, imagine early spring, lots of rain, everything, we call it greening up. You know, the grass is growing. Well, these, these young grasses and legumes, especially when they're really short or just stuffed with energy, they have a lot of carbohydrates, a lot of simple sugars in there. And so, if you turn out a horse that's been eating hay for a long time, you know, something that's, that's dry and, and less energy-dense, and you turn him out on a lush pasture, they're getting tons and tons of energy in their digestive tract. Again, it's almost going back to overeating. So, there's different strategies you, you can do to limit which we're going to cover. You know, which leads me right into management tips, and the first thing you can do is, you always want to secure and store your feed properly and we'll touch upon this maybe, a little bit more next week, too. You know, horses are, are, are very inquisitive, and the picture on, on the right is actually from a video of this Friesian horse that was getting in out of, letting themselves out of his stall, actually it's a pretty funny video, if you can find it on YouTube, and actually goes by a stall, says, oh, you're not my friend, goes down to the next stall. And that's, that's the horse unlocking that stall to let them out. Well they'll let themselves out. They'll go to the feed room, and if your feed's not secure, they will gorge themselves and eat as much grain as they can. So you know, they're, they're, they're overwhelming their digestive tract, digestive system, and that can lead to laminitis. So you want to make sure all your feed's properly secured and stored, so that a horse does not get out. Now, you know again nut, we'll talk about nutrient requirements next week and also how to add weight to a horse safely, you know, you do this in a safe manner rather than overfeeding them. And this picture is obviously not a real horse, if anybody was wondering, but I just love this picture because you know everybody always laughs when they see it. It's, it's, it's something I use to really illustrate you do not want overfeed your, your horses. Now getting back to you know, this lush forage, you know, some strategies you may want to employ is you know, what we call limited turn out time. So especially a horse that's been you know, eating lots of hay you know, dry hay, over, say, over winter and you're going to release them out in the spring or, or they're stalled a lot or kept in paddocks a lot. You know, you have this lush pasture that you want to put them out on. You know, day one, you put them out for 20, 30 minutes max and then pull them back, back in. And then you increase that time slowly. And this allows the digestive tract to adjust to these nutrient-dense grasses. Other things you can do, you can feed them hay before you turn them out on pasture. They do get a thing called gut fill, so they can fill up their stomachs with hay, and then they are not going to graze as much, or you can get these things that are called grazing muzzles, that go over them and they can nibble a little bit through there on the longer stemmed forage, but these really young grasses, they have a really difficult time pulling them up and getting at them. So, so there's different strategies you can use to try to limit that. And then also, horses need exercise. I mean, especially if they're kept in stalls or small paddocks. They need to get out, they need to run, they need to get the fresh air, they need to be able to be a horse. It's not just for their mental well being, but also for their, their physical health. You know, and hoof health. So again, if, if you are keeping a horse stalled, you do not, they need to get turned out daily for at least an hour, if not two hours or more. And then just finally, proper hoof care. I mean, this is where, you know, the purpose of, of covering these last couple lectures is again, to underline how important it is to care for their feet. Because if you go back to that first saying, no hoof, no horse or no hoof, no donkey or no hoof, no mule. You know you need to really take care of their feet, and manage them nutritionally to prevent some of these you know, terrible disorders that we see. So, now we're going to turn to some fun, more exciting than, than laminitis. It, it's just, I, I think laminitis is something that we really, really needed to cover. But next, we're going to start going into things like coat colors, identifying horses. You know, we'll look at markings, and then that will wrap up week two, so I'll see you then.