Volcanic ash plume toxic to horses?

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lynne_macleod

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HI All,

Does anyone know about the consequences of the ash plume falling on the grazing and in the water that our horses and other grazing livestock are ingesting? I have been checking the met office reports and looking on the Defra website at: http://www.defra.gov.uk and looking other stuff up, but i'm getting more worried and confused. Has anyone else heard or know anything please let me know.

This is what i have found out so far:

Updated information received from the Met Office on weather patterns in the UK now indicates that a small fraction of the Icelandic volcanic plume is likely to reach ground level over the UK tonight (16th april) and tomorrow morning, and low levels of sulphur dioxide are expected in the plume although this is not expected to be a significant threat to public health. DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT GRAZING LIVESTOCK.

The volcano is still erupting in pulses and ash dust has been detected in Scotland, south-east England and as far south as Exeter. It must be noted that particles are unlikely to be visible to the human eye, unless they fall to the ground.

Even with very light ash falls that do not destroy existing pastures, animals may need to be provided with uncontaminated feed. For example, if the ash contains a high level of fluorine adsorbed onto the tiny particles and livestock consume both ash and fluorine, there is a risk of fluorosis. Chronic fluorosis causes death. Before death, however, the poisoning causes lesions in the nose and mouth, and hair to fall out around the mouth. Other symptoms include nutritional and stress related diseases, convulsive seizures, pulmonary odema, and kidney and liver changes. A tooth condition known as “spiking” may also occur, causing outgrowths to develop on molars and making chewing difficult.

Ash falls may be poisonous to livestock and result in clinical diseases, including hypocalcaemia, fluorosis, forestomach and intestinal damage, and secondary metabolic disorders. The first sheep deaths began nine days after 1-3 mm of ash fall, and continued for 7-10 more days. Age (young stock are more at risk than mature animals) and health of livestock.Fluorine poisoning can start in sheep at a diet with fluorine content of 25 ppm. At 250 ppm death can occur within a few days.a quantity as small as 28 mg per kilo of body mass is fatal. http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/15-04-2010/113035-icelandic_ash-0
AGAIN I COULDN'T FIND ANY RESULTS FOR HORSES

Fluorine aerosols in the eruption column and cloud that become attached to fine ash particles pose a potentially significant threat to livestock. As smaller ash particles have large surface areas relative to their mass, the fine particles can transport significant amounts of soluble fluorine onto pastures far downwind from an erupting volcano. The smallest ash particles travel the greatest distance from a volcano; thus a thin layer of fine ash only 1 mm thick can contain potentially toxic amounts of fluorine. Livestock ingest fluorine directly as ash is consumed along with pasture feed and soil.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/NewsCentre/NationalPressReleases/2010PressReleases/101415volcanicplume/
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/volcano.html
http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/latest/2010/environ-0415.htm
 
Seeing as the amount of ash on my car this evening wouldn't add up to a mm if I collected it all up and put it in a test tube, I really wouldn't worry too much about it. The amounts falling are really very small and I'm not going to get myself worked up over it.
 
If you have read somewhere that this volcano is different and the horses aren't being affect please let me know where?

Research from another volcano shows that 70% of the horses in Iceland were killed by volcanic ash poisoning and starvation after the 1783 eruption of Lakagígar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_horse

Toxic gases poisoned the plants and vegetation, which in turn killed the livestock. Eight of every ten sheep are thought to have died, while half of all the cattle and horses perished.
 
I'm not going to debate facts with you, but look at the sheer volume of ash if they have. This ash is distributed over a very large area. Any gases are diluted. There is advice going around for people with pet birds (who are extremely sensitive to gases) in outdoor aviaries to just cover the aviaries up, or keep windows closed.

I refuse to worry about something over which nobody has any control. We can't do anything about it.
 
lynne_macleod said:
If you have read somewhere that this volcano is different and the horses aren't being affect please let me know where?

Research from another volcano shows that 70% of the horses in Iceland were killed by volcanic ash poisoning and starvation after the 1783 eruption of Lakagígar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_horse

Toxic gases poisoned the plants and vegetation, which in turn killed the livestock. Eight of every ten sheep are thought to have died, while half of all the cattle and horses perished.
Click to expand...

According to the BBC, the 1783 eruption also killed 20% of the human population of Iceland. Not sure that makes it any better, but I think we'd have heard if Icelanders were dropping like flies this time.
 
Toxic gases, in quantities sufficient to injure both livestock and humans, occur only within the fairly immediate vicinity. There are a number of toxic gases associated with volcanic eruption, sulphur being the most immediate and deadly. However there needs to be a fairly high concentration and all gasses disperse in the air. There is no risk from poisoning here.

The reason the horses died in 1783 was a mixture of immediate death from poisoning and slower death from starvation. Ash covered the ground to the extent they were unable to graze. Later the grass had died from prolonged lack of light. Iceland suffers an eruption of some sort most years. There has been no mass deaths for the last 300 - that does perhaps put this in perspective.

That said - there is a very small risk that early harvest hay might be fractionally more dusty than it might otherwise have been - although the ground is now quite dry so there would have been a level of dust from the mowing process anyway. If your horse has COPD or similar then you would be using soaked or dust extracted hay and bedding anyway. If he doesn't then it shouldn't be a problem to him.

Unless the dust fall becomes far more signfiicant than it is now there is no realistic risk. The place to check really is DEFRA as they would issue an alert to farmers if necessary.
 
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