Poss intolerant to wheat?? Behaviour

[Muddywellies]

Very long story short, after months of over reactive spooky behaviour, I'm wondering if my horse cannot tolerate wheat. Since putting her on a digestive supplement containing wheat feed middlings, soy (lecithin) and wheat glutamine peptides (??) her behaviour has been terrible. Very very sharp, spooky, over reactive etc etc. And she's got what looks like windgalls above all 4 fetlocks (soft squidgy painless swellings) and a few weeks ago was covered in hives (that was a 1 off and may be not connected) Last night it just occurred to me the only change is this supplement which she's been on since early May. She reacts terribly to alfalfa, she literally goes bananas, so I'm wondering if there's something in this supplement causing her behaviour chance. Can horses react badly to wheet by products or soy?

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

Horses can react to any food, just like humans, soy is a noted trigger for many horses but equally yours could have a problem with wheat. If I were you I would stop giving her the supplement for t least a month and make a note of any further changes in behaviour.

I have had horses react to all sorts of stuff, from cereals to carrots and took far too long to work out what was the problem for the first horse with reactions that I owned - poor thing.

 

[Shay]

I had a 148 SJ'r who was massively barley intolerant. It cropped up in very odd things - but Allen & Page make a good range of wheat and barley free feeds. Definitely change the supplement! What was it intended for?

 

[ycbm]

I haven't dared give my alfalfa intolerant horse any wheat since he had some pony cubes and I saw "that look" in his eye. Linseed does the same, so I'm assuming it's all cereals and legumes, just to be safe.
.

 

[Muddywellies]

Very interesting. In over r 4o years of horse owning, this is something I've been lucky enough not to come across (tho I have dealt with alfalfa causing unruliness before). It's a digestive supplement as she's prone to ulcers, so I've stopped it with immediate effect to see if there's any change.

 

[Muddywellies]

OK so took horse off supplement this weekend. If that is the cause of the over reactiveness, how long would it take to come out of her system? It's obv way too early but hacked this morning and whilst she was mostly good, she was still on high alert.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

OK so took horse off supplement this weekend. If that is the cause of the over reactiveness, how long would it take to come out of her system? It's obv way too early but hacked this morning and whilst she was mostly good, she was still on high alert.

It could take up to a month for all the effects to be out of her system, although when I took my mare off cereals, her behaviour changed back from horrendous to sweet within a week. She did go through a period of not wanting to come out of the stable though. She was an extreme case and was heading for pts at the time because of her unpredictable behaviour.

 

[SlinkyMinxy]

When she was younger, one of my mares had a massive issue with anything containing high levels of plant oestrogens - if fed anything containing soy, she would come into season all year round. It became impossible to find anything 'safe' to feed her on and her behaviour got so bad that in the end I had to have her ovaries removed.

 

[Muddywellies]

When she was younger, one of my mares had a massive issue with anything containing high levels of plant oestrogens - if fed anything containing soy, she would come into season all year round. It became impossible to find anything 'safe' to feed her on and her behaviour got so bad that in the end I had to have her ovaries removed.

Blimey! There seems to be a whole world of food intolerance that I wasn't aware of.