How unlucky can one person be :(

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welsh_mare

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My friend has just phoned to say her daughters pony was pts this afternoon with Grass Sickness :( this same friend lost a pony about 4/5 years ago also to Grass Sickness.

How unlucky can one person be to lose 2 lovely ponies to this horrible disease, there are no words to describe how sorry I feel for her and her daughter right now :(
 
if they are grazing on the same land as the first horse got the grass sickness from i am not surprised, the land/grass should be tested by the relevant people and if necessary deemed unfit for safe grazing land. sorry to hear of her having lost another pony, hugs
 
Sorry if i sound thick here, but hold my hands up that I know nothing about this disease, is it from grazing?, do they know how horse get this awful disease?.

If you were to move to a yard where 2 horses had died from it would you move your horse there?, I really know nothing about this just trying to get some answers as all vets seem to say (from what i can get off friend on the phone) is that it is not the grazing it is something that no one seems able to explain.

so if anyone can give any answers would be really grateful.
 
I'm sorry to hear about your friend. It's never easy loosing a much loved horse.

As for grass sickness or any pasture related disease NEVER graze an animal on a contaminated pasture. I'm going through hell atm as I know there are 2 horses on a field which has killed 3 horses before and the owners/ yo doesn't care. :(
 
Grass sickness is still not really understood but one thing which has been proven is that when the land has been contaminated, it can cause GS again - even years later, so if your friend continued to keep her new pony on the same grazing it would have been highly likely. I did know a yard nearby that ignored this and put horses back on grazing where horses had got GS. 3 months later one of the horses got it.

Sorry for your friend. Sounds like you need to nicely suggest she needs to move yards if she is considering another pony. There used to be a questionairre that the GS people would ask you to fill out as all info helps and that might be an idea for her.
 
Gs does seem to repeat itself and seems to lie dormant and then rear its ugly head years later ,there is a yard near us which i was once on who a few years ago now lost around 8 horses in a matter of a few months some were chronic some actute all ages and sizes some had been on yard years some were new to yard not one survived ,in same area just about a couple of miles down road another friend lost four of her ponies to gs while away on hols at the same time ,neither yard has had a repeat since this abouit 5yrs ago but previous owners of the yard had over the years suffered losses in various numbers ,its an awful thing and leaves owners feeling helpless we moved ours and would never go back or graze on any land with an history of gs.
 
We just had a GS scare at our yard, resulting in the horse being rushed to hospital. Luckily it turned not to be GS, but we did find out a bit of current thinking. One thought is that a new horse put on contaminated pasture is actually more likely to go down with it than one that has been grazing it for some time. If this IS the case, and she gets a new pony, then the unfortunate owner is very likely to have a third case.
 
welsh_mare said:
Thank-you everyone so much, the current thinking about new horses is very interesting, so does that mean that those who have been grazing on these fields for sometime may have built up an immunity (sp) then?

Thanks once again to everyone this place is a mine of information :)
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Exactly - we lost 2 horses on our yard to GS this summer and all the vets said no matter what you do, DON'T take your horses out of the field for a period of time then put them back as they will have lost the immunity to the bacteria.
Luckily our horses aren't in the fields where the others were, or else I think we would have been a little apprehensive about it.
One of our friends lost her horse to pedal bone rotation, then lost her daughters horse to GS all in a 2 week period :(
K x
 
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