Anemia - anyone seen blood like this?

[aregona]

In simple terms what are the causes of anemia?

We are trying to get to the bottom of what is wrong with my mare.
Quick recap - been out of character for about a month with some loss of appetite.
Blood taken and cleared of organ failure. Liver function test fine. Negative for Cushing's. Wormed with pramox.

Today I requested CBCs be done and whilst chatting the vet noticed the blood hadn't separated when put into the vial with heparin.
I asked for a second sample to be taken to see if it was the same. We then placed blood into the plain empty vial which should of clotted straight away but it didn't. It took over an hour to clot and has now separated again into clotted red blood cells and a liquid plasma.
My vets are still stumped. Anybody ever seen anything like it?

 

[cobgoblin]

Lack of clotting factors or lack of platelets?

 

[aregona]

Lack of clotting factors or lack of platelets?

That's what I thought. I can't find any correlation between that and anemia though. The red blood cell volume was visibly low, still waiting on what the lab reports say on the blood's

 

[ycbm]

Are you in a high iron area? It's my understanding that anemia in that situation results from the iron blocking the uptake of copper, and the treatment for that is to supplement with copper x1 and zinc x3.

 

[windand rain]

Could also be metformin if your horse has been treated with it at any point. It does odd things to the digestive tract in humans and could be an issue in horses if large doses have been used

 

[aregona]

So an update... The mystery is continuing. The mare's PCV is 16 ?. All other blood's are normal though.
She's been scanned looking for internal bleeding but there was nothing. Spleen, kidney, intestines all look normal and the back of the lung looked good. I've had a different vet out now who's much more proactive and he's stumped.
She's had 2 doses of IV steroids and now moving onto oral.
She's never been on any other meds before in her lifetime, hocks medicated 10+ years ago but that's all.

She's bright in herself and eating well. Blood transfusion was discussed but the vet is happy she's not their yet.

Ventral oedema reducing nicely and heart rate was 52 Friday, 48 Saturday and 46 yesterday so that's going on the right direction.