Sycamore seedlings can kill

Thank you so much for posting this and I am terribly sorry for your loss.

Out field is currently riddled with seedlings and we have taken further advice from our vet and also the BHS who both maintain that seedlings themselves pose no danger. Obviously this is at odds with both your sad experience and the opinion of your vet. It is unlikely that individual vets will sing from the same hymn sheet but I think the BHS should perhaps hear from your vet.

In the meantime we are keeping the horses of the grass and will be pulling seedlings over the Easter weekend.
 
I am so sorry for your loss. We lost our cob in Nov 2011, to colic, however the vet felt there was something else underlying, and the more I hear and read about EAM the more I am convinced it was this. Very distressing, both for horse and owner. She hacked out Sunday lunchtime and was put down by 5am Monday morning, she went from being slightly sluggish and a bit 'off' to having muscle tremors, barely able to make it 60m from field to stable, making the weirdest blowing noise, pressing her head and leaning against the stable wall and eventually collapsing, despite being given pain killers, muscle relaxants and the usual colic treatments. At the end she did seem to briefly recognize my daughter and we take some comfort that she went feeling she was with those who loved her

She was 7, on very sparse grazing to keep the weight off. Our paddocks were surrounded by mixed native hedging that had become trees, my dad was actually half way round the property chopping them down and laying the hedges. I had seen her eating leaves and hadn't realy thought about stopping her - if only. Lets hope that the work will continue to ascertain exactly why it happens and what can treat it.
 
Magicmillbrook said:
I am so sorry for your loss. We lost our cob in Nov 2011, to colic, however the vet felt there was something else underlying, and the more I hear and read about EAM the more I am convinced it was this. Very distressing, both for horse and owner. She hacked out Sunday lunchtime and was put down by 5am Monday morning, she went from being slightly sluggish and a bit 'off' to having muscle tremors, barely able to make it 60m from field to stable, making the weirdest blowing noise, pressing her head and leaning against the stable wall and eventually collapsing, despite being given pain killers, muscle relaxants and the usual colic treatments. At the end she did seem to briefly recognize my daughter and we take some comfort that she went feeling she was with those who loved her

She was 7, on very sparse grazing to keep the weight off. Our paddocks were surrounded by mixed native hedging that had become trees, my dad was actually half way round the property chopping them down and laying the hedges. I had seen her eating leaves and hadn't realy thought about stopping her - if only. Lets hope that the work will continue to ascertain exactly why it happens and what can treat it.
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This sounds like what happened to my mare last summer. We got rather hazy inconclusive results back from the postmortum but she had really similar symptoms as you have mentioned - the muscle tremors, sweating, collapse and unable to get back up and it all come on so suddenly - 7pm one night she was fine, 6am the next morning it was a completely different story. Makes me wonder if she was suffering from this swell
what a horrible thing and thank you for raising our attention about it, I can only imagine I am not the only one who this is very new for
 
Magicmillbrook - that sounds so like Jason. Do you remember any discoloured wee? My other horse has been in intensive care with AM since Saturday lunchtime. If we had not seen Jason the previous week we would probably not have called the vet until it was too late. As it was we took him straight in & he had visibly deteriorated in the 40 minutes it took to travel there. Another couple of hours would have been too late. Even with intensive care 880% die. He's hanging in there but still very sick.
Talking with one of the senior Vets there on Saturday he reckons that it is far more common than realised & often misdiagnosed as colic or horses are pts because they are very ill from unknown cause. The research re sycamore is very recent - last summer & I think even a lot of Vets are still not up to speed. There is no current research funding & the only place that appears to have a current research interest is the University of Liege.
 
Hairycob, what did the test results say for Jason if you don't mind me asking ... did the vets diagnose atypical myopathy after he'd passed or did you have to do the research for yourself? My vets said there were really elevated levels of something in her muscles and a few other things, but didn't come to a final conclusion as to what it was ... just sent me a letter with loads of really technical terms which I could not make sense of, and didn't help when I rang out to try and get them to explain. I will have to dig out the letter and give it another read

really sending so many vibes for your boy in the horsepital, hope he continues to recover in the next few days and weeks, he is in my thoughts xx
 
This horrible illness seems so common now, about 5 years ago a livery yard owner had 4 mares on a field down the road from our yard, 3 of the mares went down with this and they lost all three the fourth never showed any symptoms, back then no one had ever heard of this in this country it was more common in parts of Europe, I really hope your horse continues to recover Hairycob x
 
With Jason the vet returned to the clinic to run bloods & collect IV fluids to give at yard. Muscle enzymes were off the measurable scale. No muscle biopsy was done but blood results, symptoms including sudden onset not associated with exersize & failure to respond to treatment all support AM diagnosis.
One of the problems is that early symptoms are often vague & at the level where you may think "keep an eye" rather than "vet now". I can honestly say that if I had not already lost Jason, I probably wouldn't have got HP to the vet when we did. As it was I was an hours drive away & a knowledgeable friend was updating me on the phone & sharer & her mum got him to the vet. I will forever be in debt to both of them. HPs early symptoms were just lethargy but rapidly developed from there. He didn't show any colic symptoms that were the first sign spotted in Jason.
I shall probably in future be a neurotic owner who will call the vet out on a saturday evening if my horse so much as looks at me funny.
 
Thank you for posting. One of my fields is absolutely full of these seedlings. My 2 are in a different paddock purely by chance. I will obviously now go and scour the one they are in. Thank you for the pictures - I didn't know what those little shoots were. X
 
So sorry to hear your news and was also unaware that sycamore seedlings were an issue in spring.

Interestingly my 2 have been out in a paddock with these seedlings in, but have not touched them in favour of the spring grass. I am keeping a close eye on them and will move them as soon as the grass gets low, with the long term plan to remove the nearby tree.
 
I have just been reading the various threads on here about sycamore. A few years ago we lost Phantom very suddenly (from being off colour to gone in 24 hours) His symptoms are almost the same as I have read. Thinking back, the field was surrounded by sycamores, a brook and woodland. I never knew about them :(
HairyCob, glad you have your lad home, sorry you lost one.
JJ
 
Hairycob - does your vet think a horse needs to eat a lot of seedlings or seeds to be affected or just a very few? It's the ones that are missed that become the worry. Thank you again for your very brave honesty, I'm sure it will save a lot of horses.
 
I know this is a old thread but thought it's worth reminding people about the danger. I've seen loads of seedlings this year.
Is there any more research on this horrid disease?
 
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Thanks. It's very worrying. I have spoken to people who don't take it very seriously as they say horses have been fine for years in these fields near sycamore. Difficult to explain when we know so little about it
 
There were a lot of deaths last autumn so they are expecting this spring to be bad too. I saw a post today were someone said AM is the biggest cause of recent death claims at NFU. Recording of cases is entirely voluntary & it is probably grossly under reported. There are a number of theories about why there appear to be more cases from better recognition to "something" affecting sycamore trees so more seeds contain the toxin. The toxin level varies hugely even on the same tree in the same year so it isn't an easy risk to assess.
 
Thanks for flagging this up, I've noticed a few seedlings and had no idea they were actually sycamore seedlings. I'll be trawling the paddocks tomorrow to remove as many as possible.
 
So sorry for your loss :(

I have found a few about my yard as the trees in the paddock blow back towards the house rather than into the field. Dads in a tree felling mood so I still may get rid of them.
 
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