Coughing horse. What to do?

[CazD]

My mare has recently developed a dry cough. She's 18 years old and has always lived out. Over the last week she has developed a cough which happens even when she is just stood in the field. I've tried giving her cough mixture for horses and honey mixed with her feed but it hasnt made a difference. She seems well in herself, there is no snot, just the cough. She almost sounds like she has something stuck in her throat when she coughs. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Britestar]

Ask the Vet to check her heart. Rare but not impossible that she has a heart problem, especially as she is a bit older.

 

[irishdraft]

One of my horses had this once, just started coughing even when standing in the field, no other symtoms, took him to the vet where he was scoped and turned out to have a nasty bronchial infection, which apparently, so the vet said he had just picked up from the air, some sort on virus !!! it was all very strange but anyway soon recovered on antibiotics.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

CazD hun, if you scroll through the "Vets" posts for the last few weeks you will see many many posts about horses suddenly starting coughing. It is very likely that your horse has a pollen allergy that has triggered RAO (or COPD). Sorry to be lazy with typing hun but I've had to learn a lot about this disease very quickly because my veteran horse has a severe pollen allergy. His started out of the blue about 5 summers ago and has got progressively worse. I've posted as much as I know about it, along with some interesting new research, and I think this might help you understand what you're dealing with and how to best handle it in order to help your horse. You have to do something or she could get worse and worse as she struggles to be able to get enough oxygen into her body. If you do a search on my posts, you'll find all the info I know. PM me if I can help further. Good luck x.

 

[Amos]

Is her worming up to date?

 

[alliebaxter]

if you think its just a cough / cold then try a spoonfull of colmans mustard powder in feed twice a day for a week it`s an old remedy but seems to work with ours.
i would be inclined to think pollen at this time of year though, hope she soon picks up