Bramble
We have owned Bramble for about 6 years. Bramble is a handsome 11.2 hh, piebald Sec A x Shetland with one brown eye and one startlingly blue eye!
Bramble is an affectionate, brave and tough little pony who just loves children. He has had a pretty hard time for much of his life and when we bought him from a dealer he was recovering from laminitis and strangles, big abscess holes under his chin and a hacking cough. Quite a lot to take on, but he was such a friendly and cheeky little guy we just had to have him! He's repaid every moment of care we have given to him, and there are no regrets.
Bramble is a brilliant driving pony and he is out most summer weekends in his gig. He is a regular favourite at the annual school fair where he will plod round the field for several hours giving cart rides to the children, and in his breaks will stoically put up with a whole herd of children "grooming" him!
Bramble had his shoes off in 2007 with preparation, support and trimming by Anni Stonebridge. When his shoes came off, he had relatively high heels and a long bull-nosed toe with a very wimpy frog.
We used Easyboot Bares and comfort pads to help him through transition. The 000 size Bares fitted his feet well and stayed firmly in place at first, but within 6 weeks his heels had expanded and decontracted so much that they no longer fitted and he needed the next size up 00! That was a good sign.
The "Big" laminitis event
In April 2008 Bramble had a massive laminitis episode. Although he was on very restricted grazing, he crashed very quickly.
He had been laminitis free for some time at that point and we had mistakenly assumed that he could cope with very limited grazing and hay as a staple. Obviously the small amount of grass he was getting was just enough to push him over the edge. The naughty little monster also kept escaping overnight from the paddock, despite the electric fence!
He was stabled in a deep straw bed for a few weeks until we were able to complete the fencing of a dry lot. The dry lot had a huge sand pile in it and this turned out to be a wonderful thing for a pony with sore feet. In the sunshine the sand warmed up and was a really nice to sleep on, but Bramble discovered that if he also burried his feet into the sand they were cool and comfortable. Clever pony!
Right: His feet in November 08, 6 months after his laminitis event. Note the serum marks in his hoof wall. This is typical for laminitic horses, and after his event there were red serum rings right round all four hooves.
A Recovered Bramble
Bramble has now recovered from his laminitis episode and is back to driving and doing fun things. His feet have significantly remodelled and look and function very well indeed. He is driving out without his boots now and each outing is betwen 6 and 8 miles with quite a bit of hill work, and he also comes out with me on long hacks alongside Link or Apollo for exercise.
Bramble's recovery is due in no small part to the excellent support, guidance of Anni Stonebridge who helped us with getting Bramble's diet right, encouraging us when things were looking pretty grim for him.
Because of Bramble's metabolic issues, tremendous sensitivity to any dietary or environmental challenges, Anni Stonebridge is still supporting us in looking after Bramble's feet. Anni has lots of experience in managing laminitic ponies, getting them through an acute laminitis event but also in setting up their diet and environment so that they have a chance to recover and remain laminitis free.
There are still days when he can be footy, usually after he has been out on a hack and managed to snaffle far too much grass! One of the other effects of him going barefoot is that the no longer paddles as dramatically as he did with shoes, and his front leg action is much straighter and so less stress on his joints.
Q: How much grass can a laminitic pony have?
A: None at all in Bramble's case. He is one of the hyper-sensitive ponies that any quantity of grass can initiate a problem.
Bramble lives in a dry lot with Apollo and will now have to be grass free for the remainder of his life if he is to avoid laminitis. There is a lot that we can do to provide occasional variety - he can have branches of trees to chew off the leaves and bark and he can have pulled, wilted nettles and fresh cleavers in moderate quantities. We can hide these all over the dry lot so that he has to hunt about for them.
Bramble gets fed unmolassed beet pulp, seaweed, linseed meal, MagOx, brewers yeast and some herbs such as nettles, rosehips, chamomile and coltsfoot.
He also gets a tablespoon of neem leaf each day in the summer to help him with the flies - he's a very pink skinned pony and most of the fly repellants irritate his skin. Neem in the feed seems to be effective, and does not cause irritation.
Left: "Now this is just what sand schools were made for!"
Above: Bramble as a "rocking horse" at the 2008 Tertowie Summer Solistice show. Even though he was just starting to recover from his laminitis event and wasn't up to doing much, we made every effort to do things with him to keep his spirits up and make sure he still had a job!
Laminitic ponies have emotional needs, as well as physical needs, one of the the saddest thing is to see them abandoned in a paddock and getting little or no attention.
Left: This is Bramble out in the winter sunshine with his best ever friend, a 9hh Shetland mare called Squacko. Squacko was a grand old lady and passed away in late 2007 at the age of 32. She was a brilliant kid's pony, a huge character, an incredible bully, with an outspoken opinion about everything!
She is very much missed by all of us, but particularly by Ben.