yearling with sausage legs!!!!cause?!

[amandaco2]

my yearling has had swollen legs for one-two days every now and again.
she had really swollen legs again today-the back ones were really fied all the way to her hocks, fronts just puffy.

she was walking and trotted fine on them.

i kept her in for a few hours fed her hay and shes gone back out with a grazing muzzle on now to keep walking about on them.

i cant see/feel any cuts or scrapes on her at all.

they are quite warm, shes never lame or sore on them.i cold hosed them for a few minutes to take some warmth out of them

the only thing i can see it coinsides with is moving onto new fields/a period of sun and rain.the first time i thought it was very slight mud fever(she does tend to 'blow up' at the slightest knock!)


she only gets fed hifi lite and topspec comprehensive and some hay so shes not over fed protein from the bucket.

do you think its most llikely the grazing/ flush of grass?my other horses legs are normal and she is on the same grass.

 

[henryhorn]

I would be worried enough to ask my vet to do some blood tests if this were one of mine I think, yearlings really don't get this and it would be best to know the cause.
You may be able to nip something in the bud now before it becomes a life long problem.

 

[harmony_]

is she kept in?
my tb's legs do the exact same throughout winter while she is stabled.

 

[amandaco2]

no she is living out.
shes been left out muzzled and the legs have gone down slightly, will check her later hopefullyn they will be normal by then!will call the vet for some advise
never had a horse with any puffy/filled legs before so was abit panicked by he yearlings elephant legs!
they are warm but not sore and shes not lame at all, or off her feed etc.
shes only had this thing at the new yard-maybe shes gone in the thistle patch and that has irritated her skin?!

 

[KrujaaLass]

Had this problem with my TB who was living out. Only change I thought of was that I had sprayed him with some old fly spray that I had made up year before. There was another post on here and her vet said it was something in the hedge and it is common in August. i kept my boy in and hosed him and his legs went down.I thought that being kept out it would go down but it did not. Keeping him in for one night seemed to work.

 

[amandaco2]

well her legs have gone down to normal now, still no heat or pain or lameness.she seems fine!will call the vet for advise at least though as tghis is the second time its happened in 6weeks

 

[Petrie]

This happened to one of mine about a month ago. He lives out and doesn't get any extra hard feed, so I couldn't understand it at all when his legs puffed up.

Rang the vet, he said it's most likely a protein reaction to something he's eaten, and they reckon it's something in the hedgrerow that crops up around July/August time, then seems to go away. He said they have one horse who's head swells up in August from sticking it in the hedge!

He advised that I fence off the hedgerow and see what happens. Lo and behold, the legs went down.

The vet said if they hadn't gone down, the next step would have been blood tests as it could have been caused by a virus, but luckily that wasn't the case with mine.

 

[AmyMay]

This happened to the yearling at my place too recently. Absolutely no cause could be found, and a couple of days of bute sorted it out.