Grass sickness

B

Bananarama

Well-Known Member
Joined
17 December 2007
Messages
1,395
Location
Scotland
Visit site
A friend of mine had a horse die of acute grass sickness a few years ago. And now another of hers has suspected chronic grass sickness [in a different field]. I was basically intrested if anyone knew the prognosis of this condition?
 
Not sure about prognosis, but out of interest are they fed on haylage in the winter? Im sorry for your friend, what a bad situation for her.
 
My understanding is that the acute form is pretty much always fatal. The chronic form can last ages and some horses survive with expert nursing, though often with much weakened systems. If you google grass sickness, there's a huge amount of new info coming through on it. Hadn't read anything on haylage though I think I picked something up recently about paddock vacuums being under suspicion. I think it strikes younger horses more than older ones and I also understand that it's more prevalent in Scotland but no-one knows why. I think too that where there's been one case, there might be more. Worrying.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Not sure about prognosis, but out of interest are they fed on haylage in the winter? Im sorry for your friend, what a bad situation for her.

[/ QUOTE ] where does haylage come into it?
 
I dont know anything about haylage but ground/soil disturbance is a big factor, ie paddock hoover would really unsettle things....
 
As someone has said before, acute is usualy rapid andresults in rapid decline and death, and chronic can be nursed through, but it is a long road and a hard one at that. We had a shetland who had chronic about six years ago, we got him through it but it was very very hard work, sadly though we lost him last year to acute grass sickness. two years ago we lost a fantastic welsh pony to acute as well.
We are in an area of Scotland that has a high number of cases.
I hope your friends pony pulls through, I wish her lots of luck .
 
If paddock hoovers can do it, then a good 50% of winter paddocks ought to be risky as they get really churned up!
crazy.gif
 
i lost my mare to it. She had the acute form noticed she was not her self on the saturday but just though she stuffed herself on grass!!! vet out sunday into the surgery on the sunday and operated on and PTS on the monday. horses that do survive it will prob never be 100% again and are likely to suffer from it again. There not really any deffent prof what causes it just ideas!! i live in kent and it ment to most common up north e.g scotland! she was 8 and it thought to be most common in younger horses so no one really knows!
 
The haylage was probably mentioned because they suspect a salmanella type bacteria found in haylage of possibly inducing GS in a prone horse/pony. They can't operate to help grass sickness. I had a pony die from the Acute form and a friend nursed hers through the Chronic one, but ti was heartbreaking, difficult and time consuming.
 
[ QUOTE ]
The haylage was probably mentioned because they suspect a salmanella type bacteria found in haylage of possibly inducing GS in a prone horse/pony. They can't operate to help grass sickness. I had a pony die from the Acute form and a friend nursed hers through the Chronic one, but ti was heartbreaking, difficult and time consuming.

[/ QUOTE ]

its not salmonella but botulinum-important because the symptoms of salmonella and botulism are very different. its true that there is a very slight risk of botulism in haylage caused by soil contamination or dead animal contamination. good haylage suppliers are aware of this though and its very rare due to improvements in QC. botulinum has been indicated in GS however, haylage has not been implicated in GS-in fact supplementary feeding of hay/haylage even through spring + summer has a protective effect against GS.
 
DV is right the peak times for GS are May and September and to help reduce the risk of horses getting this you are encouraged to feed hay/haylage in the field. It's the disturbance of the soil during these times that makes horses more susceptible so the ground being cut up in the winter period really doesn't come into it.
I did lots of research into GS as I lost Higgs to this 3 years ago
frown.gif
 
Having lost a horse to acute grass sickness many years ago, I have had a lot of interest in the illness ever since.

Acute grass sickness usually stikes young, elderly horses and will usually prove fatal. However, chronic GS will cause wt loss etc and the horse can survive. Its not a pleasent illness and is quite distressing to watch a horse that gets it.
 
IMPORTANT MESSAGE!!

The more that awareness is spread the better!!!!!! My horse Magners died from this horrible disease (Wiltshire area). I am trying my best to spread awareness to all horse owners. Please read up on Grass Sickness and tell others about it. See:

http://www.grasssickness.org.uk/

I also have a GS facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=...90680500978828

Please Join and add as many friends as you can

Thank You so much (Nearly 300 members now)
Rachel
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top