Horse Seeming To Sweat Excessively or Wet Bed?

sasquatch

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I've had a text from sharers to say they found B absolutely drenched when they went down today, and they say it's sweat and his face was dripping as well.

He isn't clipped atm, however he isn't doing much by way of work and whilst his neck and top of legs is hairy, where his winter coat has come through the rest of him isn't that thick at all. We have been having cold weather, and he is only in a waffle cooler-type rug so there's no weight to it.

I noticed yesterday he had no rug on, but was absolutely filthy. To touch him you were getting brown smelly gunk on your hands like he had been lying in the wettest parts of his bed, rather than sweat.

His bed is really, really wet. I have no idea why, but it squelches and there is most definitely the beginnings of a puddle in the corner under his water drinker, however his water drinker doesn't seem to be leaking as there's no water running down the wall and the wall underneath it is dry. He's on pellets and shavings atm, and I am trying to give him a smaller bed that's kept well away from the wet patch.

Sharers are saying it's definitely sweat rather than him from lying in muck. He has been so wet it's hard to say, but given that it's much colder, I wouldn't think a neckless cooler rug would be heavy enough to make him over heat to the extent his coat is soaked all over?

Usually you can't clip him unless he's sedated, and would have to get someone to clip him for me so don't want to take the risk of trying without sedation. I also don't know if clipping him would solve the problem as his bed is so wet and mucky, and he most definitely is lying and rolling in it. If anything, I was wondering if his bed was so mucky because he's too cold and is getting so mucky because he's kicking it around and lying and rolling in it to try and warm up.

He's a cob type, however he managed without being clipped last year when he was in full work 6/7 days a week, and the year before when he was doing 4/5 days a week.

He's in otherwise good health, he's eating and drinking and is his bright and usual self. He seems to be hydrated and his water drinker is refiling and staying full rather than draining straight out or visibly dripping or leaking anywhere.
 
Are you sure his stable isn't leaking at ground level? We've had so much rain in a short space of time that our where yard is squelching. We had a real deluge earlier this year & my bed ended up wet because of water pouring into the barn. Puddles in the stable sounds like a leak.

If he's v wet I don't think I'd be making a smaller bed - I'd probably be making a thicker one. How much bedding are you using? I used to be stabled by a girl who used only a sprinkle of shavings on mats. Her bed was always soaking as wee had nowhere to soak into so the mare was constantly standing in puddles.

If he was mine I'd clip & use a turnout rug in stable as then it doesn't matter if he lies on poo. Get the vet out to sedate him & do it. It isn't that cold so he mighr be hot but if you're sure it's sweat & it happens again I'd be tempted to ask vet to check him over.
 
If it was me i would put him a complete new dry bed down, it can't be good for his feet anyway having a very dirty bed. Disconnect the automatic water feeder and put a trug in so that a) you can mnitor how much he is drinking and b) rule out any faulty leak with the drinker. If it is not a leak and he is drinking to excess then i would get the vet to check him. Does he feel warm under that rug? it may be very light but my fully clipped pony was too hot in a fleece until last week when the weather turned fowl, now she only has a 50g weight on.
 
I would test him for Cushings, not that that is one of the symptoms but it is of Insulin Resistance which often accompanies it. That was one of the worst things my old mare had to contend with when pergolide wasn't available many years ago, and the symptom that alerted me to it in a rescue mare.
 
Are you sure his stable isn't leaking at ground level? We've had so much rain in a short space of time that our where yard is squelching. We had a real deluge earlier this year & my bed ended up wet because of water pouring into the barn. Puddles in the stable sounds like a leak.

If he's v wet I don't think I'd be making a smaller bed - I'd probably be making a thicker one. How much bedding are you using? I used to be stabled by a girl who used only a sprinkle of shavings on mats. Her bed was always soaking as wee had nowhere to soak into so the mare was constantly standing in puddles.

If he was mine I'd clip & use a turnout rug in stable as then it doesn't matter if he lies on poo. Get the vet out to sedate him & do it. It isn't that cold so he mighr be hot but if you're sure it's sweat & it happens again I'd be tempted to ask vet to check him over.

He is a dirty horse anyway, but I've not seen him this bad every other day for a long time. I'm tempted to take the mat out incase the problem is that it's not draining properly and that's how it's ending up literally squelching out the sides.

He has 1 thing of pellets in atm but I have more to bring down, and gets 2 bales of shavings a week. I keep his bed quite thick as he kicks it forward anyway, but it must take up about half the stable when I do it to try and keep it as far away from the drinker and wettest part as possible, so it's small in size but fork doesn't touch the bottom - I have asked sharers to make sure it is done this way, and they say they do, but I can't check for myself everyday.
He seems to be worse without a rug in terms of wetness/visible wet patches (dried or not) on his coat, and my concern is if he is getting wet and then being left to dry he will end up colder. He's in an American-style barn so he doesn't get rained on and rain can't get in either, but it can be a bit drafty and a bit cold. He is due jabs and teeth so as long as I am able to get someone out to clip or borrow some clippers hopefully I'll be able to get him done then as he has to be sedated for his teeth.

re. turning the water drinker off - I have no idea how! It's built into the wall so will have to speak to YO at some point and ask can it be looked at. I can't be sure it's leaking as he is so wet in general.

re. cushings - I will ask vet when he's out, he's his normal self otherwise and I can't tell if he is peeing any more or drinking more than usual. He's a bit shy and doesn't seem to pee unless he's either in his stable or in the field - won't even do it in the all weather turnouts. He doesn't seem to have many other cushings symptoms, but there is no harm asking the vet for his opinion and asking him to do bloods if he is doing jabs anyway.

thank you all - will be going down within the hour to drop more pellets off for his bed tonight. They do make a difference as he doesn't seem to need as much in his bed so if I can get another bag in hopefully they'll dry him out a bit more.
 
If you can't disconnect the drinker could you perhaps cover it somehow to stop him drinking from it? If you use buckets and know whether he's drinking to exceess I would imagine that will be quite useful information for the vet.
 
Just a thought - are you able to get the entire bed and the mats out and let the stable air dry? (Might be too cold and wet now though...) If the bed is squelching at the sides then it sounds to me like you have something going on under there. A leaky pipe, or a neighbour horse's wet leaking through? Might shavings or pellets have got under the mat and be holding the wet? The bed should not squelch regardless of whether he has cushings or not (although I would test for that anyway!)

I do notice my messy lad will get more messy if he's cold. I've a nasty feeling he lies in his poo / wet for warmth. But all mine are fully clipped and rugged so it might not be a direct comparison. (And the messy one is daft anyway...!)
 
Just a thought - are you able to get the entire bed and the mats out and let the stable air dry? (Might be too cold and wet now though...) If the bed is squelching at the sides then it sounds to me like you have something going on under there. A leaky pipe, or a neighbour horse's wet leaking through? Might shavings or pellets have got under the mat and be holding the wet? The bed should not squelch regardless of whether he has cushings or not (although I would test for that anyway!)

I do notice my messy lad will get more messy if he's cold. I've a nasty feeling he lies in his poo / wet for warmth. But all mine are fully clipped and rugged so it might not be a direct comparison. (And the messy one is daft anyway...!)

Yeah, he's the same. If he's cold you can guarantee his bed will be even more of a mess and he will have done all sorts to it, but if he is sweating and overheating rugging him won't help so I'm unsure what to do.

I am in NI so if we can have a few hours for me to take the mat out to try and dry it without it raining it would be bliss haha. I will check it to see if there's anything underneath or getting caught at the sides when I drop the pellets down and tell sharers to make sure they lift the mat and brush everything out from underneath, instead of just lifting the bits at the edges.

re. water drinker - I will ask YO if they can be turned off, if not will try and find a cover for it and a way to get it stuck down so he can't play with it or take it off. If it has a cover on at least I'll be able to see if the water level has changed or not as well.
What would be the easiest way to make stable water buckets, as I know he will kick them/tip them over/put half his bed and dinner in them if he can as well. He has no sense of tidiness and if he wants to get into something he can. He can get into the clip lock boxes so nothing is safe around him.
 
Put a no fill turnout on him for the night. Wet on the inside = sweat. Wet on the outside = lying in wet dirty bed.

That won't help fnd the cause of the soaking bed, but it's a good start
 
Put a no fill turnout on him for the night. Wet on the inside = sweat. Wet on the outside = lying in wet dirty bed.

That won't help fnd the cause of the soaking bed, but it's a good start

Great idea.

Re the soaking bed, it has been hideously wet here in the UK, are you sure you've not got water coming in through roof, floor / wall joins etc?
 
okay, so I'm just back from the yard so have seen the state he is in myself.

It was warmer today definitely, sharers said they had left him in turn out and not ridden him to try and dry him off. He was mostly dry (I don't understand why it has taken so long to dry him - they were down from 12 I think) and where he had dried, his coat had stuck together and gone curly. He had some semi-wet bits on his belly and neck. His coat on his back is so fine, his bum and belly are a bit thicker and his neck thickest. He is dark bay but has some creamy points around the top of his legs and under his tail, and those look like they have turned grey brown with muck. Gave him a brush over, and most of the wet brushed out where it had dried hard, or it seemed to help it dry off.

I put the two bags of pellets in, ended up lifting a lot of wet out of his bed as well as poo before I put them in. He'd already been mucked out, and it looked like a lot just hadn't been lifted so I will be telling sharers to make sure they lift it. Hopefully 2 bags of pellets will at least soak everything up. The worst bits for wet looked as if they had just had shavings pulled down over the top as they were brown and sodden underneath but clean on top, and normally I will just lift all of that as I can feel from the weight it isn't right, but he could well have peed to make it like that anyway.

He was damp on one side of his body, yet the other side had dried. He has a lovely thick shoulder length mane and whilst he was warm under that, he wasn't sweaty under it yet the other side of his neck looked as if it had been soaked so no idea what has caused that. I'm also a bit annoyed as I did say to sharers if he was really damp could they sponge him off, and it looks like they have taken his rug off and just left him out to dry instead, as his coat had dried curly and with various things stuck to it and lots of brown dust.

I've left him without a rug tonight - I found his LW turnout and it turns out there's a massive hole in it, but the lowest it gets tonight is 4 degrees and then it's up to 14 degrees with rain tomorrow according to the weather app. I will be plaiting him for dressage so his mane will be off his neck, and as I know the indoor gets warm (test is outdoor) I won't do too much with him in warm up as we are only doing intro.
 
Just a thought, if you can't turn the automatic waterers off you can stop one by wedging something under the little ball cock that fills them. If you wedge it up and empty it it can't refill so you can give him a bucket of water as suggested?
 
If you can't disconnect the drinker, take the cover off the ball valve and put something under the float to keep it up, put the cover back on and bail out the drinker.
 
We've got water coming up through the floor of our barn at the moment - happens after heavy rain when the water table can't cope. It's not too bad right now but when we had days and days of heavy rain last Easter my stable was soaking.
 
I've had a text from sharers to say they found B absolutely drenched when they went down today, and they say it's sweat and his face was dripping as well.

He isn't clipped atm, however he isn't doing much by way of work and whilst his neck and top of legs is hairy, where his winter coat has come through the rest of him isn't that thick at all. We have been having cold weather, and he is only in a waffle cooler-type rug so there's no weight to it.

I noticed yesterday he had no rug on, but was absolutely filthy. To touch him you were getting brown smelly gunk on your hands like he had been lying in the wettest parts of his bed, rather than sweat.

His bed is really, really wet. I have no idea why, but it squelches and there is most definitely the beginnings of a puddle in the corner under his water drinker, however his water drinker doesn't seem to be leaking as there's no water running down the wall and the wall underneath it is dry. He's on pellets and shavings atm, and I am trying to give him a smaller bed that's kept well away from the wet patch.

Sharers are saying it's definitely sweat rather than him from lying in muck. He has been so wet it's hard to say, but given that it's much colder, I wouldn't think a neckless cooler rug would be heavy enough to make him over heat to the extent his coat is soaked all over?

Usually you can't clip him unless he's sedated, and would have to get someone to clip him for me so don't want to take the risk of trying without sedation. I also don't know if clipping him would solve the problem as his bed is so wet and mucky, and he most definitely is lying and rolling in it. If anything, I was wondering if his bed was so mucky because he's too cold and is getting so mucky because he's kicking it around and lying and rolling in it to try and warm up.

He's a cob type, however he managed without being clipped last year when he was in full work 6/7 days a week, and the year before when he was doing 4/5 days a week.

He's in otherwise good health, he's eating and drinking and is his bright and usual self. He seems to be hydrated and his water drinker is refiling and staying full rather than draining straight out or visibly dripping or leaking anywhere.

vet check and maybe blood test, my horse did this when he was recovering from raised liver enzymes, even on cold nights he sweated and it isnt the rug was to warm as he wore it before at those temp and did not.

Def get the vets advice
 
will as YO tomorrow if she or her OH (as he does most of the yard maintenance) can show me how to turn the water drinker off or do it for me - I don't want to fiddle around with it and break it.

I will see how he is tomorrow morning, pellets are in so if he is still soaking wet then I will try and see if vet can come earlier to do jabs etc and have a look at him on monday. He's not off his food, nor is he behaving any differently - if anything he's going better under saddle and finally using his back end.

he has been changed feed lately, he lost weight/condition as the haylage was very very poor. since we have had new haylage that is much better quality, and he's been on a hard feed as well. I wonder if that has maybe unbalanced him a bit? he's had new hard feed and haylage for about a month, and before was always just on haylage as he's never needed to be bulked up or needed much more as long as he got enough haylage and it was decent quality.

he's been one of the easiest keepers, and soundest horses I've ever known in the 6 years I've had him, so it's all a bit of a worry that his bed is very messy even for him, and he is getting so wet.

I do wish sharers had brushed him off and sponged him down though. Leaving him to stand outside to dry off in the cold and not brushing him off when they brought him in, took me 5 minutes to get his coat cleaned and get any muck stuck on him off.
 
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