Grass sickness - interesting, I thought

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SpruceRI

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There have been a few cases of Grass Sickness in the last few weeks in my area....

Was talking to a friend yesterday about it. She is worried so had talked to her vet when she came for a visit..... The vet said the best way to protect her horses was to:

Graze them on longer grass rather than short
Even if on decent grass, feed at least a bucket full of hay to each horse every day between May and July.
If grass was poor or non existent, then feed plenty of hay (obviously!) and haylage is even better to prevent the illness.
Do not worm with Ivermectin products between May and July
Do not disturb the soil in any way between May and July... like don't do any fencing, dig any holes etc.
My friend uses cattle-type hay roundels. Vet said no matter how scummy they look underneath, don't move them between May and July.

Grass sickness is caused by some sort of virus/disease that lives in the soil... and can 'spread' outwards in a 10 mile radius from the source.

And the illness tends to run in an area in a 10yr cycle....

Does all this sound right to you?? Sounds a bit odd to me....not sure whether my friend has got this right.

The bit about not disturbing the soil is the bit very interesting to me though, because many years ago I remember reading somewhere about a high incidence of grass sickness across several counties. The only thing that was the common denominator between all the horses involved was that their owners or yards used those dropping collector machines.

I have always wanted one of those things!!!

Does anyone really know the cause of this terrible illness??
 
no one does at the moment, its abit of a mystery illness. its being investigated so i think for the vet to say do this do that is abit dodgy when scientist arnt 100% sure what causes it.
 
i know a yard i used to be on had one last year and one about 5 years before both died (so bang goes one theory!) also i was told it was only youngsters mainly but the one 5years before was quite old so bang goes another theory x all i know for sure is that a yard owner has the duty to inform potential liveries that they have had cases on their land. (which this one didnt i hasten to add ) , sorry dont know much more about it xx
 
Grass sickness is still a mystry, but they do think its down to something in the soil, hence it affecting some areas and some not.
Not grazing on short grass is right, and feeding plenty of hay/haylage is good too. Don't harrow etc during these periods of higher risks also.

It is a nasty disease and I would do anything and everything in my power to prevent my horse getting it!! Even if it meant them not grazing, and being out in a menage/coral with hay.
 
miss_buffay said:
no one does at the moment, its abit of a mystery illness. its being investigated so i think for the vet to say do this do that is abit dodgy when scientist arnt 100% sure what causes it.
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Maybe this is the vets theory... or maybe my friend got the wrong end of the stick!! Just wondering what other people had heard.....

... as like you I thought that no one really knew
 
madhossy said:
There have been a few cases of Grass Sickness in the last few weeks in my area....

Was talking to a friend yesterday about it. She is worried so had talked to her vet when she came for a visit..... The vet said the best way to protect her horses was to:

Graze them on longer grass rather than short
Even if on decent grass, feed at least a bucket full of hay to each horse every day between May and July.
If grass was poor or non existent, then feed plenty of hay (obviously!) and haylage is even better to prevent the illness.
Do not worm with Ivermectin products between May and July
Do not disturb the soil in any way between May and July... like don't do any fencing, dig any holes etc.
My friend uses cattle-type hay roundels. Vet said no matter how scummy they look underneath, don't move them between May and July.

Grass sickness is caused by some sort of virus/disease that lives in the soil... and can 'spread' outwards in a 10 mile radius from the source.

And the illness tends to run in an area in a 10yr cycle....

Does all this sound right to you?? Sounds a bit odd to me....not sure whether my friend has got this right.

The bit about not disturbing the soil is the bit very interesting to me though, because many years ago I remember reading somewhere about a high incidence of grass sickness across several counties. The only thing that was the common denominator between all the horses involved was that their owners or yards used those dropping collector machines.

I have always wanted one of those things!!!

Does anyone really know the cause of this terrible illness??
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No, this sounds about right to me. No one really knows the cause of it yet, although it is thought to be due to botulism in the soil. It is a big area of research at the moment. Have a look at the Grass Sickness Fund or Grass Sickness Surveillance Scheme for more information...you may want to refer your friend to it as well.
 
alfiesmum said:
i know a yard i used to be on had one last year and one about 5 years before both died (so bang goes one theory!) also i was told it was only youngsters mainly but the one 5years before was quite old so bang goes another theory x all i know for sure is that a yard owner has the duty to inform potential liveries that they have had cases on their land. (which this one didnt i hasten to add ) , sorry dont know much more about it xx
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This friend had an elderly mare that was a companion to someone elses... the old girl died of grass sickness :(
 
I think it was the Royal (Dick) in Edinburgh who researched GS and found soil disturbance to be a possible contributory factor. They also found that feeding hay in addition to grazing seemed to reduce the risk of GS. It seems to have multiple contributory factors. Having lost a horse to it in 2002, I do anything I can to try to avoid ever having to see it again. I've not heard of the 10-year cycle and pray that's not true!
 
There has been alot of cases around my area this year. We have spoken to the vet, done alot of reading. If you want to get good reliable sources about grass sickness read investigations etc from up north, they have alot more cases, well recorded cases than down south.

From what recent research has shown, that both vet and internet has said, it is a certain bacteria in the soil which produces a toxin, it is this toxin which is poisionious to the horse, apparently horses tend to eat these toxins day in day out, but the weather conditions between april and july make them more concentrated, or just produces more of them, bassically horses are more likely to pick it up.

The most important thing to do is keep the GUT as stable as possible. Hence why feeding hay, if you feed hay it is familiar to the gut, and therefore feeding it daily is more likely to keep the gut stable. This is why it is not reccommended to worm horses in these months, because it upsets the gut flora (sp). Keeping your horses stress levels down aswell is vital, the less stressed your horse is, the less likey it will upset the gut. It all works around keeping the gut working as usual as possible. Buying a probiotic can also help because if the gut is lacking anything, it just bumps up anything that is missing.

They believe that the toxins travel from the top of the grass to the bottom of the grass, hence why they say turning out later on in the day, after the duey mornings is better. However it is advised to keep them on unparched (sp) land, as it is believed it is more likely to do with something in the soil, and if the horse feels it is lacking in any types of minerals it will lick the soil for the minerals, hence why a mineral lick is also advised to have.

Not disturbing the soil is very important also, however topping (cutting) the grass is advised. However harrowing and the likes is not.

If you are going to introduce your horse to a new paddock, it is also advised to do it slowly, like half an hour one day, hour the next, it should take about ten days for them to be fully intergrated. This yet again is due to keeping the gut stable, and not upsetting it.

Hope that all made sense. So bassically, keeping the gut as stable as possible is highly important, and not disturbing the grass is vital also.

Grass sickness is estenially where the nerve endings of the gut get completely paralized (sp), and cannot become active again, the nerves bassically die, hence why the horse will not eat or poo, it physically cannot. However if I horse comes down with chronic grass sickness some may pull through because not all nerves are killed/paralized. However acute cases is almost always 100% death.

That is my understanding :).
 
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Oh and another thing to add, from what I have heard, youngsters under the age of two are extremely unlikely to get it. However younger horses under the age of seven are more likely to get it due to their amune systems not being as built up to the toxins yet.
 
Very interesting!!

Their is a little mare at the yard I work at who has survived grass sickness, the only horse have ever known to survive it!
 
I heard of a highland mare who had it and she not only survived but went on to produce a foal. My sister sold a lovely Ben Faerie mare and six months later she died of grass sickness.
 
This is an awful illness i seen a cob gelding die of this,at my old yard, he really suffered , there were ponds in his field and i always wondered if this was a factor , and soil was clay soil, no one fed him any feed /anything else he was such a sweetie
 
kandm said:
Oh and another thing to add, from what I have heard, youngsters under the age of two are extremely unlikely to get it. However younger horses under the age of seven are more likely to get it due to their amune systems not being as built up to the toxins yet.
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unfortunately know this to be untrue as previous quote xx
personally i think there is so much scaremongering as even the experts cannot agree on what causes grass sickness (unfortunately) xx
 
The simple truth is that everything is merely a guess. The current thinking is that maybe a new strain of Botulism was imported from Patagonia in a consignment of Guano,in 1907 . A lot of valuable work was done in the early 20,s in cluding a vaccine.This work was unfairly criticised and lost, and is now being reexamined.My personal opinion is that there are at least two factors which have to coincide to cause this disease,as it is unlike a normal Botulism poisoning. Liphook have a very good track record on treatin the chronic cases. WE owe a great deal to them for there treatment of Dennis. His future isnt yet guaranteed,but he came back two weeks ago and is eating and thriving.
 
we are in a grass sickness area being in the north east of scotland, it is something that i worry about daily in the summer time
there is no cure for it & no one knows for sure what causes it but you can try and prevent it but if they are going to get it they will as you can have a field with many horses in it and all on the same feeds routine etc and 1 will come down with it the others will be fine
what i have been told to do is to feed fibre based feeds so mine get a feed of chaff twice per day, also to get them off the grass for at least 6 hours per day and feed hay or haylage, mine are out at night and in during the day and get haylage when they are in
there is a local company here called Norvite that make supplements for this area i feed this plus a pre & pro biotic all year round
there was a link with worming but i think if you need to worm you should worm as worm damage can be as bad but i tend to do worm counts so only worm if needed
youngsters are more prone to it but older horses can still get it
if there has been a long dry spell of more than 10 days they say the see an increas in the number of cases so if you get a dry spell & then rain i would for sure get them in for a good few hours during the day and get fibre into them
i just hope that they can find out soon what causes it and then they will have more idea of how to prevent it.

ETA - also heard that disturbing the ground can bring on cases but not so sure about the 10mile radius never heard that before, would struggle not to find a field with horses that isnt within 10 miles of a field that has been ploughed or drained or fenced
we had some draining done about 3 years ago and i have kept that bit fenced off they are going to get on it this winter
 
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On the subject of under two's not getting it. I think what you might have heard is that a lactating mare and her feeding youngster seem to have protection from GS.
 
I have heard that putting sheep on the grazing after horses on a rotational system might help. I haven't heard of any research into this or anything, but know of someone who had lost at least two if not three to Grass Sickness and was advised (don't know who by) to graze sheep behind them. He got a few sheep and has not had any further problems, whether this is due to the apparently cyclical nature of the disease or down to the sheep I have no idea - but thought it an interesting theory...
 
Ommadawn said:
I have heard that putting sheep on the grazing after horses on a rotational system might help. I haven't heard of any research into this or anything, but know of someone who had lost at least two if not three to Grass Sickness and was advised (don't know who by) to graze sheep behind them. He got a few sheep and has not had any further problems, whether this is due to the apparently cyclical nature of the disease or down to the sheep I have no idea - but thought it an interesting theory...
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never heard that but grazing sheep with horses is a good idea as they eat all the stuff the horses dont so perhaps a link there??
 
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