Copd/ rao

H

Hazel and Arnold

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Hi all
My arab gelding was diagnosed with summer pasture rao this year. With help from my fab vet I managed to improve his condition by bringing him off the grass and onto our yard area for a couple of weeks and feeding him soaked hay. He was then able to go back into the field to live out and his cough, bad breathing all disappeared. This was at the end of August. He has been tolerating dry hay in the field really well and we've had no problems until 2 weeks ago I decided to feed haylage to put some additional weight on him. He started becoming quiet, having flared nostrils and the other night I heard the dreaded wheezing sort of noise when he was eating. I rang the vet and we both came to the conclusion that it must be something in the haylage as nothing else in his feed, routine, etc has changed. He is living out so it's not a dusty environment. I have taken him off the haylage and given him some soaked hay yesterday and today. I am worried that he may not be able to tolerate dry hay for a while as his breathing has now been compromised. However, there is no water supply at the yard (rain water is directed into massive water butts so we have loads of water) which makes it really difficult to soak hay and especially with winter and freezing water coming up. So what I wanted to know is do you think I could feed an alternative to soaked hay until his respiratory system has had a chance to recover (maybe a few weeks??) - I'm thinking something like horsehage but is this just the same as haylage? Would it give him the same problems as haylage? Any ideas would be most welcome. I'm so gutted because I'd worked so hard throughout the summer to get him back on track.
H x
 
What about steaming your hay? Pop a haynet in a rubber feed bin, pour over one or two kettles of boiling water, put the lid on the bin and leave it to cool. Or you could ask Santa for a posh hay steamer! :D
 
Or if you've no bin spare you can even do the same thing with the kettle if you have a spare plastic feedbag laying around (like the Dengie ones)
 
Horsehage is haylage but I found the quality of Horsehage is more consistent than haylage you buy in big bales. I've been at yards where one bale of haylage is lovely, the next is mouldy, the next is like silage, then the one after that is nice again. So Horsehage might be worth a try.

Has your vet prescribed any medication? It sounds like maybe he could do with a helping hand. Hope you get him sorted.
 
As previous poster said, Horsage is haylage, and generally very consistent. The blue high fibre is not very different to feeding good quality hay, the green rygrass is higher energy. Definitely worth trying if you cannot wash/steam your hay.
 
Thanks for all the ideas, its really helpful. Vet hasn't prescribed any medication as the ventipulmin didnt work in the summer so we are trying to manage it before we give him any drugs. He's been back on the soaked hay for a few days and he looks 100 percent better today so I'm really happy.
 
Hazel and Arnold said:
Thanks for all the ideas, its really helpful. Vet hasn't prescribed any medication as the ventipulmin didnt work in the summer so we are trying to manage it before we give him any drugs.

I was wondering if anyone has tried Hilton herbs freeway. My mums horse was diagnosed with COPD a few years ago. we turned him out 24,7 three years ago which seems to have help (despite him loosing quite a bit of weight) but now he has become intolerant to exercise so we changed to haylage (big bales). Which was fine when they were just opened but as we got nearer to the core he started coughing and some nasal discharge (white). So we changed to small bake haylage and feeding him in the floor which made a huge difference - no cough but some nasal discharge. Which was almost as bad as a cough as people would steer clear of you thinking he has strangles or some virus (you know what horsey people are like!) so, reading through posts on the Internet I noticed 2 supplements. Freeway and ventilate. I bought both. But tried the herbal one first...WELL, I haven't had to use the ventilate one as after day 2 of herbal it has made a huge difference. I didn't even use the recommended amount (as I was introducing it gradually). I wanted to share my experience as I know from previous 'horse problems' that you can spend an arm and a leg on supplements to no avail. Good luck!
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