Maple leaves causing atypical myopathy????

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Ali27

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We currently have a youngster on our yard who is fighting for her life! We have no sycamores nearby and yard owner had already checked all the property last month for them after reading an article! However there is field maple in some of the hedges and a silver maple in opposite paddock and the leaves have black spots and lots of seedlings are on floor. Just want people to know that it can be maple causing the problems and not just sycamores!
 
I know last year they said that sycamores were thought to be the cause, maybe it's something else like a toxin or something given off from the leaves, maybe wet leaves given most of the horses that are showing signs of this dreadful illness seem to have developed it since the damp weather started. I really hope your youngster pulls through Ali27
 
I seem to think they are from the same family? ... Sorry to hear about the youngster, I really hope they pull through. There seems to be so much AM/GS about this year :(
 
I believe a field maple is sycamore related….it makes you wonder if grass sickness has been misdiagnosed over the years as AM symptoms seem identical.
 
It is so frustrating as all the publicity seems to suggest sycamores so we thought we were ok! Luckily we have amazingly, supportive yard owners so the silver maple has been chopped down today and they are happy to remove field maple from hedges if necessary which are actually recommended by National Forest. Poor owners are devastated but little mare is still hanging in there! She started showing symptoms on Monday morning.
 
I went to a talk at my vets yesterday eve about Atypical Myopathy. Maple is directly linked to this illness, it is in the same family as the sycamore trees. There is apparently, no way of measuring the toxin hypoglycin a which is the toxin that causes atypical myopathy, so a small amount of leaves and seeds can be ingested and have the same (or worse) effect on the horse as a large amount with a reduced toxin level.
 
Yep, definitely silver and field maple and not sycamore! Owners planted the field maple in hedges as recommended by National forest and we definitely have one silver maple which has been identified by several people. I think it is the silver maple causing the problems as the leaves are covered with black spots and there are loads of seedlings.
 
I understood maples are acers as is sycamore so would both have the harmful toxin in it which is hypoglycin I'm assuming found in all species of acers maybe - in the US Acer negundo looks like it causes a condition similar to AM here which is called SAM in North America -

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24863395

They are North American trees but I imagine people here could grow Acer negundo in their gardens etc. I don't know I'm just supposing.

mentioned here in this article too by BEVA about similarities between Acer negundo (box elder) over there and Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) here so to me that would make it possible that other maple/acer species could be a risk factor too:

http://www.beva.org.uk/news-and-events/news/view/438
 
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We have fenced off everything that looks like a sycamore or maple. They are related so imagine they have the same toxin. I would think that it's the seeds rather than the leaves he has picked up.
Fingers crossed for your horse. Xx
 
fairyclare said:
I went to a talk at my vets yesterday eve about Atypical Myopathy. Maple is directly linked to this illness, it is in the same family as the sycamore trees. There is apparently, no way of measuring the toxin hypoglycin a which is the toxin that causes atypical myopathy, so a small amount of leaves and seeds can be ingested and have the same (or worse) effect on the horse as a large amount with a reduced toxin level.
Click to expand...

I went to a talk at a vets today too. During their talk, they said that as of August, it is now known that the leaves have only a very small amount of the toxin that causes the problem - it is the seeds which cause the problem.

Plus, it is unknown how much of the toxin will cause a problem - and not only does the amount of toxin vary from tree to tree, but from branch to branch on the same tree, so it just isn't possible to say how many seeds are safe to eat, if any.

They also said there is no proven link yet (research may find one in future) to any other tree than sycamore in Europe and Box Elder in the US - which are both members of the Acer family.
 
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