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 Warrior Mom
Posts: 4400
 
| My 4 yr old colt will sometimes cough when we first start out warming up, I'm suspecting allergies to dust or whatever is in the air at the time, hes only stalled overnight but my barn is very open and airy and my stalls are kept clean/dry with shavings and sweet pdz to absorb the ammonia smell. It's not every day he does it but enough for me to take notice and want to try to fix it. I see there are a few things available to try.. one I see at my feed store is cough free... is there anything else that would be better to try? |
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Gettin Jiggy Wit It
Posts: 2734
 
| try watering down his hay really good. If you feed from a hay net just put the hay in a net and dunk it in a bucket of water and let it fully submerge. Works great and easy. If he's in a stall then being confined with hay that close maybe causing enough irritation. Sounds like you are doing a good job keeping the stall clean. Also do you have a loft full of hay above him? Lofts above or around stalls can cause allergies to start up too. From all the vetting I've done with respiratory... Hay, even good hay, is the number one cause of respiratory allergies. |
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Warrior Mom
Posts: 4400
| WetSaddleBlankets - 2018-11-28 11:38 AM
try watering down his hay really good. If you feed from a hay net just put the hay in a net and dunk it in a bucket of water and let it fully submerge. Works great and easy. If he's in a stall then being confined with hay that close maybe causing enough irritation. Sounds like you are doing a good job keeping the stall clean. Also do you have a loft full of hay above him? Lofts above or around stalls can cause allergies to start up too. From all the vetting I've done with respiratory... Hay, even good hay, is the number one cause of respiratory allergies.
I've never tried wetting his hay. I do feed out of a slow feed net in the stalls so that'll be easy to do. His stall is actually next to the stall where we store our hay and tractor... I can try to move him to the other end and see if that'll help him. There is a tin wall put up between his end stall and where the hay is but still it may be contributing to his allergies. Thanks for the suggestions |
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 Expert
Posts: 5290
| My mare is extremely sensitive to dust...I try my best to make sure my hay is not dusty but sometimes you get a bale with some dust so I just take a hose and spray it down a little. She HATES wet wet hay. Won't touch it. You can get a bottle of stuff called " Cough Ease". Horses love it and I give her a squirt about 10 minutes before I ride and she never coughs. Its like 16.00 a bottle. At races she gets a dose couple hours out and one just before I get on. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 885
| I agree 100% with watering your hay down in a net, but I would dump it in a feeder or on the ground after it is dunked. I will NEVER use a hay net to feed ever again. I lost my 7 month old Firewater Ta Fame colt a month ago to him getting his foot in a hay net & he broke his leg. Yeah people say, tie it high, but horses eating high can cause neck soreness. Horses were meant to eat low. And yes I had that net tied high, it was just one of those freak accidents. I will never get over what happened to him. You have no idea of the horrific ordeal I went through that morning. |
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  Sock eating dog owner
Posts: 4553
Location: Where the pavement ends and the West begins Utah | for that horse straw instead of shaving. some horses dont do well with chips. you may need to add some kind of probiotics to his feed. dont stall if you can help it. |
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Warrior Mom
Posts: 4400
| okhorselover - 2018-11-28 6:01 PM
I agree 100% with watering your hay down in a net, but I would dump it in a feeder or on the ground after it is dunked. I will NEVER use a hay net to feed ever again. I lost my 7 month old Firewater Ta Fame colt a month ago to him getting his foot in a hay net & he broke his leg. Yeah people say, tie it high, but horses eating high can cause neck soreness. Horses were meant to eat low. And yes I had that net tied high, it was just one of those freak accidents. I will never get over what happened to him. You have no idea of the horrific ordeal I went through that morning.
I'm so sorry to hear about your colt. That's awful. I use a slow feed net with very very tiny holes, no way anyone can get a hoof or leg thru, I hang them about chest high against a solid wall and they are hung over a large water tub (it catches hay and I use it to feed their grain in) bolted into the wall, so they cannot get remotely close to the net with their feet. But I know all too well about freak accidents! Kinda ot but last week I had my lab puppies turned out in the backyard, theyve worn collars for as long as I can remember, they play pretty rough with one another, anyway, I just happen to have my kitchen window open and I heard what sounded like dog fighting and struggling.. I ran out to find one pup with the other pups collar caught in her mouth and twisted around her bottom jaw... choking the other one badly .. they were completely stuck and panicking! The collar was so tight around the bottom of her jaw it was bleeding and the one being choked eyes were bulging.. I managed to get them still long enough to find the snap on the collar of the choking dog and release it. So scary .. both pups are ok thankfully! I'm just glad I was home.. had i not been, both probably would have died. Obviously i removed the collars... no more for them unless we are going walking. |
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Warrior Mom
Posts: 4400
| cow pie - 2018-11-28 8:46 PM
for that horse straw instead of shaving. some horses dont do well with chips. you may need to add some kind of probiotics to his feed. dont stall if you can help it.
This horse has been stalled with shavings since he was a yearling and has never had an issue with them. Hes also on platinum performance, if I'm not mistaken doesn't that have probiotics in it? |
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 Reaching for the stars....
Posts: 12704
| Zan has always had that warm up cough. I have spent thousands and hours trying different processes and diagnostic tests and drugs to help. Clembuterol helped the most but he reacted badly to it being a steriod (he's a stallion) and I've never wanted to put up with the raging stallion thing again. I do use Air Power pre-ride both at home for works and for runs. He finally bled this last September and is now a lasix horse. We ran in our first show with lasix last weekend. I can say absolutely that it did not act as a performance enhancing drug! He landed 3 checks, but all a division down from his normal. But he did not bleed.
He never had anything worrisome going on when scoped, and we've done that 3 times in 10 years. He has been on different feeds and hays in those 10 years. He's been in completely different environments from his training year then to home. Coughed at all places. He was in a stall during training and then outside with a run in shed since. I have never found the why, still. Exercise induced bleeding is all I can get for the bleed.
Good luck - it is terribly frustrating to want to help a horse and you can't figure out how or what is wrong!
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 Take a Picture
Posts: 12838
| I have a horse with a cough right now. I have always fed chicken crumbles with aureomycin in it and clears it right up. I search half the night for crumbles that have aureomycin. Apparently aureomycin is a prescription now. Bummer |
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Nut Case Expert
Posts: 9305
Location: Tulsa, Ok | One of my geldings has a "warm-up cough". It is caused by a partially obstructed esophogous. Food/gras debris apparently catches in the obstruction. When you start to long trot or lope he often will cough several times to clear and than he is good to go. It has never effected his breathing and certainly not his eating!
Edited by SC Wrangler 2018-11-29 10:48 AM
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Warrior Mom
Posts: 4400
| Today he only coughed once when we started working then he was totally fine for the rest of the time. Hes being legged back up currently after a few months off. He didn't cough for 10 laps each direction at a long trot or 3 laps of loping. I think I was more winded than he was! But in my defense he was the 2nd one I rode this morning lol! |
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