Whistling noise?

[Florrie]

Re-posting in this category to see if I get any replies.

Posting on behalf of a friend.
A few days ago my friend at the yard she asked me why her horse why making whistling noises during trot and canter. Watched the horse being lunged and it was quite loud.
Watched the horse being lunged today and I couldn't hear it, however when I sat on his back and trotted him it was there but quiet.

I'm honestly baffled.
This is new behaviour, he wasn't doing this last week.
He is very unfit but I've been Googling and seen this http://www.equisearch.com/horses_car...es/eqnoise738/

Quite worried for her now. Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour/noise?

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

Does your friend mean whistling with his breathing or something else? Because geldings can make a weird noise, halfway between a fart and a "whoop", from their sheaths when tense. If it's definitely associated with her horse's breathing then she needs to ascertain if it's a harmless quirk or COPD/RAO. A starting point will be to count her horse's breaths per minute whilst calmly at rest in his stable. 1 breath in + 1 breath out = 1 breath. A normal, healthy horse should be 8 - 12 breaths per minute. As a contrast, my severely pollen-allergy damaged horse has a breaths per minute count of 45! It's easiest to count for only 30 seconds then double it. Watch carefully for the horse's sides to move out then in again and that's 1 breath. If he's way over the norm or if she has any concerns whatsoever, I'd recommend getting the vet out to listen to the horse's chest and lung sounds. If it's COPD/RAO at this time of year it's almost certainly caused by an allergy to the spores and dust in hay. If this IS the case then your friend needs to change the horse onto haylage (or soak his hay) immediately or she risks long term lung damage that would severely compromise the horse's exercise tolerance.

 

[Florrie]

Does your friend mean whistling with his breathing or something else? Because geldings can make a weird noise, halfway between a fart and a "whoop", from their sheaths when tense. If it's definitely associated with her horse's breathing then she needs to ascertain if it's a harmless quirk or COPD/RAO. A starting point will be to count her horse's breaths per minute whilst calmly at rest in his stable. 1 breath in + 1 breath out = 1 breath. A normal, healthy horse should be 8 - 12 breaths per minute. As a contrast, my severely pollen-allergy damaged horse has a breaths per minute count of 45! It's easiest to count for only 30 seconds then double it. Watch carefully for the horse's sides to move out then in again and that's 1 breath. If he's way over the norm or if she has any concerns whatsoever, I'd recommend getting the vet out to listen to the horse's chest and lung sounds. If it's COPD/RAO at this time of year it's almost certainly caused by an allergy to the spores and dust in hay. If this IS the case then your friend needs to change the horse onto haylage (or soak his hay) immediately or she risks long term lung damage that would severely compromise the horse's exercise tolerance.

Thank you for shedding some light!
And I do mean with his breathing.
She recently converted (with me as we share) from Haylage to Hay as for some reason the Haylage was making him quite quirky and fizzy. I'll pass this info on to her, is it recommend she should soak her hay then?

 

[AmyMay]

What does her vet think the issue might be?

 

[Chloe-V]

I'd be asking the vet for an endoscopy to be done.

We have a horse who does exactly this and it turns out to be an allergic reaction to gorse bush pollen and dust from menage surfaces. he has to work in a full nose net and have ventipulmin prn but that seems to control it well enough.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

Florrie, if it's an allergy to the dust and spores in hay (quite common) then she needs to either soak the hay or change back to haylage asap. IMO soaking hay is a messy, cold, horrible task and you need to be careful with the resulting run off as it's as polluting as raw effluent. I'd switch back to haylage and turn the horse out more! The coincidence of changing to hay and the whistling appearing strongly suggests it's a hay allergy. I wouldn't go for an endoscope immediately - start with the least invasive is my motto. If a change back to haylage doesn't bring about an improvement then your friend may need to rethink possible allergens. Be aware that once lung damage is done it often can't be UNdone, hence why change back to haylage or soak the hay asap.

 

[Cortez]

Whistling is more likely to be a partial paralysis of the vocal chord(s) than COPD. Get your horse scoped and then you'll know what's going on.