Mild allergies to food?

[maddie23]

I recently got a new gelding, he’s a pretty good doer but as I’ll be working him a lot I want him on good diet. I slowly introduced micronised linseed, alfa a oil and baileys top line cubes as his feed, twice a day.
Whilst he’s going well I have a small suspicion it’s not the best diet for him, every now and again he looks slightly tucked up and a bit tense/cramped looking around his flank area. He also has a stress line visible sometimes..
Physio has said it’s nothing to do with riding work, back soreness, saddle or anything like that; so I’m thinking maybe his food isn’t agreeing with him?
Other than this I can’t see anything else wrong with him.. any advice?

 

[Shay]

Alfalfa does not agree with all horses. I would switch that and see what happens. He could just be a stressy type -but you are also feeding a lot of high energy feed which won't necessarily help. Might you also have feeds that are physically too big? What is his age, current weight and workload? And how much do you feed in each feed?

 

[fairhill]

I’ve spent the last 2 years trying to sort my mare out after she started with feed allergies. We’ve had 2 bouts of lymphangitis that was eventually traced back to alfalfa in hi fibre hay blocks. She has torn her ddft in both front feet from a combination of mild laminitis and knee skin reactions to soya in baileys lo cal, which also gave her tense muscles. I suspect she has also had ulcers from it. Linseed gave her scurfy skin and sarcoid lumps... even half a carrot a day brings her out in small lumps and tense muscles, spooking at butterflies etc...

She is currently on hay and grass only, and doing fab! Tendons healed once shoes came off and I removed all feed, and her coat is finally glossy and dappled. She’s stopped snapping when I do up her girth too...

I went through a lot of trial and error, and cost (or rather insurance company did before they excluded all 4 legs and I stopped her cover!) with this mare to finally figure out her problems.

I would suggest cutting out all the feed (gradually) and then leaving at least 3 weeks with no food to clear his system.

If you see an improvement you can either stick to no feed and see how you get on with your level of work, or re introduce one feed at a time to see which, if any, causes the issue.

 

[SEL]

I have one who can't seem to tolerate linseed. Like fairhill I went through an exclusion diet to find out what was bothering her.

 

[maddie23]

Alfalfa does not agree with all horses. I would switch that and see what happens. He could just be a stressy type -but you are also feeding a lot of high energy feed which won't necessarily help. Might you also have feeds that are physically too big? What is his age, current weight and workload? And how much do you feed in each feed?

My first guess was alfalfa but after reading up the most common symptom seemed to be footiness and he’s definitely not! He gets about 1kg total split up into 2 feeds, he’s a 16hh, probably around 600-650kg at a guess? sports horse, 8 year old, he’s worked 5 times a week and usually compete every fortnite, mixing it up between showing - usually do working hunter, and show jumping. He clears a 2’9 course easily so we’re starting to do more now!

 

[maddie23]

I’ve spent the last 2 years trying to sort my mare out after she started with feed allergies. We’ve had 2 bouts of lymphangitis that was eventually traced back to alfalfa in hi fibre hay blocks. She has torn her ddft in both front feet from a combination of mild laminitis and knee skin reactions to soya in baileys lo cal, which also gave her tense muscles. I suspect she has also had ulcers from it. Linseed gave her scurfy skin and sarcoid lumps... even half a carrot a day brings her out in small lumps and tense muscles, spooking at butterflies etc...

She is currently on hay and grass only, and doing fab! Tendons healed once shoes came off and I removed all feed, and her coat is finally glossy and dappled. She’s stopped snapping when I do up her girth too...

I went through a lot of trial and error, and cost (or rather insurance company did before they excluded all 4 legs and I stopped her cover!) with this mare to finally figure out her problems.

I would suggest cutting out all the feed (gradually) and then leaving at least 3 weeks with no food to clear his system.

If you see an improvement you can either stick to no feed and see how you get on with your level of work, or re introduce one feed at a time to see which, if any, causes the issue.

Sorry to hear you had problems with your mare! That’s really interesting to see how much better she’s doing without feed! Do you know what it was in the feeds that she was having problems with? Trying to keep mine as low starch and sugar as possible! Will try and take him off food completely and start again in a few weeks, thank you

 

[fairhill]

If you do notice a difference with reducing feed components, then Simple systems do plain grass nuts and a Timothy chop that I use over winter to give her a little extra energy. She stops eating it of her own accord in spring! They are very helpful to speak to if you want some advice.