Shrek was a lovely skewbald Shetland. We only had Shrek for 10 months. We bought him in the February, we hadn't had Shrek very long when he showed symptoms of Laminitis.

To be honest I hadn't had a horse with Laminitis before, so it wasn't until Shrek that made me realise that can be one of the most painful, cruel illness a horse can get.

When we first bought Shrek he was on a small scratch paddock while he went through the worming processes. When he had finished with the worming treatment we turned him out with Caddy. Right from the beginning they got on. Once Shrek had settled in we went to take him for a walk, but he was reluctant to go. I thought at the time it was because he didn't want to leave Caddy. Within a month of us having Shrek he showed signs of lameness on his front feet. At this time Caddy and Shrek was in a small paddock with very little grass. I only have just over an acre of land, and it was sectioned in half.

The vet came out and said it was Laminitis. from that day on Shrek was scratch paddocked ( that is when they are on small amount of paddock with no grass) he was fed dampened hay that had been soaked to try and get some of the sugar out of the hay. He would have good days and some not so good. Caddy would stand at the fence and if he did wonder off it was never very far. We would try and take Shrek out for walks so he still got some exercise. Eventually Shrek had to have x rays and it showed his pedal bone had started to rotate.

Shrek then had remedial shoeing from our farrier Mike Chisholme. He spent hours doing Shreks feet. He did the front 2 first then came back about a week later to do the back. Mike took his time letting Shrek having plenty of breaks. Shrek had 4 plastic shoes fitted that covered the frog underneath.

However one morning about 3 weeks after Shrek had his plastic shoes on, Andy and I went to the stables* this is now the beginning of December,,, Winter!!!!). I went in to take Caddys stable rug off and Andy went in to Shrek. Andy asked me to come and look at Shrek. I went in the stable and Shrek was in a lot of pain. He was sweating and was trying to move his feet to stop his pain. That was a terrible morning for us all. We phoned our vet and had Shrek put to sleep that morning. It wasn't fair on Shrek to put him through any more pain the young horse had had enough. Our vet was really good and he agreed that we had now tried every thing that we could and enough was enough. Shrek was 7 years old, his ashes are under the chestnut tree in our field.

If you have a horse or pony and you notice that they are showing signs of lameness, stiff to walk and their hoof is warm/hot and check the digital pulse. Please contact your vet as soon as possible (Your horse may only show signs of lameness or stiffness)  The earlier Laminitis is diagnosed, treatment can begin and you have a good chance of giving your horse a quality of life.

Please go to http://www.laminitis.org/     I would certainly recommend having a look at the link so you are aware of the symptoms.

Prevention is better than cure so they say, but there is no cure for laminitis at the moment. Any horse or pony can get laminitis, but there are factors that make some horses more prone to it. Native breeds e.g Shetlands, welsh mountains, new forest, older horses/ponies, overweight horses/ponies, lush grass, spring grass there are other factors too that is mentioned in the laminitis link.     

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Nickie for all of her support with Shrek, Thank you Nickie for being there for Shrek, Andy and myself. It was a very emotional day for us all x 

Rockies heart Bar  Shoe

Rocky is a fine boy  and in  December then Lisa asked me to come and see Rox......... when ever one of our horses are ill, we phone one and other, and then we meet up and look at what ever horse is ill, look at them and ooohhh nad aaahhhh  hands on chin and then say it could be this.... or it could be that,,,,,, we do all the usual stuff temperature ect, then say shall we call the vet?............ which we always do because we are not vets and also we are not lucky enough to have horses that are never ill!  To be honest really? are horse never ill in all their lives?  we are all ill at some point in our lives and so are our animals, if animals were immune from illness so would we with all the testing., our horse do become ill we have to notice the signs...... we just have to be really aware, horses very rarely live outside our back doors so they are not around like our dogs or our other domesticated animals and we might not notice when they go lame, or become ill we have to take the time every day to look at our horses. Lammy is quick, trust me I lost a wonderful character to this disease

So the out come of that day was Lisa called the vet and not long after he had x rays ( this is now December)  he had Lammy and slight rotation........... then in the beginning of March Rox got worse so they came out again and Rox had to travel to the vets ( he was such a good boy x) more x rays and he stayed  there for another week. The farrier came out took his hooves really short and put heart bar shoes on, Rox was put on a diet to lose some weight so he is now on safe and sound. He also has a good farrier that trims hos feet back ( your farrier has to know what he is doing with lammy )  Rox is doing good now he is soooo full of life!!!!! when Rox kicked Dave Lisas other half when they was taking him out for a walk I said "oh good he is back to his normal self :-) ) Lisa has to watch how much grass Rox has so he is oin limited grass "scratched"  My own feeling tells me with a good farrier and managing his lammy Lisa has given Rocky another chance at life!

Dimby..... he has Lammy too and I was distraught, but I think Shrek and Rox have covered this on this page so I am not going to repeat myself because I will talk about it more on Dimbys page :-)