old horse lactating!!

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burgetahn

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hi. I hope somebody could help. I have had my 23 year old mare for 17 years. Out of the blue she started lactating which causes her extreme pain hence been on bute for large number of days. I have just put her on regumate today so hoping to see some change.
Its such a shame as she is such a healthy and fit for her age. She has never had a foal so is very strange. The vet said it can happen to older horses.

Has anybody come across this or have any advice?

thanks
 
Not in horses but in people it can be a sign of a pituitary tumour I believe.. sorry not much help.
 
we have some old mares - that have bred foals before - just randomly start lactating even though they aren't in foal...

i just have a question though.. surely the fact your mare is lactating shouldnt cause extreme pain...

does she have mastitis??
 
Yes that happened to one of our ponies. She was about 27 at the time and we had had her since she was 17 ans she had never had a foal. She randomly started lactating. It didn't cause her extreme pain but then again she isn't a wimpy horse so would be hard to tell. I think she was uncomfortable because her udder was very hard and hot. We spoke to our vet and they didn't seem too concerned, we just kept an eye on it and it went away. She is 30 now and not happened again since.
 
I have had two mares whose udders filled with milk, one so bad that as I put some fly cream on they began to squirt milk. They did not seem in pain just uncomfortable. They both developed this in mid summer when the grass was good and when there was lots of horse flies about, my vet believed it was due to both of these things, they both had been bitten a bit on the udders. Once I took them off good grass and really smothered the udders in fly repellent the problem seemed to disapear on its own, I hope yours turns out to be this simple. Good luck.
 
Our mare who is now 35 and never had a foal did this about three years ago and we were so worried we got the vet to have a look at her when he came to see one of our other horses he gave us several reasons why it could happen but did'nt mention Cushings one thing that stuck in my mind was he said some people believed eating a lot of white clover could be a cause and we did have a lot that year.I also lost a mare with Cushings and she did'nt have it as a symptom, our horse did'nt show any signs of discomfort either.
 
hi everybody thankyou for all your advice. The vet has visted again and she is now on regumate ( expensive) but very slowly is inproving.
 
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