Ice application without water drainage supports optimal hoof cooling in adult horses.
Authors: Folk, White, Gleason
Journal: Journal of equine veterinary science
Summary
# Editorial Summary: Ice Application Without Water Drainage Supports Optimal Hoof Cooling in Adult Horses Cryotherapy remains a cornerstone treatment for acute laminitis, yet evidence supporting optimal cooling protocols has been scarce. Folk, White and Gleason (2025) investigated three practical ice application methods to determine which most effectively reduces hoof wall temperature in adult horses, using thermal imaging over a 12-hour period in a controlled Latin square design. The undrained ice bag (ice surrounding the hoof in a sealed 5 L fluid bag) achieved the greatest and most sustained temperature reduction—a cooling effect of -23.7°C—substantially outperforming drained ice bags, whilst a commercial wader boot, though similarly effective, was poorly tolerated by the horses. The critical mechanism appears to be maintenance of an ice-water slurry around the hoof; drained applications lost this thermal advantage within the first two hours post-treatment. For practitioners managing acute laminitis cases, this research suggests that sealed ice bags warrant serious consideration as a practical, well-tolerated alternative to drained systems, potentially optimising the inflammatory suppression window during the critical early phase of treatment.
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Practical Takeaways
- •Use undrained ice bags rather than drainage-hole bags when cooling hooves for acute laminitis cases, as they maintain more effective and sustained cooling
- •Undrained bags are superior to commercial wader boots for hoof cryotherapy due to both better cooling efficacy and improved horse tolerance
- •Optimal hoof cooling in acute laminitis management requires maintaining contact with an ice-water slurry rather than allowing water drainage away from the hoof
Key Findings
- •Undrained ice bags (UB) produced the greatest sustained hoof cooling over 12 hours with a temperature reduction of -23.7°C ± 1.6
- •All cryotherapy treatments significantly differed from control after 2 hours of application
- •Ice-water slurry maintenance around the hoof resulted in greater temperature decreases than drained ice application at 2 hours post-treatment
- •Commercial wader boots showed similar cooling trends to undrained bags but were poorly tolerated by horses