Horse ate laurel!

How bloody scary. They love to do this to us, don't they?

Glad you called your vet! Keep an eye on him and watch for him drooling, changes to his pulse and breathing, and colic symptoms. Hopefully he didn't get many leaves and won't have had too big a dose!
 
Burnttoast said:
Do you know which laurel? Cherry is more toxic than Portuguese. A mouthful will probably not constitute a toxic dose though. Symptoms to watch out for are excess salivation, breathing problems and colicing.
Click to expand...
Pretty sure it was Portuguese! The vet said he doesn’t think it will cause problems but I’m still a bit worried
 
meandmyself said:
How bloody scary. They love to do this to us, don't they?

Glad you called your vet! Keep an eye on him and watch for him drooling, changes to his pulse and breathing, and colic symptoms. Hopefully he didn't get many leaves and won't have had too big a dose!
Click to expand...
Thanks! gave me a freight. He didn’t get much and the vet thinks he’ll be fine. Apparently they normally get sick quick from it! I’m meant to returning to my house at lunch to be with my partner , but I’ll stay a few more hours to be sure he’s okay. Luckily he’s at my parents house so theres everyone around, although my dad flipped out and told me I was being dramatic and started screaming at me! How helpful, what a twat.
 
Mango_goose said:
Only a mouthful out hacking, tried to stop him. Waiting on call from vet, he’s a 2010 600kg cob gelding, equine asthma. In a bit of a state about it. Any idea on how serious this all is?
Click to expand...
Has happened to me once, greedy little so and so snatched an overgrown hedge off a bridleway in the suburbs, and resisted all attempts to drag it out of his mouth.
We watched him for ages, luckily no adverse effects - vet said just be grateful it wasn’t yew - sometimes horses and cattle can die before that has been digested.
Good luck, but think he’ll have got away with it.
 
Exasperated said:
Has happened to me once, greedy little so and so snatched an overgrown hedge off a bridleway in the suburbs, and resisted all attempts to drag it out of his mouth.
We watched him for ages, luckily no adverse effects - vet said just be grateful it wasn’t yew - sometimes horses and cattle can die before that has been digested.
Good luck, but think he’ll have got away with it.
Click to expand...
Yes, we have a yew but luckily fenced in! We’re cutting it down asap along with laurel - just didn’t think he’d do that when there’s so much grass/ other good foraging about ffs 🤦
 
We have a lot of laurel in places on the land, not exposed to the horse areas mainly, but my gelding when a young colt snatched some when being lead passed it and gulped it down before I could grab it off him! He was absolutely fine.

Interestingly enough, we have deer on the land eating most plants - they eat laurel during winter, but ONLY the young leaves from that year. They never ever eat the very dark 2+year leaves - I think that’s because the older leaves have more poison in them. But the young leaves and fresh laurel sprouts deer here gobble them happily. I’m sure studies would show the older leaves far more toxic than this years fresh growth leaves.

Rhododendron is a different beast of a toxic plant entirely according to deer, they never ever eat it, young or old leaves. A horse eating rhododendron would worry me more than laurel. I saw my boy try one nibble of an edge of a leaf and instantly spat it out. He’s always had an adventurous palette, and that proved to me it must be extremely foul for even a nibble to be spat out.

But best keep an eye on your horse and worth a chat with your vet just so they can support too, but likely just a mouthful of fresh tip laurel leaves will be tolerable.
As Exasperated said, thank god it wasn’t yew!
As an aside, I keep food grade clay and charcoal to hand for cases of accidental or suspected poisoning. Mix tablespoon in with some sloppy speedibeet and that helps absorb toxins from the gut. Has to be given within hours after ingestion to be most affective.
 
PurBee said:
We have a lot of laurel in places on the land, not exposed to the horse areas mainly, but my gelding when a young colt snatched some when being lead passed it and gulped it down before I could grab it off him! He was absolutely fine.

Interestingly enough, we have deer on the land eating most plants - they eat laurel during winter, but ONLY the young leaves from that year. They never ever eat the very dark 2+year leaves - I think that’s because the older leaves have more poison in them. But the young leaves and fresh laurel sprouts deer here gobble them happily. I’m sure studies would show the older leaves far more toxic than this years fresh growth leaves.

Rhododendron is a different beast of a toxic plant entirely according to deer, they never ever eat it, young or old leaves. A horse eating rhododendron would worry me more than laurel. I saw my boy try one nibble of an edge of a leaf and instantly spat it out. He’s always had an adventurous palette, and that proved to me it must be extremely foul for even a nibble to be spat out.

But best keep an eye on your horse and worth a chat with your vet just so they can support too, but likely just a mouthful of fresh tip laurel leaves will be tolerable.
As Exasperated said, thank god it wasn’t yew!
As an aside, I keep food grade clay and charcoal to hand for cases of accidental or suspected poisoning. Mix tablespoon in with some sloppy speedibeet and that helps absorb toxins from the gut. Has to be given within hours after ingestion to be most affective.
Click to expand...
I’ll look into getting charcoal asap, although my vet told me that wouldn’t work but I guess no harm in trying? I’ll see if I can get a hold of some! Thank you
 
gallopingby said:
@Mango_goose ASAP means today or tomorrow in relation to Yew. Fencing off if fine until it’s a windy day.
Click to expand...
You’ve mentioned ‘windy day’ - right, true story - farmer with top notch Limousins lost a champion cow to yew, post Mortem done because of her value.
Absolutely no yew anywhere in neighbourhood.
This was ultimately tracked to clippings from a felled and chopped yew tree which had blown off the tree surgeon’s wagon, and into the field.
If cutting yew, bag up everything, and probably fell it on a calm day.
 
Not exactly related to the topic but apparently some farmers have lost some cows to Hemlock Water Dropwort: because of the drought the roots were exposed, and the cows ate them, and died. Also has been happening when they've floated down rivers and gone out to sea, and apparently dogs have picked them up. The roots are apparently the most toxic part of the plant.
 
MiJodsR2BlinkinTite said:
Not exactly related to the topic but apparently some farmers have lost some cows to Hemlock Water Dropwort: because of the drought the roots were exposed, and the cows ate them, and died. Also has been happening when they've floated down rivers and gone out to sea, and apparently dogs have picked them up. The roots are apparently the most toxic part of the plant.
Click to expand...

I saw that too! We have lots of Laurel at home around the garden (not where the horses can get to). My understanding is that it is toxic but is not one of the really serious ones and if he only ate one mouthful I wouldn’t be too concerned.
 
MiJodsR2BlinkinTite said:
Not exactly related to the topic but apparently some farmers have lost some cows to Hemlock Water Dropwort: because of the drought the roots were exposed, and the cows ate them, and died. Also has been happening when they've floated down rivers and gone out to sea, and apparently dogs have picked them up. The roots are apparently the most toxic part of the plant.
Click to expand...
Oh no.
Is this the plant that induces terrible thirst in those affected? Where animals / people almost drown themselves trying to survive the poison?
 
Exasperated said:
You’ve mentioned ‘windy day’ - right, true story - farmer with top notch Limousins lost a champion cow to yew, post Mortem done because of her value.
Absolutely no yew anywhere in neighbourhood.
This was ultimately tracked to clippings from a felled and chopped yew tree which had blown off the tree surgeon’s wagon, and into the field.
If cutting yew, bag up everything, and probably fell it on a calm day.
Click to expand...
That’s a good point, we will have to be very careful. Might need to wait a few weeks until the horses move into another pasture
 
I heard of 4 14.2 hh New Forest ponies dying after eat laurel leaves, I suppose it was in the winter and some one thought to give them some green stuff to eat.

Yew is very bad.

I saw that about the Hemlock too, it suddenly appeared a few years ago, never seen it before, now it is everywhere.
 
Orangehorse said:
I heard of 4 14.2 hh New Forest ponies dying after eat laurel leaves, I suppose it was in the winter and some one thought to give them some green stuff to eat.

Yew is very bad.

I saw that about the Hemlock too, it suddenly appeared a few years ago, never seen it before, now it is everywhere.
Click to expand...
Cherry is used a lot these days in garden hedging (and is significantly more toxic than Portuguese, which the OP thinks was the one eaten) so it's possible in the NF case that free-living ponies just ate someone's garden hedge perhaps, or someone fly-tipped prunings.

Hemlock and Hemlock Water-dropwort are different plants, in case there was any confusion. Hemlock has been in the UK for centuries (it's an archaeophyte) but comes from southern Europe/the Med originally and likes hot growing conditions and lots of nutrients, which is why it's doing so much better here these days with climate change and eutrophication.
 
Burnttoast said:
Cherry is used a lot these days in garden hedging (and is significantly more toxic than Portuguese, which the OP thinks was the one eaten) so it's possible in the NF case that free-living ponies just ate someone's garden hedge perhaps, or someone fly-tipped prunings.

Hemlock and Hemlock Water-dropwort are different plants, in case there was any confusion. Hemlock has been in the UK for centuries (it's an archaeophyte) but comes from southern Europe/the Med originally and likes hot growing conditions and lots of nutrients, which is why it's doing so much better here these days with climate change and eutrophication.
Click to expand...


It was fly tipped, or simply given in error, it was the owner of the 4 ponies who told me the sad tale.
 
Leylandii killed my friend's horse and made her other one really sick. He either ate less or youth was on his side - she'll never know.

It was a felled tree and they nibbled bark and probably some needles. Weekend callout vet was totally out of her depth and next to useless. My friend was suggesting tubing with charcoal but despite being called to a poisoning the vet didn’t have any. Horse deteriorated pretty fast and horribly - emergency PTS in the end.

I've pulled laurel out of the mouth of one of mine on a hack and I won't wait up by the side of the yew hedge just in case.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top