Linseed reaction?

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

My poor cob, 16 hh, 10 yrs old is struggling with skin problems on her hind legs and so am I.
We are now wondering if linseed is causing her to have bare, itchy patches. Of course we will stop feeding her anything with linseed in it but I would be interested to know if anyone else has seen a similar reaction.
She is fed Agrobs Wiesencobs, which she has been on for years, with Forage Plus winter balancer. She had a few bare patches in 2021, which we thought that the winter balancer helped to clear up, then she was on summer balancer with no problem but as we swapped to winter balancer in November, she developed a few bare patches, so I added in linseed as recommend by FP, thinking that she was having a reaction to something a passerby had fed her. But her skin has got worse over the last few days. She isn't keen on having it treated either

 

[Tiddlypom]

It could be a reaction to the linseed.

IIRC the Forageplus balancers include linseed anyway.

My youngest mare used to react adversely (as in become very grumpy) if fed any linseed, and the best spec balancer that I could find without any linseed was Pro Hoof Pro Balance+, so I put her on that.

Since we got her hind gut issues under control following her Equibiome testing I have been able to give her a mugful of linseed twice a day like the others get.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

Thanks, Tp. Yes, the balancers do contain linseed but FP recommend feeding more. Anyway nothing but Wiesencobs and salt for her today and the foreseeable.
This is not the first time, or the first horse, we have had a reaction to something we thought was an improvement.
I know you did a thread about the microbiome tests, I shall look that up.

 

[ycbm]

I wonder why only the hind legs? If it's dietary I would have expected all of them. I haven't any advice but I hope you get her comfy soon.

If it continues, the only thing I can think of which would be different about the hinds is how far they are from the heart and a question over blood supply.
.

 

[criso]

Any horse can be allergic to anything and it can suddenly develop.

When I had issues with allergies I did complete food exclusion other than hay and then haylage to eliminate that. Then introduced one thing at a time.

In the end turned out to be nothing to do with feed but wood based bedding but a systematic approach helped be rule out food.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

Any horse can be allergic to anything and it can suddenly develop.

When I had issues with allergies I did complete food exclusion other than hay and then haylage to eliminate that. Then introduced one thing at a time.

In the end turned out to be nothing to do with feed but wood based bedding but a systematic approach helped be rule out food.

Thank you, we have had several horses and dogs who were allergic to various foodstuffs. The first horse's problems in turn helped me to identify that my own health problems were caused by allergic reactions to foods. As you say any horse/dog/person can be allergic to anything. I know that other people have had horses that need to avoid linseed but was wondering if it had caused skin problems. I had one before that got skin problems if she ate Brewer's Yeast.