Grass Sickness in 6 Year Old, Please Read

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paddy2012

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Hi all,

I am 16, and recently we bought a new 6 y/o gelding called Paddy- about 2 months ago. I never thought i would find such a sweet yet such a talented horse.

Unfortunatly, yesterday morning we noticed a lack of droppings in his bed, and he had drunk very little. His belly was a little swollen so we called the vet out just to check. She found that his heart rate was 65 )where it should be 35), and he had a temperature. She felt inside his rectum and found a very large impaction and when she drew her hand out the glove was covered in a mucus substance.
He was also dehydrated, so we tubed him and fed him some electrolytes.
The vet told us that the high heart rate was different to a normal impaction, where it is not usually as high. The mucus also made her suspicious of an underlying problem.
He was then given intro-venus fluids and tubed once again in the evening.

This morning we took him to Liverpool as he had still not passed any muck. Here, they diagnosed him with acute grass sickness. Today they have operated on him and done a biopsy and taken a sample from his intestine to test for grass sickness.
He has deteriorated rapidly and it is likely that the diagnosis will come back positive, in which case he will be put down.
His whole large intestine is solid with muck that he cannot pass.

Throughout this whole thing he has remained the sweet and lovely boy i adore, and this sickness has taken him from me. It is so cruel for a horse this young and with this much sweetness and potential.

I truly wish there was a way back for him.

Does anyone have any experiences of grass sickness of any type that they could share with me? For some reason hearing of other peoples experiences is helping me.

Thank you, and please, anyone who reads this please send a prayer up for paddy tonight that the biopsy results come up negative!!
 
I am so, so sorry to read this. Grass sickness is a terrible thing and there really is a very low incidence of recovery. Our little Sec A had the same symptoms and went downhill very quickly. He was kept bright and cheerful on a drip, but gradually over a few days he completely lost the ability to swallow, so he was pts.

After doing a bit of research I discovered that there are some basic factors that contribute to grass sickness. It's usually after a hot dry spell, usually May time, after a change of home and in young horses. More usual in Scotland and the NE. Our pony fitted all of these (we had put him on loan) except his age - 26.

I sincerely hope your pony recovers.
 
We lost one as well had had the school built which disturbed the drainage in the field, it's another factor that can cause it. Land disturbance.

They can also get it if a field gets flooded by river or stream water.

Hope yours is ok x
 
Fortunatley i have no experience of grass sickness and hope i never will encounter this terrible condition.All my sympathies for you and your horse and lots of virtual vibes ((((.
 
Reading this post has just sent shivers down my spine. Some friends who i used to ride for lost a horse to grass sickness in 2010. I had just started to back him - he was so gentle and kind, not a nasty bone in his body.
He had sub-acute grass sickness and went downhill over a 12 day period.
He started out becoming quite lethargic, laying down a lot in the field but right by gate, he was still eating but his poos had a mucousy membrane in them (gut lining), our vet initially said he just had a virus but i had a gut feeling it was grass sickness...over 4 days he pretty much stopped eating and drinking...finally the vet (who shan't be named) then decided to refer him to hospital where they immediately put him in fluids and closely monitored him. His weight decreased, he barely touched a thing, though did eat a little grass when turned out at night (he lived out usually and wasn't happy being shut in). He had mild colics on a regular basis, had muscle tremors and mild sweating too but basically, the vets kept trying, in our hearts we all knew he wasn't going to come through it and looking back I wish we had decided to give up sooner, but its different at the time, every slither of positive news was a reason to keep trying to save him.
Sadly he passed away out in the field one night.
Very very sad and i am so sorry to hear that you are going through this. Acute grass sickness isn't going to have a positive outcome, but at least your boy has been given a chance through surgery, i really hold my hopes for you.
 
I'm so so sorry to hear this awful news; it has moved me to tears as it could happen to any one of us. I also have a wonderful boy who is kind, loving and gentle and I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to him so my heart goes out to you. x
 
Kaylum said:
We lost one as well had had the school built which disturbed the drainage in the field, it's another factor that can cause it. Land disturbance.

They can also get it if a field gets flooded by river or stream water.

Hope yours is ok x
Click to expand...

There is also a possible link to mechanical muck collectors that use brushes with a sweeping action. This causes soil disturbance. Do not use a mechanical pooh picker.

Interestingly the link between water/streams and grass sickness is also the same link that has been made with Atypical Myopathy.
 
I knew someone that lost one at the yard I kept my pony at when I was a teenager. A field had been seeded with grass for horse grazing. After the horse died one of the retired farm labourers, a man in his 80s, said that they had lost a couple of shire horses with it in the same field when he was a young man, he said the land was infected. I do not know whether this is the case or it was just a sad coincidence, but the field was laid for cereals in the 1930s & only reused for grazing in the 1970s. A number of horses & ponies grazed alongside the horse that died, the infected horse was a half draught breed.
 
Honeylight said:
I knew someone that lost one at the yard I kept my pony at when I was a teenager. A field had been seeded with grass for horse grazing. After the horse died one of the retired farm labourers, a man in his 80s, said that they had lost a couple of shire horses with it in the same field when he was a young man, he said the land was infected. I do not know whether this is the case or it was just a sad coincidence, but the field was laid for cereals in the 1930s & only reused for grazing in the 1970s. A number of horses & ponies grazed alongside the horse that died, the infected horse was a half draught breed.
Click to expand...

Gosh that is an interesting link. Maybe its the soil disturbance from the use of the ploughs and farm machinery between the 30's and 70's.

It's not really my news to tell but due to lack of update (unless I've missed it) Paddy 2012 sadly didn't make it. Huge hugs for his owner x
 
Sorry for not updating. unfortunatly on thurs morning the results came back and were positive.
Overnight he had been refluxing any liquids that he had been given and though he was not in pain, he was uncomfortable.
They diagnosed him with acute grass sickness as opposed to chronic. Acute is untreatable even by intensive nursing and horses usually die in 2 days.
We didn't want him to suffer any more than he had already, and sadly had to make the decision to have him put to sleep.

It's awful and i have relayed this story so many times it sounds so factual now, sorry about that.

i miss him terribly already.

Our field has not been touched by anything mechanical and has not been agitated. Thing is he could have picked the bacteria up anywhere- at a show, etc, from a single blade of grass.

so sad:(
but thankyou everyone for your support
 
So sorry Paddy 2012.
For someone so young you sound very mature and strong.
Having lost a pony 3.5yrs ago to cancer and knowing how devastating it was to our family I do feel for you.
RIP Paddy.
 
Hate to say this but a recent experience at a livery yard saw a heavily in foal mare put down only ten days before she was due. Grass sickness was diagnosed but the worrying response from vets included contamination on the land and a great possibility of it occurring again in same grazing area. I've heard lots of differing opinions on this matter and interested to know view points. Good luck with your horse leahurst will do their best xx
 
The field I referred to was later ploughed & seeded for potatoes. It has never been used for grazing since. The horses & ponies were removed to other grazing on advice of the local vet (who had diagnosed it straight away). They were all right & there were no other cases.
The odd thing was that it had been used for several years before the horse contracted the sickness & the horse was new to the grazing. It's such a long time ago I cannot really remember the time of year but I think it might have been late summer, early autumn. The effected horse was half Irish Draught.
I do not know if any of these are factors & might help someone.
 
As one of the vets at liphook said about grass sickness . The person who finds out what it is all about can expect every horse vet in the country to line up to shake his/her hand.I hate this disease with a pashion because it so nearly took Dennis s life. It is so random and so unfair. Regardless of how well we look after our neds ,this bloody awfull disease can take them . Once you have experienced it, it is never far from your mind when a horse gets ill. Lots of hugs to the op because nobody should have to go through this pain.
 
I am so sorry OP, how very very tragic :(

Agree with Mike007, and hope and pray that there are answers forthcoming soon.
 
This is so sad, I am very sorry for your loss of your lovely horse. This disease is terrifying, I remember one of the riding school horses, where I attended as a child, dying from this disgusting illness. It was horrible to see and strangely, if I remember correctly it was fairly new to the riding school so that change thing comes into play again. Such a difficult illness to understand...
 
Our pony died 10 years ago and was sent for investigations about the illness x


We had had drainage put in for the school so lots of digging.
 
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