Horses and colds (Also in main forum)

[michellev123]

Hey
I help out at a stud where I keep Oscar. Some of the horses are coming down with snotty noses and/or coughs.

We have spoken to the vets who say there is lots of colds going around in the area and many horse have been affected. She has given us some Noradine (?) and says they should recover themselves. However contact them again if it gets worse.

Just wonder what your experiances of coughs and colds were as I have never had to deal with this before.

Any tips on how to help them recover too would be appriciated.

Espically as the broodmares are due to start delivering in 2 weeks

Thanks for reading

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

Noradine is an antibiotic so is useless for a viral illness like a cold but if the horse is really ill and picks up an additional opportunistic bacterial infection, then Noradine should clear it up. My horse suffered really badly with his pollen allergy last summer. Then a virus went round the yard causing chesty coughs which he picked up as well. He was quite seriously ill. He was endoscoped and the vets found (amongst other things) that his larynx was blackened with bruising from coughing so hard and long, and a bacterial infection had set in. He was prescribed Noradine for the infection. A word of advice: it tastes disgusting and very bitter so you might have a struggle to get your horse/s to eat it! I tried everything but my horse wouldn't touch his feed, an apple, a marmalade sandwich, anything with Noradine in. In the end I had to have the tubes where it comes as a paste that you give like a wormer. That did the trick but boy is it expensive!

Coughs and colds do go the rounds now and then but because of the time of year I would also be alert for COPD/RAO where the cause is an allergic reaction to tree pollen. The tree pollen count is high at the moment. The symptoms are very similar to a cough/cold. The horse has a dry hacking cough, a runny nose, may be off colour a little and even off his feed a little. He may be intolerant of exercise because his lungs simply can't take in enough oxygen due to the allergic reaction that causes inflammation, sticky secretions in the lungs, swollen airways and difficulty breathing out. If left untreated, the horse will develop an obvious 2nd muscular exhalation as he uses muscles not normally necessary for breathing and he will develop a "heaves line" as these muscles become over-developed. If you have any doubts whatsoever, your vet can advise and may additionally prescribe Ventipulmin (to relax tightened airways) and/or Sputolosin (to break up the sticky mucus).

 

[cundlegreen]

Hi Michelle,
Have any of the horses on your stud had flu jabs within the last 6 weeks? I would treat anything like this with an immune system booster. I always go homeopathic for this sort of thing, and have seen and heard of great improvement especially with so called COPD. Several times, as soon as the prescribed Ventapulmin course was finished, the horse went back to square one. Two horses that I got a breathing supplement for (neither of them mine), made a full recovery.Both were at the wheezing/unable to work stage. The colds could also be due to rape or something similar coming up, I know it is in our area. It still comes down to getting the horse's immune system fighting the bugs. PM if you want any more details.