Allergy to Alfafa

SNORKEY

SNORKEY

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I thought my horse had bad fly bites, just on one side of his neck and face, they havn't dissapeared for about 3 weeks now.
Today someone on the H&H forum has sugested that he may have an allergy to Alfalfa, he's been having this for the first time for the past month, only a big handfull a day but enough I guess to cause a reaction.
Is this quite common for horses to react this way to it?
 
out of 10 horses I have one that is allergic to Alfa A, and it took me a while to work out what was causing the problem. Same as yours, he came up in itchy, weepy scabs (protein lumps presumably as it is very high in protein). I had to cut all his food out and start again as I thought at first it might be maize in the mix he was having.
 
I fed my horse a new supplement recently and it brought her out in hives all over her - same as you thought it was flies at first, until it spread all over her body!

The only thing in the supplement that my horse had not had before was alfa-a, which it was based on. Would have been a minute amount as I fend under a handfull of the supplement in total, so glad I didn't give her a scoopfull of alfa-a chaff!!

I think it is fairly common.
 
my horse is sensitive to alfalfa ,sugar beet,oat chaff,barley,maize,and,lots of other things,after loads of trial and error i now feed him baileys number 4 alone but max amount( 4 stubbs scoops a day )and soaked into a nice slop which he loves. its wheat based and doesnt affect him at all and keeps his weight on lovely. he didnt have hives only his back fetlocks used to swell like footballs overnight and now no swelling so very happy:D:D
 
This is interesting, my horse has been suffering an allergy, he is covered in hives, which are being treated with steroids, the vet thinks it is possibly due to flies, Prior the the allergy I had not changed a thing, so feed has not been looked into yet... he is on Alfa A Oil and has been for years, is it possible he has developed an allergy to it? if so what do you feed instead?
 
lots of horses seem to be covered in hives this year,theyve said the pollens the highest for 20 years! im going to start trialing molly chaff extra which is wheat straw for my horse as he seems ok with wheat ,im afraid its trial and elimination to discover if ur horse is allergic to any feed. try withdrawing the alfa a for a couple of weeks and then if his symptoms go, reintroduce the alfa a and if the symptoms come back you know hes sensitive to that. i had to stop all hard feed until he had no symptoms and then reintroduce one thing at a time to see if we got any reaction. took about 2weeks in all so not enough time to drop too much weight.
 
I struggled with allergies for months which the vet (not my usual one I might add) was convinced it was alfalfa, said he could tell by the sort of bumps.

Eventually after month of careful food exclusion and failing to get to the bottom of it, he went up to horsepital for tests and the lumps vanished overnight.

Turned out it wasn't food at all and eventually solved it by moving yards.

Whatever the original trigger was, one he was sensitised, lots of things brought on an attack. Once he had been moved I could reintroduce some of the things again as his immune system settled down.
 
Interesting post, as I have just bought 80 small bales of alfalfa I shall be keeping an eye on my boy. I only use the alfalfa as an addition to his hay as yums it up.
Its my understanding that most horses are fed alfalfa in Spain as hay is not common. My boy is a PRE ( Spanish horse )
Not sure if it was due to him eating Alfalfa but he turned in to a Rocket whilst hacking yesterday he galloped at warp speed 9.5 and would have left the Enterprise behind ! I truly struggled to slow him down. I have never had a problem with pulling him in the past :eek:
Even when we were just walking he would be trying to trot or moving side ways.....think I am going to cut his alfalfa down even more, unless I am using our neighbours gallop ( she trains race horses and has a fab all weather uphill gallop :D )
 
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