Buttercup Poisoning

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psychick82

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Been researching this online as my mare has several problems - possible stomach ulcers again (had ulcers a year ago which cleared up after antibiotics), scabby sores all over her nose and inside her nose very often, little scabs/lumps over her body now and then, difficultly pooing/weeing.
Articles online suggest it's very uncommon in horses but wondered if buttercups could cause these symptoms, how dangerous they really are, etc?
Anyone had any experience dealing with this?
thanks,
gemma
 
Erm have you had the vet out to her?? Horses can be sensitive to buttercups, its not uncommon at all. To be honest though it sounds more serious to me, I would be wanting blood tests to rule out ragwort
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When I had to strip graze my chubby mare she ended up eating alot of buttercups (greedy girl!)and had a bad reaction. Her face swelled up and she looked like she had gone 10 rounds with a good boxer.
Antihistamine(sp) jab and the symptoms went within hours.
 
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Erm have you had the vet out to her?? Horses can be sensitive to buttercups, its not uncommon at all. To be honest though it sounds more serious to me, I would be wanting blood tests to rule out ragwort
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I am with Giggle Pig
 
I doubt if it's buttercup poisoning at this time of year. Ragwort poisoning is cumulative so the symptoms could be observed at any time but the main visual symptom that alerts people to it is acute photosensitivity, ie burning horribly in the summer sun. Again, I doubt if that would present at this time of year. Not in S Wales at least!!!!

How old is your ned? Young horses often get humungus numbers of little warts all round their muzzles and owners panic as it looks like sarcoids. But they tend to disappear of their own accord as the horse's immune system matures.

What would worry me is the difficulty passing pee and poo. That's a vet job and in an older horse could indicate serious internal issues.
 
hi all, thanks for your replies.

she is now 8 1/2 yrs old - sept 2008 we finally cleared up her stomach ulcers with antibiotics after months of being on gastrogard which did nothing.

there is defo no ragwort in the field so it can't be this.

she will eat ANYTHING! - i investigated the field last night and it is basically a carpet of grass and buttercup leaves - i picked a few and offered them to her (i know, bad of me - but just testing) as all i've read suggests horses won't eat them, but she swiped them clean out of my hand. she is a VERY good doer and is always constantly eating - even when, say, grooming her she's always trying to eat the tiny bits of hay off the floor.

the scabs she gets in and around her nose, any time of the year, range from small 'white head' type pimples to crusty, weepy scabs the size of a 50p peice. she also always has lumps under her jaw - they are always there the same size - like swollen lymph glands.

the pooing/weeing thing is only when riding - she won't work forward until she's had one or the other, or both!, but takes ages to go, and if she won't go is obviously in discomfort when i try to get her to work properly.

i'm just wondering if stomach ulcers are linked to buttercup poisoning. the vet said as the ulcers cleared up rapidly with antibiotics then it was due to the stomach bacteria (helicobacter...?) and it wouldn't come back again - yet a year on we are experiencing the exact same ridden behaviour when she had ulcers (after the ulcers went she was lovely to ride and handle).

although we use a very good equine practice for 'serious' problems (i.e. the ulcers) i do find them a little patronising and a bit vague sometimes - i.e. i did mention the lumps on her nose when her ulcers were being treated and all they said were "oh yes, it could be caused by buttercups" but never mentioned the seriousness of it.

when talking to my dad about it last night, who is a typical farmer and has no time for horses!, couldn't believe the vets never did a blood test in the first place!

what should i be asking for with a blood test? will they know what to be looking out for?

just so depressed about all these problems coming back again
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thanks,
gemma
 
Ah. That puts a different light on things. Peeing and pooing out on a hack - some horse's can be very precious about this. My horse Sunny always insisted on stopping for a long pee at the exact same spot, right alongside a cemetery! God knows what people or mourners thought of some weird voyeur stopping to ogle. Peeing - worth mentioning that horses need the weight taken off their back/kidneys to have a good pee. Sometimes faffing about wanting a poo/not wanting a poo/wanting a poo is also about habit or low grade anxiety. I wouldn't have thought buttercups would cause chronic ulceration but vets in here may know otherwise. My understanding was that buttercups are a mild irritant round the muzzle but that gastric juices then break them down in the stomach. Lumps under the jaw could be "grass glands" that commonly affect piggy neds that chew and chew constantly. Their salivary glands are overworked and can get swollen. Unusual to see them at this time of year though.

Ragwort poisoning is cumulative hun, so that means your ned could have eaten ragwort years ago. The classic symptoms don't appear until approx 70+% of the liver is damaged. Doesn't sound like ragwort poisoning to me though. If your ned keeps getting bellyaches, I'd put her on a maintenance daily dose of Coligone. It's brilliant stuff. PM H's_mum for details (aka Coligone Kate).

The other thing to think about is that your ned's normal gut flora have been hammered by the antibiotics. Antibiotics zap good and bad bacteria. If you could get your girl to eat some live yoghurt that might make a huge improvement, and I'd follow it up with a supplement that contains pre- and pro- biotics to help re-establish the "good" gut flora.

I wouldn't be shouting for a blood test just yet. Try re-establlishing the gut flora and see how she goes. Clearly, you may need to re-assess if things don't improve or worsen. Good luck x
 
hi thanks for your reply - very very enlightening!

i'm so narked off about the vets not even mentioning that anti's would get rid of ALL gut bacteria!!! why do they not think to tell people simple, yet vital, things like that!

i was using yea sacc for some time a while ago but stopped using it. is yea sacc good to use again or are there better alternatives?

i wonder if it would be worth having her scoped again to see if the ulcers were back, or whether just feeding a probiotic would be best long term??

grr so annoyed at the vets!!!
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thanks again everyone for your help.
 
Very good and comprehensive answer from Box of Frogs but just to add - try her on Allen and Page Fast Fibre for stomach probs - it is fab - I am a recent convert after my old chap had suspected ulcers. Thanks BBs for the recommendation.
 
I'd do a bit of googling to get maybe half a dozen possible supplements form reputable feed companies that properly research their products. Anything by D&H is properly researched. I was recommended D&H by Prof Knottenbelt because they work very closely together to develop products for horse problems. If you can pin it down to a few products, I'd then ring the feed helplines and get some info from them x
 
hi and thanks again!
sorry - just another quick ques - her ulcers cleared up sept 08 after a month of antibiotics - so wouldn't we have experienced problems straight away if it wiped all her gut bacteria? this is now a year on but the problems have been creaping in for about 2-3 mths.
just baffled as to why it's all come to a head again after a year.
 
Broad spectrum antibx won't wipe all gut bacteria but will inevitably zap some friendly bacteria as well as the bad guys. It's always something to be careful about in herbivores that rely so heavily on gut flora to help digest their food. If she's got almost identical symptoms to her last bout of ulcers, then she probably has them again. The big question then would be why do they keep recurring. My first thought would normally be that it's probably a stressy TB kept with little turnout or company etc etc etc - all the things that can make horses anxious. Doesn't sound as if your ned is a particularly stressy sort so the next question is was it cleared up fully a year ago or were just the symptoms addressed leaving some underlying condition still not sorted. Otherwise it's just a coincidence. But if it was me I'd get the vet out.
 
Hi psychick82
Im not a vet, but your mare's symptoms don't fit in with either ragwort or buttercup poisoning.
Antibiotics helped for a while, but didn't solve the problem. It's the problem which is the issue, as no-one has given a diagnosis.
I know you've said that your good equine practice isn't over-forthcoming in the communication dept?
But like doctors, we need to ask them, + they need to know that we want to know.
Please don't ever be afraid to ask anything - they are always grateful when people ask intelligent questions!
Ask for a diagnosis (even if it can't be confirmed)
Ask for a blood test
If they're still not forthcoming, ask for a 2nd opinion
If you're still not happy, tell them you're contacting Leahurst!

But i would definitely ask them to take a blood test asap, which can test initially for toxicism from buttercups + ragwort (+ which can tell them a lot more besides if the cause is not one of toxicism).

Wishing you + your mare well, hope i've helped, BS x
 
thanks again everyone for your help - it's been so helpful!

just a quick recap/history - tutti is homebred, so she's been in the same yard/pasture with us all her life, so that's why i defo know she cannot have ragwort poisoning.

she is warmblood and a very, very good doer - the only 'hard' feed she has ever had is a sprinkling of pony nuts in a bit of chaff. they are turned out all year round and just come in at night during the winter but still constant access to forage.

she was on gastrogard for nearly 6 months last year, then when she was scoped Aug08 and still had ulcers the vet gave us a month of doxycycline, then at the end of sept when scoped again they were completly gone, as if by magic!

so as i said, we have had about 8 months since sept08 of fairly good ridden behaviour and progress in schooling - give or take the odd silly day!

but now she is not covered for ulcers on her insurance, but i have now saved up a bit of money and i think it would be best spent on another endoscope and a blood test.

she is clearly not the 'typical' type to get ulcers, but i'm not holding my breath thinking the vets will come up with an answer as to why she keeps getting them. i've been doing quite a bit of research online about helicobacter pylori which the vets were very sure had caused her ulcers in the first place, but i can't find out anything unusual that stands out. the only really useful thing i found out was that for humans they do not use doxycycline to treat ulcers as it's not the right antibiotic for helico bacter - i questioned the vet about this but they said it's the only one tested for horses!

maybe she just needs a regular antihistimine injection for the spotty/scabby nose - maybe that would address that problem.

anyway! thanks again - everyone's advise has been really helpful and eye opening. will keep updated.
gemma
 
Hi again Gemma x
Just to re-cap - antibiotics won't cure stomach ulcers (while they will help any resulting infection).
I really think your vets would learn more from a blood test, as this doesn't seem to be a simple case of buttercup poisoning (+ it's very weird that she eats buttercups when you offer them).
I don't know exactly what blood tests can tell, any more than you do, friend, but to want to eat weird + poisonous stuff like buttercups indicates some sort of deficiency (eg, my rescue dog used to eat other dogs' poo!)
You haven't had a diagnosis for your mare, therefore treatment can only be guesswork.
If she was my mare (+ while internet gives lots of general info, it can never, ever replace a good vet examining an animal, as this is specific to the animal concerned), i'd get vet out tomorrow, tell him/her everything, including the fact that she eats buttercups from your hand, + if there's still no diagnosis, i'd politely ask for a 2nd opinion, as this has gone on for quite a while now.
Do you have a trainer? Often, a good trainer is in a very good position to comment, as they see your horse + you regularly, + have objective + wide view. I also rely on my dear farrier for knowledgeable comments. Both of them know a lot about the horse, while a vet only has a few minutes + a few questions.
I think, friend, that getting a diagnosis for your mare is the first step. If your vet can't do, there'll be one out there who can!
Really hoping your young mare will be ok, BS x
 
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