HashRouge
Well-Known Member
My lovely weekend home visiting horses and family (I currently study in Lisbon, Portugal) took a bit of a downwards turn on Saturday night. My 18 yr old mare came in from the field at about 2pm, there was some hay left in the stable for her, and I went back up at around 4pm. I groomed, skipped out and then took her for a walk (there's no grass in the field really so I thought she might like to go and graze on the grass verges). I noticed that she was coughing a bit and made a mental note to soak her hay. When we got back to the yard I decided to hop on her in the menage for a bit. Her saddle doesn't fit and I was riding bareback, so we obviously weren't doing anything to whizzy. However, she seemed to be coughing more the longer I rode her and so I decided to stop. I got off and started leading her around to cool down when she stopped, head down and started gasping for breath with her sides heaving in and out, her eyes closed and her nose streaming with yellow mucus. She was also coughing worse than ever. I yelled for my sister to come and hold her and ran to get my YO, but I couldn't find her, so we got her back into her stable, put a rug on her and called my mum (I didn't have my phone with me and my sister hasn't got the vet's number on her phone). My mother turning up (we live 5 mins from yard) coincided with us managing to get hold of the YO, who promptly rang the vet for us. It was gone 7pm by this time and pony was looking extremely distressed. She kept coughing and her breathing was really ragged and awful. Twice she looked like she wanted to go down in her stable. None of us, even the YO, were quite sure what was wrong with her. I was worried about choke, but my YO was pretty certain it wasn't that (I've been lucky enough never to see a horse with choke before).
Shortly before the vet turned up her symptoms started to ease (typical horse!) and by the time the vet had arrived her breathing sounded almost normal again. I was so cold by this point that I was sitting with my arms around one of her forelegs and my head against her shoulder underneath her stable rug
. The vet listened carefully to her lungs and windpipe and said that her breathing was still extremely wheezy. She suspected that pony had suffered some sort of allergic reaction that had basically resulted in what looked like an asthma attack. She said that it was unlikely that we'd ever be able to identify what had caused it, but recommended soaking her hay just in case it was caused by spores in the hay (she's fed a mixture of hay and haylage). Pony was given something to ease her breathing and make her more comfortable. The next day she seemed her usually chirpy self. The hoping is that this was just a one off reaction and that we won't see a recurrence. I certainly hope not, because in 10 years of owning her I think that was one of the most frightening experiences I've had. She really looked ready to keel over, poor pony.
Anyway, I'm starting to think that my animals have some sort of conspiracy going to get me to move back home! Two weeks ago my cat got hit by a car (I spent most of the weekend cuddling him as his leg is pinned together with mental and he's confined to a cage most of the time) and then madam practically gave me a nervous breakdown on Saturday night! They don't seem to be able to cope without me
Here she is feeling much better on Sunday:
Shortly before the vet turned up her symptoms started to ease (typical horse!) and by the time the vet had arrived her breathing sounded almost normal again. I was so cold by this point that I was sitting with my arms around one of her forelegs and my head against her shoulder underneath her stable rug
. The vet listened carefully to her lungs and windpipe and said that her breathing was still extremely wheezy. She suspected that pony had suffered some sort of allergic reaction that had basically resulted in what looked like an asthma attack. She said that it was unlikely that we'd ever be able to identify what had caused it, but recommended soaking her hay just in case it was caused by spores in the hay (she's fed a mixture of hay and haylage). Pony was given something to ease her breathing and make her more comfortable. The next day she seemed her usually chirpy self. The hoping is that this was just a one off reaction and that we won't see a recurrence. I certainly hope not, because in 10 years of owning her I think that was one of the most frightening experiences I've had. She really looked ready to keel over, poor pony.Anyway, I'm starting to think that my animals have some sort of conspiracy going to get me to move back home! Two weeks ago my cat got hit by a car (I spent most of the weekend cuddling him as his leg is pinned together with mental and he's confined to a cage most of the time) and then madam practically gave me a nervous breakdown on Saturday night! They don't seem to be able to cope without me
Here she is feeling much better on Sunday:
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