Swollen Legs, Why How and help please

[Blondievik]

Hi,
This is my first post so hope it comes across ok. My mare has got 4 swollen legs! Why? I brought her in to the yard this morning and all legs were up, No pain or heat, no cuts knocks or anything to suggust mud fever, no lameness, no temperture, eating ok. I'm a bit stumped and feel its my fault as I was bragging the other day that my wonderful mare is never sick or sorry or ever had any thing wrong with her.
My only suggestion is that she has gorged on the grass, its growing like mad and looks like spring again, or maybe she has eaten a different grass that maybe disagrees with her, Nothing else has changed and my other horse is not affected in anyway.
I've left them both in the small yard I have in front of the stables so she can move about and hopefully the swelling will go down. I would very much like to hear any ideas or suggestions as to what could have caused this. Sorry to go on a bit but I'm a bit stumped.

 

[Jellymoon]

This happened to my horse last year at around about the same time, late Aug/Sept. He was living out in the field 24/7 on no hard feed, and all four legs swelled up, but no lameness, heat, or injury to see. I was stumped too! Could understand it if he was stabled, but not while turned out.

Anyways, rang the vet, who said he'd come accross this before and he believed my horse had eaten some plant from the hedgerow that had caused a reaction. The don't know which plant it is, but it seems to come out at this time of year and cause swelling in some horses. His suggestion was to fence off the hedge and see what happens. If they were still swollen after a couple of days, he would come out and take some bloods as the other possible cause could be a virus.

I did this, and within a day, all four legs had gone down, and everything was back to normal. A week or so later, I took the temporary fencing down, and it hasn't happened since, and hasn't happened (yet!) this year. Very weird. The vet told me that he has one horse who's head used to swell up on the month of August from sticking it in the hedge and eating something! Once the owner fenced off the hedge, the problem went away.

So, it could be that.

 

[measles]

Welcome to the forum.

One of ours came in with two swollen back legs for no apparent reason 2 weeks ago and they have now gone down and are back to normal. I have no idea why this happened and was panicking that there was a strain of some kind - neurotic me had her with a huge tendon injury!

However, legs don't go up in pairs or all round with that type of problem so it must have been something else.

Is she lame? Ours was uncomfortable for the first few days just from the swelling I think.

I'd be really interested to hear others thoughts too. Let us know how she progresses.

 

[Blondievik]

thank you for your help. I took her for a hack and put on some magnet boots and her legs are back to normal. i suspect she must have eaten something but really appreciate the input and saved me vets fees.