can u diagnose this?

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neverlate

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I have a horse and whenever I ride her she gets a bit of chaff in a bucket after. when she eats the chaff she coughs. a horrible chocky cof. even if i give it to her so soaked its like soup. she is not like this on grass, have not had her on hay yet. could this be a sign of copd? also i always give her the bucket on the ground.
 
Tinkerb, that's spooky! My horse Sunny has had his normal "summer cough" since June but 6 or 7 weeks ago, a virus went round the yard and affected half a dozen horses. Sunny caught it and since then his coughing has been dreadful. I've had the vets out twice and tried him on antibiotics (helped a bit for a week or so) and Ventipulmin (waste of money). These last couple of weeks. the cough has got worse again and I noticed that whenever he eats his normal chaff/wet speedibeet feed he starts coughing. Exactly the same explosive barking cough you describe. Sunny doesn't cough eating grass or his haynet, just with a bucket feed. Buckets are cleaned daily, feed hasn't changed at all, environment hasn't changed, management hasn't changed. I'm afraid Sunny may be developing RAO/COPD. Vets out Tuesday - not sure what the next step is now. Tinkerb, I'll let you know what my vets say as some of it may apply to your ned too and you could maybe pass on to your vets what mine have suggested? Hang in there kiddo!
 
Doubt very much if its COPD, I've never heard of a problem with it and just soaked bucket feed. especially if they are eating from haynets OK.

Sounds like something is going on though, I would stop feeding chaff until you find out. Perhaps with the shortage of good quality feeds the manudacturers are using something else to make it with. You could ask them.

Why not just soak a few pony nuts into a mush for a treat, see if that works better
 
If she is coughing after eating chaff, then she is getting it stuck in her osophagus.

Coughing she is clearing out the chaff.

COPD is nothing to do with choking on food it is like an asthma type alergy.

I would give her a bit of course mix wetted down, or s.beet.
 
can i ask what sort of chaff it is?

i have noticedalot of the chaffs ike mollichaff have been very sticky recently?
 
[ QUOTE ]
If she is coughing after eating chaff, then she is getting it stuck in her osophagus.

Coughing she is clearing out the chaff.

COPD is nothing to do with choking on food it is like an asthma type alergy.

I would give her a bit of course mix wetted down, or s.beet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto
 
I will try feeding soaked mashed pony nuts. it has really confused me. I will also give her a haynet dry and wet and see what happens, once ive experimented a bit will post again. It is a mollichaff. will try alpha.
It does sound like she is clearingf her osophagus, literally choking chof! Why would she need to clear her osophagus after eating everytime?
Box of frogs-thanks and please let me know what your vet thinks, it is weird!
 
Doesnt sound like COPD as mine just been diagnosed with this and he doesnt cough from bucket feed was wheezing with his breathing and coughing in work and at random times. COPD is a dust allergy so would be unlikely if this is the only symptom. You can also tell by looking at the breathing on the flanks. If they are struggling with the breathing they often look 'tucked up' when breathing as it is more of an effort due to the airways being constricted. A nice bran mash might be easier to feed in the meantime?
 
I'm sooo glad I read this post! my horse has done the same thing on three occasions over the last 8 weeks, the most recent being today. I feed her 1 scoop pony nuts 1 scoop chaff well soaked have always used alpha a but changed to chop with garlic to help with flies have noticed some sharp bits in it deffo think its catching in her throat she swallows repeatedly the coughs up some chop the eats again, going back to alpha a.
 
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