I incorrectly interpreted Chris's orig. post, he said he had a horse with
chronic founder and I took that to mean gradual founder which is what our
horses had. They were easy keepers, and they were getting overweight on
the shared rations neccessary to keep the rest of the horses in good weight.
Since the only cause of their founder was getting too much to eat the
cure for them was to seperate them from the other other horses and control
how much they ate. They were never starved but, especially with the
gelding I think that even grass hay could cause him problems if he had as
much of it as he would eat. They did get one set of elevated shoes to stop
the rotation of their coffin bones; and we did work with our farrier who
advised patience - explaining that foundered horses tend to go through
a period of having very long toes (I called this moccasin feet) and you
can not trim them to normal shape until new hoof grows out.
I should not have assumed that Chris was feeding both horses the same,
nor should I have assumed that chronic founder meant gradual founder;
that was not the first horse I ever heard of who foundered easily. I have
to plead to being syntax challenged on this for interpretting chronic
as gradual rather than recurring.
Kim is correct in stating that "starving" every case of founder is not
correct. If the founder was not caused by being overweight then taking
weight off is not the thing to do.
Teresa