Blue's Recovery from the Worst Bout Of Laminitis and Trying to go Barefoot

Hello my lovely little dumplings, finally after a long time I thought I would do a proper blog post for once! I

do have to say however, the lack of posts in the past 3 weeks has actually been more of a technological fault then anything else. The technological fault being yours truly pouring a whole mug of milky, sweet coffee all over my keyboard and then proceeding to flip my laptop in the air in the hope to remove the liquid. However, give me time to order a new keyboard and a YouTube video to install it and I am good to go! Side note, I think the pound sign is hiding from me on a UK keyboard as I accidentally cheated on it with $ on my US keyboard.

Anyway, back to Blue. In all the drama of everything recently I don't think I properly explained what happened with Blue and how he is getting on now. So, Blue came down with laminitis and we discovered that he was suffering from equine metabolic syndrome. The poor man spent a week in "prison" with only a small amount of soaked hay as his diet. After that he became sound and I was happy to let him go out to a very restricted pasture with a muzzle. His recovery in his feet was very slow actually and he is still recovering I am afraid to say. I thought it was best to take his shoes off to allow his hooves to heal up (pun intented hehe). This, however, back-fired on me, as his hooves were very sensitive as his instep had fallen. We got front shoes on him and that seems to have helped dramatically but still quite sensitive on rough terrain.

We are on the slow road of recovery with it (again, pun intended hehe such fun!) and slowly but surely his hooves are becoming less sensitive each day. It doesn't help by the fact that back home we have the worst sharp stones on our road out that even I find painful to walk on if I'm in plimsolls. He is getting there and he is going perfectly on grass now. He has been getting rather bored so I've had a no working out in the fields ban so that he gets out and about rather than p***d off with being ridden in his dining room.

Another aspect of his life has changed, which is, his diet. We have been testing the waters with how much grazing we can let Blue out to without causing a flare up of laminitis and ensuring that his sugar levels don't rocket. Thankfully, now we are home, we have the bad quality grass on our side. Our grass is over 20 years old if not 30 and has very low sugar levels, even in the sun! So Blue has been coping fine with going out to the whole field for a couple of days, sometimes even without a muzzle! With a muzzle I think Blue could stay in the whole field full time. This is yet to be tested as we spent a week away and I put him in the diet field then, didn't want any flare ups while no-one was around to deal with it. (I will add, I did have a friend check on him but if there had been an issue then they wouldn't have been able to handle it). The wee man is back in the whole field again and happy as Larry so I think we are going to find a happy compromise with space but muzzle.

All in all, all positive stuff with Blue. I've not made a video in a very long time just as I am more focused on making him better than shoving a camera in his face. Thank-you so much for staying with me through this all. I have come to the decision to take time out until next may from uni, just to get my life back together and prepare for going back. Until I go back, I will be having Blue and Shannon here and hopefully working at a Riding For the Disabled Centre. It combines my 2 passions care and horses so ideal! Right I need to go, now I'm home and not working yet, I need to cook dinner for that family :) I may not be an amazing cook but at least mum left me some recipes to make the food tasty :) nom nom!
                                                     Adios Amigos x

P.S
Right now there is a nationwide call out that we take laminitis very seriously and if any of our beloved equines suffer from it we should get them tested for EMS and Cushing's disease (free lab fees are being offered currently). Now, it may seem silly to do so, but tried and tried to get blood from Blue and finally once we persevered it payed off. We know what we are dealing with now and  everything is working out so please don't be afraid to get your vet out and get your pony tested.