Sycamore poisoning

[Ample Prosecco]

A pony on our yard died last night. yesterday afternoon she was a bit wobbly, moving awkwardly and sweaty and local vet said maybe colic. But not sure. She suggested hospital. My yo took her up to Leahurst who identified sycamore poisoning and she was supported intensively to try and save her but she died overnight.

It’s an absolute tragedy for her owner but also worry for everyone else. The sycamore trees are fenced off. I know seeds /leaves can travel but how far and in what numbers to kill a young, fit healthy pony in less than 24 hours?

 

[HashRouge]

That's so sad AE
We had one come down with it on our yard last January, the morning after he arrived on the yard (he'd turned up about lunchtime the previous day). We don't even have any sycamore trees anywhere near our winter fields, so the debate remains as to whether he'd actually started with it before he arrived, or whether he'd picked up something that had blown in. Although I've never seen any sycamore seeds/ leaves in that field. We all went over it with a fine tooth comb afterwards and couldn't see a thing. My understanding is that atypical myopathy is caused by the presence of the HGA toxin and that some sycamore trees contain large amounts and others don't. So presumably a horse could consume a small number of leaves/ seedlings, but if they contain a lot of the toxin then it could prove fatal very quickly. I don't know though - I'm sure others will have more info. I do know that sycamore is a tree I wouldn't want in my autumn/ winter grazing, even fenced off, as the seeds can travel quite far. Unlike acorns which tend to fall pretty much below the tree because they are quite heavy.
The horse on my yard survived btw, rather miraculously.

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

There seems to be more cases this year the warm summer we had causes the trees to go into overdrive and produce more seeds, and then we had the wet windy weather that blows them further I've found them everywhere.

I was speaking to my vet a few weeks back and he said its often down to the individual horse some will eat them and some just don't, I have spent time watching mine graze and they seem to totally disregard anything that isn't grass.


Really sad for the owner and the poor pony though.

 

[MissTyc]

I find it so worrying. We don't have any trees on the yard per se, but are on a hill, so every tree within a mile blows its seeds and leaves onto our land. With 40 acres of ranging, you can't just "collect them" as one vet advised us. I don't know any area within 20 miles that doesn't have sycamore trees within blowing distance

So sorry about the pony on the yard. It's such a worry too.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Our yard in is woodland! As was my old yard. No one grazes the actual field near the trees but like you say, they blow everywhere. It is just so sad.

 

[meleeka]

That’s very sad news I’ve found a couple of seeds in my field. I haven’t seen anymore than that, but like you say, how much is dangerous? It just seems like such a lottery and another thing to worry about. The weather seems to be making all the things that can kill them worse

 

[HappyHollyDays]

That’s so sad for the owner.

I have 7 sycamore trees around my track. This year has been horrendous for seeds falling during the heatwave and now the remaining seeds and leaves falling. In the interests of safety and after getting a few warnings from my vets to say they were seeing more cases of AM than usual I moved my two. The stress of trying to keep them safe was horrible and once everything has fallen I’m going to blow the track clear as there are far to many to rake up.

 

[Birker2020]

Atypical Myopathy is dreadfully sad for all involved. So sorry. Very stressful for you all. Apparently the seedlings can travel up to 200m.
It says stop feeding horses on the ground (if you do this already) and use hay feeders instead and limit horse time out to 6 hours max.

 

[suestowford]

I asked my vet about this once, how many seeds/seedlings would it take to make them ill, and she said it wouldn't take many. About half a dozen if they were full of the toxin.
We are surrounded by sycamores so am currently combing the field every day. Luckily we can fence off one end, and the wind has blown all the seeds up to the other end of the field but it's still an awful job. I am halfway up my third bucketload, the drought has prompted all the trees to produce much more in the way of seeds than usual. At least it's keeping me quite bendy in my old age!

 

[Sossigpoker]

Sadly about 20 seeds if full of the toxic substance can kill a horse

 

[smolmaus]

We had sycamore trees bordering our field and my friend was very on the ball about it, we are both first time horse owners but were the only ones who seemed concerned. It was pretty disheartening to just be told "there's never been any problems before". Thankfully our vet has been vocal on social media about it and another new livery was more forceful about at least taking down the branches that directly overhang the paddock, her young lad was eating leaves right off the tree because he's so big.

When Sadie colicked in September I was terrified it was AM, it was the first thing I said to the vet.

 

[SEL]

They don't need much sadly. It's one of the reasons I'm still putting a fair amount of hay out even though their waistlines could do with less - I'd rather they were a bit fat and not browsing on fallen leaves / seeds. Nowhere near the tree but we've had high winds ...

It's been a bad year for it.

 

[suestowford]

While I was picking up seeds yesterday I found one that had started to sprout! Never seen that before in November.