Strange skin!?

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madginger

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Ok I may be over reacting here and worrying over nothing as everything is ok now but last night when I went up to the yard my mare was a little distressed, she was waiting by the gate to come in (very unusual behaviour as I normally have to walk miles to get her in!) her breathing was quite fast as if she had just run from the bottom for the field (which she probably had!) but the strangest thing was her skin texture, it looked almost like orange peel all over and was quite bumpy! She also kept on shaking her head up and down and twisting it to one side quite violently and pawing the ground. I brought her in and she seemed to settle but was still puffing, I walked her around which seemed to help and she was still intent in snatching up some grass as we walked so it could not have been digestive.

I kept an eye on her for 5 minutes and her breathing improved and she went back to her old self and the skin condition went down but this morning it is still a little bumpy.

Do you think that she may have rolled in something which reacted on her skin or got stung by something?

Sorry it is so long but any help/advice appreciated.
 
It sounds like urticaria, a hypersensitivity reaction. This can be to something she has eaten or had contact with. As long as the contact doesn't occur again it should settle but if severe they can require treatment by a vet for an anti-inflammatory injection.
Have you changed anything in her diet/routine/management recently? A new field, supplements, bag of feed, new washing powder can all have an effect.
Hope this helps.
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There are a few nettles in the field and they are nasty ones as I found out!

Nothing else has changed apart from her now being brought in at night but she is on the same bedding as always, same food etc. she is not rugged up yet so it cant be a reaction to her nice clean rugs!!!

Might have to get the weed killer out and get rid of the nettles!
 
Do you have a fly problem in your fields? This happened to a horse of mine once. He came in from the field with breathing difficulty and covered from head to tow in nettle rash. Vet thought it could have been caused by something he ate. So for a period of weeks I had to withdraw certain feeds and re introduce them gradually to see if anything caused the rash. Nothing. But what I did find was that if I covered him up with a fly rug and used a repellent with DEET in it didn't happen. I am convinced my horse suffered from an alergic reaction to certain fly bites. I even had to put a fly rug on him in the stable.

My vet told me that it is often quite difficult to try and determine what causes thease kinds of alergic reactions but in my horses case it wasn't from anything he ate.
 
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