I have an 11 year old quarter horse gelding. A little over a year ago, he started having some issues with what we thought was founder. He would be very stiff and not moving around very well, but it seemed to move from hoof to hoof. We pulled him off the pasture and put him on a dry lot so we could better monitor his feedings, and he lost quite a bit of weight (he has always been a stocky horse- not fat, just big). Some days he would be better and other days he was worse. Finally, it seemed to settle into his front right hoof. We called one vet and he said it looked like founder, but he didn’t perform a thorough examination. He gave us some bute tabs to give to the horse and we followed his instructions. About a month later, there was no change so we contacted another vet. She came and looked at him and really checked him out and said she felt like it was either arthritis or ring bone, but didn’t think it was founder, as his hooves still looked healthy. Her farrier/trainer did some corrective trimming to try and ease the pain for the horse, but that didn’t seem to help. The farrier said that he was certain it wasn’t founder. He recommended we try the Adequan shots, which we did, but they didn’t help.

He is barely getting around now, and in the mornings he acts like he doesn’t want to move at all. He gets led around the pasture a couple of times every morning to try to loosen his joints up, but that hasn’t been helping either. Keeping him on bute all the time just isn’t healthy for him.

Has anyone else had a horse with this problem? We have talked to several different trainers and breeders and none of them have ever had a horse with problems like this one without it being obvious what was wrong. Thanks in advance.

This is was answered by :
charm :
Possible suggestions would be some sort of Rheumatism, OCD, or Cushings disease. He’s actually at about the right age for Cushings, so it might be a good idea to check into that.

The traveling lameness suggests to me that it is something systemic, and not just a problem with his hooves. Might be time for some bloodwork.

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