Broken horse AGAIN - any experiences of this anyone?

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parsley

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My boy started getting a cough and I put it down to the dust in his stable as apparently he used to cough with the person who owned him before, but I've not had him do it in the 2 and a bit years I've had him. He also is under the vet for recurrent sinisitus - he had a bone flap done a year ago.

I turned him out and made sure his hay was soaked well. I didn't ride him for a week and the cough cleared up really quickly. I walked him out on Friday and he had a token one bark cough. Yesterday I schooled him and he had a slightly longer cough but raced me round the school in canter without any regards for me telling him to stop! In the afternoon OH took him out for a walk and said he was coughing constantly so bought him back.

Therefore - symptoms - generally in good and happy health, full of beans but coughs progressively when worked.

I'm going to try him on hayledge again as he has been on this since I've had him but was put on hay about a month ago and call the vet on Monday.

In the meantime I feel miserably worried about him so I was wondering if anybody else has any ideas as to what could be wrong with him?
 
Marius started coughing about four years ago, and now coughs every Spring and Summer. Hay made it worse, and I kept him living out as much as possible. He had antibiotics, which did seem to help. Last year it was so bad that, after two useless courses of Ventapulmin, he had a scope to check his lungs. They said there was no infection, but that it was an allergic reaction - asthma. He might have to have an inhaler this year.
It might be that Bomber has the same sort of thing, but the vet will possibly want to give him some antibiotics, or Ventapulmin, and then possibly scope him. It's horrible, Parsley, when they seem so fit and happy but just cough so badly you can't exercise them. I think it's the blasted Rape fields. This year we are surrounded by them, and I fear that Marius will be bad again
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I hope they get to the root of Bomber's problem, and can fix it. But I think the vet is the way to go, if soaking hay etc. isn't working.
 
It could just be the dust in the hay that has set your horse coughing, my mare was diagnoised with Copd and coughed initially at the start of exercise to coughing the majority of the time.

The vet came out and it was decided to put her on dustfree shavings and halage, the vets thoughts on soaked hay and dust allergies were it didn't really help that much.Also to keep her out as much as possible and feed the haylage down on the floor not is it more natural if they are coughing it would help bring anything out.
Several courses of ventipulmin later and managed as above her cough had almost gone, I had to stick to the regime or the coughing would return.

My new boy has had a reaction to the halage and i put him on hay, and guess what he has started coughing , just at the start of the ride, he's already on shavings albeit he's not out 24/7, i'll just moniter the situation.

If I were you ,try and make your horses enviroment as dust free as possible, bed and feeds, plenty of turnout , and maybe get the vet out just to be on the safe side, as alot of coughing according to the vet can sometimes cause scar tissue on the bronchiis ( or something similar).Its not the end of the world if your horse has a serious allergy, it just needs careful housekeeping, my mare was as good as new and had the odd cough every now and again if I was being lazy.

good luck hope your situation improves soon.

Sorry for the ramble
 
Give him a menthol cough sweet like Lockets before starting out... One of mine has the same problem, and this helps more than all the garlic, ginger and Global Herbs stuff. I got the idea from my dad.

He had a hunter that did this... bear in mind that this was in the 60's... the groom would stuff a spoonfull of Vicks in its mouth before exercise, the horse would cough and then work normaly.

Exercise, within theh orses comfort zone realy seems to bhelp these horses, I guess it gets everything cleaned out nicely.
Coughing is in some ways a good thing... it is the body shifting the gunk out of the tubes.
 
Yes - I've decided on vet on Monday as I can't put up with worrying any more. Luckily there is very little arable directly around up for quite a way so hes not near a lot of rape. Its nice to know that it can be managed
 
Thanks - I will buy some hayledge next week as it keeps niggling at me that this is the problem - he is out 24/7 now to make sure it isn't dust in his stable.
 
I will try this - I wonder if a good slug of cough medicine would help as well - I use buttercup syrup if I get a cough, or some benelyin.
 
Sometimes Parsley dependant on the type of cough, its sometimes best to work them through it, especially if at the start of exercise. But if the cough persists throughout the ride them maybe not.

Reading this back it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but hopefully you'll get the gist!
 
Yes it does!
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Hes had a mild cough for a while and I was riding him through it but last Sat I did some counter canter, which he still finds hard and after a couple of rounds he was properly heaving so I got off and decided to let him rest with it.
 
Agree with everyone else especially putting him back on haylage. A friend bought a horse with a cough a few years ago and it was a bugger to get rid of. She did all the usual, changed bedding, more turnout haylage but it wasnt until she had 2 lots of ventopulmin and antibiotics that she finally cleared it up, that was a few months later. It never came back.
Of no real relevance but I read a post on here with interest recently on sinusitus and bone flaps etc as my boy has had both. It said there horse made more noise when working and my boy does too, we put it down to him being a bit unfit but it makes sense for it to be to do with his sinuses.
I hope he's better soon.
 
His breathing was great after he had the bone flap done but gradually the infection has returned - I will be speaking to vet to see whether he needs another one doing. He didn't make a noise as such afterwards but he did spend a lot of time sniffing loudly through his newley cleared nostril - makes me sad to remember really seeing that its all bunged up again now
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I would definitely get some haylage asap- one of my mares had a horrendous cough when we first got her. The previous owners had always had her on haylage as thats what their yard fed, but as our other mare was on hay we just swapped her over and even though the hay was thoroughly soaked, and she was given garlic and every breathing supplement going, she was struggling to be able to any work.

We swapped her to haylage and almost overnight her cough cleared up (we have now had her 8 years!). She has since had to have hay on maybe 1 or 2 occassions and this is enough for her to start to develop a cough again. So I think some horses just can't seem to tolerate hay.

I never thought of it at the time when my horse had the bad cough, but one of my friends adds "bronchial mixture" cough medicine to her horses feed, and she swears it helps his cough. (I think the supermarkets all do their own versions of it, but she buys it from the chemist).
 
My pony can sometimes have a dry cough (no discharge) so I've always had him on well soaked hay (10-15 mins) or haylege which helps but he used to get worse at this time of the year - vet told me it was because of the pollen.

So since about Xmas I've had him on the maintenance rate of Naf Respirator and upped the dosage about a month ago. Touch wood he has been fine though the other horses on the yard have been coughing and are on ventipulmin.
 
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