poorly horse help please

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happyhacking:)

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sorry in advance - this is gonna be one long post.

bought my mare a couple of years ago was told when i had her that she had suspected sweet itch but that it was easily managed. In the 2 years i have had her she has never had it. She also had a bad case of strangles and peritonitis about 6 years ago and they nearly lost her but she came through it. Before I had her she was tested for being a carrier of strangles which came back as clear.

around the middle of feb (two days after the snow had melted) I turned her out with my youngster for week in the sand school with post and rail fencing with some but not much electric fencing. She was also swapped onto the nicer hay mixed with a bit of haylage.

withing 3 days of her being in the sand school she was itching in just a day she had rubbed a patch on her bum larger than my palm raw. Her winter coat was falling out thick and fast but her summer coat was not yet through so she was coming up in bald patches which where going raw as soon as she rubbed them.

We turned the two of them out in the field (the field she has been in since September 11 on her own) roping off as we went anything that she could rub on (water trough, telegraph poles, trees ect) but she continued to be itchy. Both horses were retreated for lice and were also wormed on going out in the field. As she no longer had anything to rub on she has begun rubbing on the flaw and had taken to biting herself and now has lost a significant amount of hair along her back, neck and tummy. She has too lost a horrendous amount of weight. She is generally a nightmare to keep weight off in the spring and summer so it is a huge worry that she has lost this much weight. Her normal feeds have not changed. She has been out of work for some time as I have been so busy with work and some of the weight she has lost is muscle tone.

when the vet came out he initially took blood tests and confirmed that it was not sweet itch and was sure it wasn't lice. He also gave her an injection for mange. The bloods came back clear - vet tested all the obvious liver, Kidneys, thyroid, ect. A week later she was still bad injection had made no difference and when I went up to her she was really sweated up (she was just stood in the field, wasn't warm and she wasnt stressed over anything) rang vets who advised to give her a bath and cool her off. Vets also prescribed her with anti-histamines for 5 days. 3 days later she was sweated up again (it was warm by then but not warm enough for her to be that bad) and she had been on the tablets 48hrs by then so rang vets back who came out and did skin biopsies of the affected areas and prescribed antibiotics. Vet also suggested clipping her to help make her comfortable as well as putting her back onto the old hay (neither of them have had haylage since going out into the field. That was last Friday by Monday she had picked up and whilst not 100% she was much better than before and has been until today. Got a phone call at work from my mate to say she had sweated up in the field again it wasn't warm here today and she has now been clipped so shouldn't be getting sweaty. She is still on the antibiotics and will be until Sunday. I went to check her this evening and although she was not sweaty then you could tell that she had been earlier in the day. Now waiting for vets to call me back tomorrow but I spoke with her on Thursday to get the results from the biopsies which came back with a low level skin bacterial infection (which the vet thinks is a result of having open wounds for so long and is therefore not the cause of the itchiness).

Really at a loss as to what to do now. The vets dont seem to have any solutions. Vet has suggested giving her steroids to combat the itch but as she is potentially prone to laminitis we would all rather she was not given them. One theory is that it has something to do with the peritonitis and strangles episode that she had 6 years ago but surely if that was the case it would have picked up in the blood tests? None of the other horses are or have been ill and she has been in with my youngster and is surrounded by 7 other horses all within touching distance of each other and none of them are showing any symptoms of being ill.

Any help or advice would be most welcome right now worried sick about her atm.
 
Can't really help but could it be like some kind of photosensitivity or grass allergy? Given she has improved coming off of the haylage and now the spring grass is coming through could that maybe play some part in why she is flaring up again?
 
A friend of mine had a horse she had to get allergy tested by her vet as he had suddenly come over with similar symptoms as you describe. Horse turned out to be allergic to an abundance of things, but was successfully managed through her vet and changing the feed she was using. Grass allergies are surprisingly common with horses, we just don't often hear about it! Good luck an hope pone is better soon xx
 
I would say allergy is very likely! I think it could be the haylage and/or grass allergy, as haylage is fermented and stuff there might be different bacteria or spores that the horse is allergic to, can you get some of the hay that you were using before?

Found a similar thread of horse reacting to haylage on here http://www.saddlesoap.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=55756.0

I get hayfever really bad myself and haylage really makes me sneeze and itch especially as ours has started to get a bit mouldy in the middle :-\ Did the antihistamines have any effect do you think?
 
Either an allery, or sugar intolerance? The sugars in the hay and the Spring grass might account for it.

I know that if I have too much sugar, I get hot and itchy.

Just a suggestion. I hope you fund the root cause very soon!
 
Thanks For your replies

I don't think it's the haylage she has been off it since they went on the field (nearly six weeks ago). And surely if it's a grass allergy it would have shown up before now? She is on less and rougher grass than before. She was only off the same patch of grass for one week when this flared up. If it was a new patch of grass and or started when the grass started growing I could see it. but it was still well below freezing when this started so pollen ect would not have been high.
 
Do you feed her anything else? Is she / has she been rugged?

Really feel for you & your mare, hope you can get to the bottom of it :(
 
Don't discount any allergy just because she's not had them before. A horse on a yard I worked at in my teens developed an allergy to most types of feed in his early teens. After all the usual tests had been done & he had stopped work it cleared up, back into work & fed again it returned. It was back in the days of straights & it was eventually discovered it was anything except plain chop that sent him off. He'd been in hard work & on hard feed since 6 & did suddenly just appear. So not impossible for something similar to be happening with yours, hope you manage to find a cure x
 
happyhacking:) said:
If it was a new patch of grass and or started when the grass started growing I could see it. but it was still well below freezing when this started so pollen ect would not have been high.
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Actually grass that has frozen overnight, and then sits in the sun defrosting has far higher levels of sugar than would normally be found. This is why its so vital to keep lami prone ponies off it.


ETA I know your problem is not lami, but if its a sugar thing it will be relevent
 
My thoughts are along the lines of the sand school being the start of the problems due to wet sand causing irritation to the skin, but then I would have thought the anti-histamines would have helped. I had terrible problems one summer with a pony with mud fever like symptoms that got worse not better despite help from the vet and it being really dry and dusty.
 
Sticker said:
Do you feed her anything else? Is she / has she been rugged?

Really feel for you & your mare, hope you can get to the bottom of it :(
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yes she has a bit of happy hoof a few high fiber nuts, vits and mins, linseed and garlic all of which she has been on for best part of two years. she is occasionally rugged. she wasnt being rugged when this started and has only had a rug on a handful of nights this winter
 
There's quite a few anecdotal posts on here about garlic making horses itchy. Even if she's had stuff before,doesn't mean she's not allergic now,so maybe cut everything out,individually? I know several people who developed hay fever in adulthood but thought they'd just got a cold,as never imagined they'd have hay fever having never had it in their lives beforehand. (Not saying it's pollen with yr horse,that's just an example!) Hope u find the cause.
 
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