More tedious field drama!

KikiDee said:
It’s acute and affects them within hours of ingestion. Individual horses seem to have different tolerance levels to the toxin though and individual trees/saplings have varying toxicity levels. So some horse may ingest quite a lot and not be affected, whereas others it can only take very little
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😨 so difficult to second-guess this, how awful for you.
 
I am well aware it’s far far far from ideal. I have my reasons for doing what I do. It does help me to read the helpful replies and I understand people’s disgust at my not doing more. It’s multifactorial why he’s not been moved. All I can say is I do have his interests at heart. He’s had over five years happy retirement and is now 19. It may well be that I have to move soon.
 
Exasperated said:
😨 so difficult to second-guess this, how awful for you.
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We’ll never really know. YO also decided to hack some branches off said tree and leave them in my field the day before (I wasn’t aware), so I also question if he ate something off the actual tree. The evening he came down with it I’d actually wanted to bring him in that day as he’d already been out overnight, but I felt bad that another liveries horse would be out alone so agreed to leave him out to keep them company. A lot of what if’s and I’ll never stop blaming myself as I put him in that position, but I’ve had to just put it down to one of those horrible tragedies of life and take comfort that he spent his entire life with me and was so loved every single day. He never knew anything but kindness. All the same he was a beautiful gentle soul who didn’t deserve to lose his life that way, life can just be bloody cruel and unfair sometimes.
 
Is it possible that the vets can be 100% sure it’s sycamore? I haven’t been told definitely it was that. I was told the pony had pneumonia.
 
pistolpete said:
Is it possible that the vets can be 100% sure it’s sycamore? I haven’t been told definitely it was that. I was told the pony had pneumonia.
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Why would that matter? Regardless of if that pony had pneumonia or not, you know that there is a sycamore tree AND ragwort along with unsafe fencing.

What reasons could possibly equate to being OK with knowingly leaving any horse in a life threatening situation?
 
pistolpete said:
Is it possible that the vets can be 100% sure it’s sycamore? I haven’t been told definitely it was that. I was told the pony had pneumonia.
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The only way to diagnose at the time is to catheterise or wait for them to pass urine as the biggest diagnostic factor is dark brown or red urine that indicates the toxins in the system. They can blood test for the hypoglycin A toxin but the results take longer to come back than you would want to have the horse in immediate treatment, so generally the diagnosis via blood test is more of a confirming factor rather than something they rely on to diagnose. I believe the bloods take around 72 hours, and the first 3 days are the most critical in survival, so without being blunt by the time the blood test comes back the horse would either be recovering or dead.
 
I understand its hard to move etc etc but surely keeping a horse where you know there is a high risk from ragwort and sycamore and a horse has already died is a welfare issue. The landowner if charging money for grazing has a duty of care and I wonder if she has insurance and is paying tax on earnings etc. Its a big can of worms. 19 is not that old for a horse these days and leaving him to take his chances is questionable at best.
 
Sandstone1 said:
I understand its hard to move etc etc but surely keeping a horse where you know there is a high risk from ragwort and sycamore and a horse has already died is a welfare issue. The landowner if charging money for grazing has a duty of care and I wonder if she has insurance and is paying tax on earnings etc. Its a big can of worms. 19 is not that old for a horse these days and leaving him to take his chances is questionable at best.
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I doubt very much she’s insured. Her horses are on there too. I have been looking to move for five years.
 
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