Cereal intolerance

[ycbm]

My appy is definitely alfalfa intolerant, it sends him doolally, snorting at the slightest thing and sensitive to touch. I've tried to increase his calories for autumn with oats, and had exactly the same reaction without the skin sensitivity.

Forty eight hours with no oats and he's back to normal. He can eat bran.

What does cereal intolerance look like in your horses?

Are there any other things you think I can look forward to him being sensitive to, do you think?

 

[Pearlsasinger]

You may have seen before that our Appies have variously been over sensitive to alfalfa, carrots, sugar-free polos, and, most annoyingly, whatever is in calves creep feed, which a certain passerby insists on throwing over the wall into our field (we have no public footpath). Grrrrrrr!

We also used to have a TBxWelshD who was sensitive to all cereals, refined sugars. She was very reactive to noise, I remember her spooking wildly when a child rattled a tube of Smarties within her hearing, on the yard. She came up in hives if she got hot (under tack or rugs), she had very poor temperature control, so shivered in cool (not cold) wet weather and overheated in warm weather when her companions were absolutely fine. On one occasion on a hot (30*) August day we had to bring her in and cover her in cold wet towels until we had lowered her temp. Again, her field-mates were fine. She had been trying to cool down by cantering round in small circles!
I think while she was being fed the food she reacted to that she had a dreadful headache and visual disturbance. She used to watch things in the sky a lot.

Until we realised what was causing the problems, her behaviour was very unpredictable and she was becoming downright dangerous to handle. I had stopped riding her, first, on the road and then at all. I do wonder now, 30 yrs later, if she had PSSM, her muscles always seemed taut even though she should have been very unfit. And even after we sorted her diet out she had poor temp. control.

 

[DirectorFury]

Something in the Baileys Everyday High Fibre mix and TopSpec Lite Balancer sends my mare bonkers, though I've not yet found out exactly what ingredient it is! She's only fed Agrobs and Pure Feeds these days so it's less of an issue.

If she has had something she shouldn't have she'll be super itchy, spin round her stable bucking and rearing, rear, bronk, and fly buck when ridden, and be a pig to handle on the ground. I started her on the Baileys not long after I bought her (as a 3.5yo) and was seriously thinking of selling her due to her behaviour. Thankfully the YO (who had broken her in and knew how quiet she was) persuaded me to go back to just feeding her hay and she was like a different horse within 3 days. Alfalfa just makes her itchy without the lunatic behaviour.

 

[SEL]

She used to watch things in the sky a lot.

Felt a bid odd reading this because I went through a period early on where my walking-vet-bill mare would freeze, stare at the sky and roll her eyes. I wondered for a while if she had a neurological problem - you literally couldn't snap her out of it - but then it just seemed to stop. Now I'm wondering if it coincided with when she was on one of the pellet low cal balancers and if it was food related. How odd. Can't remember the last time I saw her do it which is a relief, but these days she's on a very basic diet and its been consistent for a long time.

Whenever people have an issue with a horse I gently suggest going onto just hay & / or straights. Fair to say most of them ignore me!! I think processed feed and horse behaviour are links that need further investigation.

 

[HelenBack]

My horse can't have oats either. In his case they didn't affect his behaviour but he did have skin sensitivity and was very itchy. He seems to be okay with all other feeds, including alfalfa, but I have had problems with certain wormers and with his vaccinations, so they might be ones to watch out for.

 

[fairhill]

My sensitive mare is just eating hay and grass now, and doing well on it.

She has reacted to linseed so that cut out most supplements, rapeseed, alfalfa, soya, carrots, molasses, wormer, bute (she lay down for 3 days with the last course of bute and I thought she was a goner). I did a lot of experiments with her diet to try and rule things out and improve her health. It’s a lot simpler and cheaper now she has the absolute basics!

She has had ulcers, skin lesions, sarcoid, damaged ddft, abscess, thrush, lymphangitis... as well as spooky behaviour, muscle tremors, lumps and the ‘absence’ mentioned above.

The vet was very dismissive of my feed concerns, but trial and error has proved to me that there was something. Plus, she’s gone from multiple vet visits for her issues, to nothing for the last 12 months (touch wood).

Hind sight is a wonderful thing... last winter she had simple systems Timothy chop, grass nuts and some of their grass blocks to supplement her hay, but since she has managed all summer with nothing but the occasional spring of mint from my garden, I am going to try her with no ‘hard’ feed this year.

 

[Mule]

Felt a bid odd reading this because I went through a period early on where my walking-vet-bill mare would freeze, stare at the sky and roll her eyes. I wondered for a while if she had a neurological problem - you literally couldn't snap her out of it - but then it just seemed to stop. Now I'm wondering if it coincided with when she was on one of the pellet low cal balancers and if it was food related. How odd. Can't remember the last time I saw her do it which is a relief, but these days she's on a very basic diet and its been consistent for a long time.

Whenever people have an issue with a horse I gently suggest going onto just hay & / or straights. Fair to say most of them ignore me!! I think processed feed and horse behaviour are links that need further investigation.

I've heard two vets say this about supplements.

 

[Kikke]

My mare coughs her head of if given any cereals.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

Felt a bid odd reading this because I went through a period early on where my walking-vet-bill mare would freeze, stare at the sky and roll her eyes. I wondered for a while if she had a neurological problem - you literally couldn't snap her out of it - but then it just seemed to stop. Now I'm wondering if it coincided with when she was on one of the pellet low cal balancers and if it was food related. How odd. Can't remember the last time I saw her do it which is a relief, but these days she's on a very basic diet and its been consistent for a long time.

Whenever people have an issue with a horse I gently suggest going onto just hay & / or straights. Fair to say most of them ignore me!! I think processed feed and horse behaviour are links that need further investigation.

It was really odd! We were at livery in an area where there is a private airfield and small aircraft flew over regularly, we also seemed to be on the flight path for hot-air balloons. Because she was so noise reactive we wondered if she could hear the associated noise, although none of the other horses bothered about it. However one day I followed her gaze and realised that the sky was empty except for a cloud which really was shaped like a plane!

I agree about feeding a very basic diet, we learned so much from that mare! We bought her in the 80s when it was 'normal' to give coarse mix. Now I want to know every ingredient of everything i feed.

ETA, we changed her diet because sister read an article in 'Your Horse' about a horse whose troublesome cough was cured by cutting out starch. i forgot to list her cough previously. The change in her was amazing!

 

[Clodagh]

Whenever people have an issue with a horse I gently suggest going onto just hay & / or straights. Fair to say most of them ignore me!! I think processed feed and horse behaviour are links that need further investigation.

I think you are absolutely right, and tbh it is humans that like horses to have mass calorie foods, whereas the average happy hacker would be fine on ad lib really nice quality hay and nothing else. Trouble is ad lib rarely means it, so people thik feed is needed as well

Ycbm - I would just give him as much forage as he can eat, at his age I doubt you will have him in hard work so forage will do the job. No need for alfalfa or oats.

 

[Slightlyconfused]

Both my appys cant have alfafa
The spotty goes into a spooky mess and the other other one gets itchy.

I feed the spotty, elephant is a good doer so only gets honey chop lite and healty bucket, either thunderbrooks herbal chaff and their grass nuts or dengies meadow grass and grass nuts.
In the winter he haa speedi beet which he is fine with.
And a mix of adlib hay and hayledge

 

[ycbm]

Ycbm - I would just give him as much forage as he can eat, at his age I doubt you will have him in hard work so forage will do the job. No need for alfalfa or oats.

It's not that simple Clodagh. He lives as part of a herd and the other three are good doers. So during the day they all get ad lib straw chop and at night ad lib grass. But he's a growing lad and he needs a bit more..

He's fine on bran and linseed, thankfully.