Anyone have a horse/pony with RAO (Recurrent Airway Obstruction)?!

JustKickOn

JustKickOn

Well-Known Member
Joined
22 November 2006
Messages
16,994
Visit site
OJust wondering how you manage your horse and RAO during winter and summer?
How well ventilated are your stables?
What bedding do you use?
Hay; fed dry or soaked? or haylage? In a haynet, rack or from the floor/ haybar?
What do you feed as breakfast/dinner? Do you give any supplements?
Is you horse given any medicines that the vet has advised or prescribed?

Would appreciate replies or any experiences

Thanks
Lizzie.
 
my last horse had it

Always fed haylage off the floor as the low head drains the mucus. not so easy if you want to feed soaked hay though

Used decent shavings

Stable wasn't so well ventilated so moved him to one that was

fed Naf respirator FAB STUFF better even than the ventipulmin

horse also had EPSM so his diet was high oil, very low starch
 
Changed bedding to dust free shavings, and moved stable so that she didn'y have huge thick straw beds on each side.
Soaked the hay.
Turned out as much as possible.
Used Ventipulmin as vets instructions.

Interested to hear how good Naf Respirator is. I recently started using Naf Haylage Balancer to stop the laxative effect of the spring grass - which it did!!!!! Because of this, I'll be experimenting with haylage next winter, so that I don't have to soak hay.

Incidentally, if you feed haylage from the floor - how do you stop it being dragged all over?
 
Our girl lives out most of the year. We use straw bedding but currently our three share a barn if they come in (only in bad weather) which is large (50' x 30' ish) and well ventilated with the bed only taking up 1/4 of the space so doesn't seem to bother her. Next year will hopefully have stables in so she will prob have shavings instead. We have soaked hay for her in the past but it depends on the quality as to whether we need to or not. We also have a tub of ventipulmin in the feedroom and she has it if she needs it - which is pretty rarely. We often give her it for a few days if it's very dry as she sometimes ends up coughing after rolling or having a hoon round. Otherwise she is just fed a handful of damp chaff as she's a very good do-er! :)

ETA: all ours are fed hay from the floor.
 
My cob mare has had RAO for 3 years. Original cause was dusty hay. She was very ill and I nearly lost her

She's kept out 24/7, as are our others, with access to two barns

She can never eat hay again at all, not even soaked, so we only use haylage now. Until midwinter, when there's still grass to pick at, it's fed off the concrete of the stable yard. From then on it's in small mesh nets or I scatter it thinly on the yard and replenish several times a day (including at midnight!)

I use Bedmax to deep litter the two barns - it's brilliant and causes her no problems.

She is fed Alfa A Lite (as she developed winter laminitis this winter), cool mix, pony nuts and unmolassed sugar beet, all in tiny quantities as she's plump. The only extra she has is linseed, which I've always fed in winter anyway. Her food has to be very damp indeed

Because she was so ill I had to buy a ventilator mask (expensive - about £260) but at least I have it. This winter she was fed hay by accident on one occasion and started coughing appallingly. I slipped the mask on and gave her a few puffs of the inhalant. It put her right almost immediately. (Your vet will have to sort this part for you if you need it). The great thing is that the inhalants are the same ones as used for human asthmatics so somebody could help you out in an emergency.

I hope you won't find RAO too much of a problem. It's really prevention rather than cure, so once you know what has triggered it, avoid that like the plague!
 
Forgot the Ventipulmin - that's good too if the attack isn't too serious. And rsponding to Janette 'horses dragging haylage all over floor' we/I am quite mean, and feed it sparingly (easy when you live on the premises) so every blade gets cleared up.
 
2 main things keep my mare going PAPER BEDDING,HAYLAGE. No other bedding will do even shavings sets her off. Soaked hay is fine (totally soaked not hose run over it) but pain in winter so haylage. Apart from that I keep the stable window open all year and won't stable anything apart from paper nxt to her. Straw in nxt stable sets her off a treat. Also keep in decent field with grass, she's a good doer so muzzled as on a starvation paddock the mud/dust sets her off
 
I did, my old cob. He was on haylage and shavings, tried not to ride in the school on really dry days and in summer was out at night, in during the day and the opposite in winter. If I had him again the only thing I would do different is bed him on flax (so bedsoft or equivalent) as thats the only bedding that is 100% dust free!
He was fed just well soaked hi-fi and competition mix with a joint supplement and the global herbs respiratory suppliment which did help a bit and haylage in a haynet as was too fat to have it off the floor :)
 
I never feed hay, only haylage.

Supplements include herbs :Aniseed, Buckwheat and Marsh Mallow Leaf.
CarL Hester Air Power
4 anti hystamine tablets per day.

Also use nose net when ridden.

Dust extracted Shavings bedding. Never muck out when he is in the stable.

Turnout 24/7 from March to around October.

Monitor him a lot, keep diary of how he is and compare to the previous year so that i can try to prevent rather than deal with the problem.

Avoid riding past rape if i can as that can set him off!!
 
It really depends on what has caused the horse's RAO. My horse has a very very severe allergic reaction to tree pollen. It's got worse and worse every year until last year when he had to be endoscoped for the 2nd time and was so ill the vets couldn't even sedate him for the procedure for fear of him stopping breathing altogether. He's been on just about every drug combination you can think of but the only real relief he gets is when the seasons change, and even then it takes 3 months for the mucus producing cells to stop. This year he's on a drug trial for Cavalesse and up until this afternoon I was very hopeful. This afternoon, as he lowered his head to start on his tea, he gave one barking cough. Just one. But it was of the sort that he gives when his RAO flares up. Praying that it was just a one off because now is his danger time. If the Cavalesse doesn't work, we're pretty much out of options. Allergy to hay and dust can be managed but an allergy to tree pollen can't - the pollen is in every breath he takes.

Wanted to add - you don't need to pay £260 for an equine ventilator. Pay £15 and get one from Boots designed for babies. Cover 1 nostril with your hand and apply the ventilator to the other nostril. The baby ventilator fits exactly over one nostril. Easy to do single handed with a sensible horse.
 
Thank you everyone for replies. I don't have a horse with RAO, but am doing some research on it, so the experiences that have been shared and the variations there have been shown are really helpful.
Thank you again :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top