Dear Dr. Getty:

On June 4th of this year our Percheron mare colic. We took her to the vet. He said she had a compaction probably due to sand colic. In a couple of days he called and said she was fine and could come home. My husband went to get her. She was on a small pasture lot. When she went to get up she could barely walk. The vet said she had been fine and probably had a light case of laminitis and would be fine in a week. Not so. We sent her down to a friend who told us he could fix her.... His vet called today stating that her coffin bones had rotated fully and that he would like to do surgery. Explaining that he would cut a tendon to try and pull the coffin bone up. Please what is your opinion??? Is there anything else that we can try???? We had shoes on her, since she is a show mare, and then when she went down to our friends, they placed shoes with the bar acrossed on her. thank you.

Where are you from? Iowa

How did you locate this forum? went www.askjeeves.com to look up horse nutrition

Hello Peggy,

Oh my – this is very upsetting. Surgery should be the last resort, and before you go that route, I would suggest a second opinion.

From a diet perspective, there are many things you can do. Of course, they would depend on the cause of her laminitis. If it was due to the stress on her system from colic, then you can likely repair her hoof tissue through nutritional supplements. If it was due to feeding her large amounts of grain, you will want to stop feeding this diet.

I would like to be more specific, but I don’t have enough background to adequately help you on this forum. I rarely recommend, from this site, setting a phone consultation, however, I would like to at least visit with you briefly before you go the surgery route. Please consider setting up an appointment.

Thank you for writing. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Dr. Getty

Dear Dr. Getty,

Thank you for your advice. We had the weekend to think about the situation. On Monday the vet called and said that our mare was starting to shed her hooves. We chose to have her put down. Thank you for providing this web site. We have been very fortunate in that we have been raising draft horses for 25 years and have not had to deal with too much colic. Reading this web site makes me feel more confident on the remedies we can use if this arises again. Peggy

Where are you from? Iowa

How did you locate this forum? went www.askjeeves.com to look up horse nutrition

Hello Peggy,

I am so sorry to hear about this sad ending for your mare. If I can help you prevent a similar case in the future, please let me know.

My sincere condolences,

Dr. Getty