On a few occasions our wonderful customer service team has encountered both conversations and disagreements on our content about cold founder, what it is, and if it is actually a real thing. If you have been following our blogs we have already covered laminitis, founder and critical care for acute laminitis if you need some more background information on laminitis and found itself. It’s time to take a deep dive into cold founder and dispel any myths.

Winter laminitis and founder are most certainly a real thing and not an old wives tale. We almost always associate laminitis and founder with sugars, rich diets, and access to lush pasture but cold can also induce laminitis and founder. You might notice it a bit differently than the traditional ‘laminitis stance’. It can start and present almost like an abscess would-sudden onset of obvious hoof pain for no apparent reason. Once a horse or pony has experienced winter laminitis it’s likely to occur year after year.

The normal reaction of the horse’s body during cold exposure can be to increase or decrease blood supply to the hoof. This allows the average horse to warm or cool his or her hooves as necessary. If oxygen supply becomes too low in the hoof, the normal equine’s body will periodically open up their blood vessels again to increase blood supply. If these vessels do not periodically re-open, blood supply can be so reduced that it will cause pain (think about how your feet feel when you jump down too fast after a ride in the cold weather).

If the vascular system in the hoof is damaged from previous laminitic or founder episodes, or the horse has hormonal issues this system of turning blood flow ‘off and on’ may not occur. High insulin or Cortisol can also play a role- high levels of either can make the vessels more sensitive to constriction. Horses with metabolic conditions are always at a higher risk of developing any type of founder or laminitis whether it be traditional laminitis or cold laminitis.

If you have a horse that you believe is prone to cold laminitis or founder there are some steps you can take to help prevent an episode:

• Ensure you are feeding a forage focused diet with low sugar and low starch concentrates if necessary
• Omega 3’s and amino acids are both essential nutrients and can be supplemented to help keep hooves health and as a preventative.
• Wrapping your horse’s legs all the way down to the coronary band may sound silly but it can help. Standing bandages are a great option. If your horse is inside you can even throw a pair of shipping boots over top for extra warmth.

• Try not to keep them out on that concrete aisle for too long- concrete zaps the heat out of hooves. If you don’t already have rubber mats in your aisle way and you have a cold affected horse these should be on your shopping list.
• Going back to cold surfaces- deep bedding in stalls. Studies have shown that horses can often be seen digging their toes into bedding to angle their feet to take pressure off the rear of the hoof capsule and creating an insulating layer around the entirety of the hoof capsule. If your going to use the deep bedding/litter method don’t forget to maintain hygiene in the stall.
• Some extreme cases actually require the actual hoof capsule to be insulated. In these scenarios it’s time to get creative with insulating materials and hoof boots.