Hi! I have a 13 yr old mare that foundered on one of her past pregnancies. she had been given bute for the pain, but whenwe decided to breed her our vet did not tell us to not give bute to her. is it dangerous? We only gave it to her when she was in real pain and only about three or four times she has been bred. she was bred on June 1-5,2004. is it dangerous to give her bute during pregnancy and if so, could it have hurt her baby already? any help would be appreciated.
I have given bute to foundered pregnant mares for as long as a two week stretch with no ill effects. I had perfectly healthly normal foals. However, it was late in their pregnancy and the fetus is more susceptable to the influence of drugs early in a pregnancy.
Spotted Bandit Posted From: 4.227.172.20
Posted on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 09:57 pm:
Nothing should be administered to a mare in foal within the first 60 days of pregnancy. After that time, Bute is okay to give on a short-term basis.
With all the talk about foundered mares, whats your take on breeding a foundered mare ? I have a beautiful Dun QH mare I bought 7 months ago , severely foundered , were working on bringing her back and she is coming around but it could take up to another year to get her roughly sound ? I would love to breed this mare , but wondered if it wrong to do so while being foundered ? some people tell me it will actually help with the bloodflow to the hoof and may premote healing ? whats everyones take on this ? I would love to know ?
Virginia
outlawpaints Posted From: 64.53.77.245
Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 09:27 pm:
that is what i was told about my foundered mare. just make sure she doesn't founder again while she is pregnant. That is a critical time because of all the extra feed.
Bought a 14 yr old QH mare last yr. Had just foaled successfully. Somewhat underweight but otherwise good. After we got her home, she seemed a little stiff, which we thought was probably arthritis as she had been in small, muddy corral & it was cold, rainy weather - (she's very cold intolerant). Also, she improved in a week or so & seemed fine. Bred her back on foal heat - she's due to deliver in 2-3 weeks. Showed no signs of lameness except when grand-daughter rode her twice, then it was just as if she was a little arthritic & she loosened up in a min & was fine. Has been on pasture all winter with daily supplement of COB (corn, oats, barley mixed sweet feed),free access grass hay when snow cover was on. Sheltered when weather bad. Started noticing a couple months ago,her front hooves were wearing off at the front, but we have another horse who does that & has never been lame because of it. Two weeks ago after a spring storm, she appeared to be lame on her back left, but did also notice that her front right seemed really stiff too. We thought she'd slipped & pulled muscles or something as it was icy. Got all horses in to worm them last week & after standing for a while in the corral she was very sore, stiff, etc, now on both front and rear left. She loosens up after walking but is obviously uncomfortable. No fever or swelling anywhere. She's very heavy pregnant -would score correctly as to body condition otherwise. I've seen founder & this doesn't look like it as the pain comes & goes. She's fine boned &, until now, w/ pregnancy, isn't overly big as far as body goes. Is this navicular maybe, or something related to pregnancy that will relieve after foaling? Any thoughts? We're going to have her checked but our regular farrier wasn't sure what to think & we haven't found anyone else yet who has time to look at her. Our vet is 2 hrs away & we don't want to make her ride that long unless absolutely necessary this close to foaling.
Hi debs - Some of the symptoms of navicular are a shortening of stride, so she will look as though and feel as though she needs to relax and stretch out when ridden, they stand/graze with a front hoof pointed (although, mine has never doe that) and the wearing at the front of her fore hooves could be due to her standing on her toes to releive pain at the back of her heel, however navicular USUALLY only affects the fronts, sometimes the rears though with that said. The extra weight from the pregnancy will not be helping - mine has been lame on a circle for most of her pregnancy, but is comfortable just to graze, I will start on some no-bute once the foal is weaned and I have some special shoes/magnetic overreach boots until then for her.
Your best bet really is a vet, but I agree - a long haul in a trailer so late in her pregnancy is not ideal. The farrier should give you more clues but if they suspect navicular you will need x-rays. Good Luck!
Bute is okay for later term, post-partum mares. Keep in mind that like asprin it can cause clotting problems. So watch for bleeding during after foaling.
Thanks for the info. She's a real mystery. We brought her in last evening to check her and feed and she was walking as if nothing was ever wrong. It had rained and the ground was muddy, so we figured the soft mud was helping whatever her problem is, which makes sense if it's navicular - when the ground's hard, it's got to hurt to walk then. We'll see what she's like when it dries up. I guess we're mostly concerned with how to keep her comfortable until she delivers. I haven't given her Bute yet - we had some aspirin powder that I put on her grain when she was real sore and it helped. Hadn't thought about the clotting issue. Will be very conservative in giving it to her. She should foal in a couple of weeks - her milk veins are starting to swell and she's just now started to drop a little, as far as her belly goes. She's such a sweet mare and raises the friendliest, nicest colts. She's the mare that matches our breeding bloodline plans the closest, plus, she's just plain a beautiful horse as far as conformation. This just makes us sick to think she might be suffering from navicular. We have a Vet coming out to vaccinate tomorrow and are going to see what he thinks then. He's local and doesn't usually do large animals, except for the vaccines, etc., but at least he can give us an idea about hauling her, etc.
Deb, minimal doses of bute are ok at any stage of the game with a mare in foal. I had to bute my mare for about 9 out of the 11.5 months that she was pg and she delivered a fine healthy foal with no complications. Only receiving 1 bute twice a day. Its better to have her be comfy and put her energy into the foal than to have her suffer and her energy go into the pain.
No mare = no foal. Keep mom comfy number one concern for us, then deal with foal.
This is the same advice my vet just gave me. If I understand her correctly, pain stimulates steroid production in the blood which can decrease progesterone levels, which can lead to aborting - I vote for bute. My mare has had very similar symptoms to yours Deb. We just had her x-rayed this morning to find out it was founder, & that there was "not severe, but significant rotation". It just stung to hear that. The Doc ordered that I totally get rid of all sweet feed in her diet (Which I have minimal to start with), grass hay only, (hard to find in my area - everyone grows alfalfa - but I have a mixed hay), & no grass. We have had the mare on 2 grams of bute paste (1 am & 1 pm) for about 2 months, she seemed better than boom she went very lame. I had started introducing her to pasture - oh so gradually...I guess it was still too much for her system. Plus she had a reaction to pneomobort vaccine which had started the ball rolling a few months ago. At least we now have a dx to work with. Until it got worse we were pretty clueless as the symptoms were on/off. 17 days til first due date....hope that will help.
Jennifer S, make sure that you are watching for abcesses in the hoof. You are in a time frame that that can occur and did for us. We had to dig the foot out and release the pressure from the abcess in the foot and then our mare did good again. I would suggest to keep her off any pasture for a good year. And even then try to dry lot her with hay only. The spring green grass is very rich and will cause them to refounder fast. If you are going to pasture her then wait until mid summer as the grass is not as rich but introduce her like just a hour a day and work your way up.
With the abscesses they can reform and must be drained.
I have a 6yr. old pregnant mare that has been on a grass feild for the past year she is 7mos. pregnant and at a healthy weight but I decided to start feeding her sweet feed 2wks. ago. I got up this morning and she was having trouble walking with her front feet, I took the feed away from her and got on the internet and now belive she is foundering. What is bute? Where can I get it, it is sunday and no feed store is open and the vet isn't open ,is there any way to substitute it. How long should she be on just hay and no feed? And how much should I feed her?
If you think she is foundering, you need to get a vet out there ASAP! The faster you are to treat her, the better. trust me you don't want it any worse than it has to be...
How much were you feeding her? Did you start her out slow? little at the time? what % were you feeding ? 10%, 14%?
If she is foundering bute will help some, but it is not the best treatment. If you cannot get a vet to come out on weekends, you can crush up tylenol tablets and give her like if she weighs 1000lbs, give her 10. If you can, get a vet to come out.
defineately have a vet out!!!!!!!!!!! even an abscess could cause probs...heat in hte foot can be a bad thing!!!! is her hooves hot? any swelling? is she kind of leaning bak wiht her fronts out in front of her like she is trying ot get all weight off them? oh man...get a vet out!
I just went though this with one of my horses. His problem was the sugar in the alfalfa he was eating. I did call the vet right away and took him off all grain and started feeding him grass hay.. The vet padded his front feet for comfort and had me give him 1 dose of Bute x 2 daily.. He was on stall rest for two weeks. I had digital x-rays done on his front feet and special shoeing done.. I was not taking any chances with this horse.. Luckily there was no damage done.. He has dropped 100lb, gets all the Timothy grass hay he wants and about 2.5 to 3lb whole oats a day and additives.. This horse was a very large heavy halter horse.. He looks better then ever thinner and I cannot wait to start showing him next year. I will never let any of my halter horses get that heavy again. Those horses are dying right and left from laminitis.. What a shame..
This also happened with a mare I got a few years back. She was not used to being in a stall and likely was never fed much grain.. With this mare we just took her right off the grain she came around on her own.
I do want to say you did exactly the right thing by taking that grain out of there.. I Bute my PG mares with no problem. I do not over do it and give the minimum dose. You do need to get that from a vet.. Feed stores sell Horse Aspirin that you can just buy. I would talk to my vet before using that.. You do need to keep the pain under control so you do not have worse or other problems with this.. Good luck and good job on catching the problem the grain was causing. Talk to your vet and hopefully they know something about this.. Also, I network with my horse friends a lot. Beware that if is sounds strange it most likely is..
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