Help! Coughing horses!

[LizScott]

One horse on our yard started coughing a couple of months ago - it was always in the morning and the owner isn't around so when I pointed it out to her she was sceptical as she hadn't heard it cough and was fine when exercised (once a week). Eventually other people noticed and she did try soaking hay but made no difference so got vet out who prescribed antibiotics and ventapulmin.

Shortly afterwards, his field mate started to cough (again in the mornings) and sometimes cough up yellow mucus.

A third horse (in the same field) has now started to cough in the mornings and have pointed this out to all 3 owners but no one wants to get vet out.

Am I worrying over nothing? My horse is stabled next to one of them and can touch each other and don't want her to develop something.

Any advice appreciated on this! Thanks!

 

[sallypops]

did the vet say what the cause was??

 

[jennyb]

Yes please i'm listening in on this one for any advice on horses that have been coughing for ages and I've done everything I can to get ride of it too..(wet hay, haylage, change bedding, full turn out, more exercise, less exercise, course of antibiotics, vitamin E supplement....)

 

[wizzi901]

if its yellow gunk I would get vet out, clear runny noses and bit of clear gunge occasionally but anything yellow sounds like an infection?

 

[Sarah_Jane]

I wiould certainly want the vet out sounds like a virus. I would also be worried if my horse was next door as this is likely to be airborne so the fact they can't touch won't make a difference.

 

[LizScott]

I'm not sure what the vet said as the owner is rarely around to speak to although she is sensible enough to have said something if vet said it was deffinitely contagious. I'm guessing that vet didn't know exact cause and gave antibiotics etc to see if that helped.

 

[LizScott]

the horse that started coughing originally has had no discharge as far as i can tell but the second one certainly has been coughing up yellow gunk and just found out that the third did last week too.

what i don't understand is why they all do it first thing in the morning and not all day? owners say they don't cough when exercised but I heard one of them coughing in school yesterday but with a different rider! Think i;m going to try and video them tomorrow first thing