Founder - Is there anything I can do to help reduce the possibility of founder?
by Keith Seeley

Yes, there are a few things that can be done and they are pretty much common sense things, that is, once you stop and think about them.

Feeding habits throughout the year can have much to do with the potential for founder. If you feed your horse the same way, year after year without making any allowances for spring, summer, fall or winter, then the potential is there. I have always allowed my horses to put on some weight going into fall and winter, but have made sure that by the time winter is waning, the horses are fed less hay and less grain (if they get any grain at all) to allow the remaining body fat to be burned off. I try to mimic the animals in the wild. They go into winter with a store of body fat, but by the end of winter, the fat has been burned off. That way, the body is made ready to start the yearlong cycle over again. By following Nature’s lead, I can better insure the horse’s body can be made ready for the new year and fresh spring vegetation that goes along with it. Should, however, the body fat still remain on your horse coming out of winter and you continue feeding the same volume and quantity of feed and hay a spring progresses (in order to keep them looking plump and ‘healthy’), plus factor in the new grasses, the horse’s body never has a chance to burn off the old fat to prepare itself for the new year. This is a definite recipe for founder in the spring.

Vaccines have been known to be issues for founder. Breaking up the vaccines is another common sense idea, but we rarely ever think about doing it. I was guilty of having my horse injected once a year with either a four way or a five way shot. It would take two or three days at best for my horse to get over the affects of that shot. Little did I realize what it was potentially doing to her immune system. I’ve seen horses be lethargic for days simply from being given their yearly vaccines. The smarter way to give them is to give one or ‘maybe’ two vaccines at a time and space them out to no less than one vaccine per week. This way, your horse isn’t bombarded with chemicals all at one time. Sure, it’s a bigger pain to vaccinate your horse this way, but consider it insurance. Your horse is a lot less likely to founder from one vaccine at a time than from having them all given at once, you will have the benefit of knowing which vaccine, if any, caused any adverse reaction, and the cost of treating a foundered horse is a lot higher than administering one vaccine per one to two weeks.

Wormings can add to the recipe for disaster. Try not to do your wormings at the same time as you give your vaccinations. I don’t know of any cases where wormers have caused founder, but I do have a few cases where I suspect the wormings were a contributing factor. The horses where still heavy coming out of winter, spring vaccines were given and a wormer was given at the same time. This was just too much for the horses to handle. Had the vaccines been broken up weeks apart and the worming done some time after that, it’s possible that the founder would have never occurred. The point is, don’t bombard your horse’s immune system with too many chemicals all at one time.

Exercise is always helpful. Many horses have the ability to get some amount of exercise. Even pasture potato horses, if the pasture is large enough, can get a halfway decent amount of exercise. But for some horses, self-exercise is an impossibility. For this reason, it is more beneficial to your horse if you can regiment yourself and your horse so that he can get a sufficient amount of exercise. This helps to burn body fat in the process, which helps to reduce the risk of founder due to one of the factors being obesity.

Environment can play a part in the equation. If your horse is standing in a soft cushioned stall all day and night, then he’s expected to work on a hard or rough surface, there is a greater potential for hoof problems, and not just founder. Your horse’s feet have become accustomed to a soft surface. Taking him out to a rough environment is going to be tough on his feet and he could potentially come up lame from the experience. If you have a way of providing multiple surfaces for your horse to stand on throughout the day and night, he will become accustomed to multiple surfaces and he will have a much better chance of not having any soreness. Some ideas to try to incorporate into you pasture, stall areas are pea gravel, course sand, clay, rocky soil and grass. I realize there are many parts of the country where this is very difficult, but with some creative thinking and some ingenuity, you should be able to incorporate at least one new surface. My first best choice would be pea gravel.

Maintaining a good, well-balanced trim on your horse is another very good and very logical idea. Keeping the heels down sufficiently to where the frog can be on the ground and can be properly stimulated will help tremendously. Make sure the toes are pulled back adequately, the feet are kept level when looking at the bottom of the foot, i.e., the medial-lateral balance is kept correct, make sure the proper pastern angles are maintained and round off the ground edges of the hoof wall. I’ve stated this in pretty simplified terms, but it’s vitally important to the health of your horse’s feet. By ensuring the frogs can function, the soles can bear weight and be stimulated and by ensuring the feet have a nice and easy break over, you increase the health of the hoof and reduce the potential for founder and/or other hoof problems.

Feed is a huge issue and one I won’t go into in too much depth. There are too many types of feed and there are too many ways of feeding. Looking at feeding from a logical standpoint, you want to make sure you feed according to what your horse does for a living and for the type of horse you have, i.e., does he work cattle for a living, run cross country courses or is he a pasture pet, is he an easy keeper or is he hard to keep weight on, is he calm and quiet through the day or does he pace or romp and play throughout the day? If the horse is an easy keeper, then don’t feed high protein, high sugar, high everything potentially bad. Feed lower proteins and carbohydrates and sugars and feed more roughage, such as hay, if in fact, anything needs to be fed at all. If you have sufficient pasture, try not feeding anything at all. The pasture should be able to sustain your horse. If the pasture is too small or doesn’t produce enough vegetation, then supplement the pasture with a low protein hay.

Don’t feed too many treats. I know it’s very tempting to ‘reward’ your horse for being kind and loving and for being a lap dog, but it is possible to love your horse to death. The way I like to say it is, don’t kill your horse with kindness. After all, these creatures are horses and horses shouldn’t be treated like the new baby in the family. Horses need to be handled with kindness and care, but they also need to be given structure and discipline. By this I mean, they should not be treated like the grandkids and spoiled to death, but rather treated as a well-trained dog or child. If you don’t handle them with structure or discipline, they will only get you, them or someone else hurt and it will always be ‘just an accident’, but it could have and should have been preventable. Giving large amounts of treats causes them to tend to walk all over you to get the expected treats and it adds to the amount of feed, proteins, sugars and fats they are already getting. Should you feed treats (and I’m certainly not saying don’t feed them, but only feed them for rewarding positive behavior and /or for exercise, such as doing ‘carrot stretches’.) The type of treat should be taken into account too. Carrots are good and apples are ok as occasional treats. Peppermints are ok for single treats, but if you’re treating your horse with homeopathics, remember that peppermint is a natural antidote. Personally, I like some of the more nutritious treats on the market. Most horses like them and they will keep for a good while, so you don’t have to worry about feeding them more in order to ensure they don’t go bad too quickly. But what ever you feed, make sure there is structure and purpose to it.

I hope you have been thinking about what you do for your horse while you have been reading and I hope you have thought about the logic of the things I’ve listed in this section. If you can think about what you do to and for your horse, you should be able to minimize the risk for founder, or any other problem for that matter. I hope you have also thought about how each of the above issues, while not major potentials for problems individually, can spell disaster for your horse when several or all of them are combined. Founder doesn’t usually result from just one ingredient, but rather from several variables or ingredients combined.