So i guess i need to vent before i drive myself crazy.

Tuesday morning i woke up to a very sick horse. Before i could get back home from the 4 hr drive to the vet for the horse to have surgery, my son called  i had another horse sick. I got home loaded all my horses up to have blood work to see why i had two sick. Come to find out every one of them is very sick i just had two that was critical.

After examining my hay i believe i have blister beetles in my alfalfa. My vet confimed all sympotms was consistent with it.

I am now waiting on toxolgy report on my whole heard at the vets office on IV fluids and meds. Im sick to my stomach about everything. Iv researched till im losing my mind......

Oh NO!!!!! 

This is horrible to hear, you got my prayers

Was this hay grown in Texas? 

Sorry you and your poor horses are going thru this. Prayers they will recover quickly without any residual effects. Geez one of my worst nightmares... I love to feed alfalfa but it's so hard to find it around here, the good stuff anyway.. can you share where your hay came from? 

We had a bout with it years ago.  Two very sick horses.  Vet examined them and then took a flake of alfalfa outside into the sunlight and sure enough, striped wings.  They both recovered because we caught it early but it was frightening.  Plays havoc with their renal system. These two horses were stalled and this was their only choice of food other than their grain.  We had put the same hay in a hay mount for some horses that had free choice pasture and they wouldn't touch it.  It was some really nice alfalfa too.  

Thank yall! 

I really dont want to say which feed store i bought it from but i will say the alfalfa was coming out of North Texas to my feed store 

So far the vet is saying everyone will make a full recovery. 

Good news from the vet! Yay! 

Thats great news that your horses are doing good.

I hope that you let the feed store where you bought the Alfalfa from know about the Blister beetles in the hay. So the Alfalfa hay that they sell is grown in Texas? 

That's how I understood it. Our stores around here only sell alfalfa from Arizona or California... but it's not that great. I'm really contemplating on making the switch back to cubeit cubes. The hay has been so stemy lately a lot gets left on the ground. 

Yes my feed store is in Louisianna but the owner told me the 2 strand bales i bought came out of North Texas. Iv always been told not to buy alfalfa grown from North Texas . I honestly thought his hay was from New Mexico but he said just his 3 strand bales came from New Mexico.

I let my feed store know .....

I probably wouldn't want to buy alfalfa from NM either.  We lived there for 3 years and it was pretty well known they had issues with beetles. At least around the area we were. 

I'm really happy that your horses are going to be ok! So scary. 

Yep, Texas Alfalfa is a big fat no no to feed. I knew a few Alfalfa growers in the Rio Grande Valley way back and Oh boy what a mess for the beetles.  

I was visiting a barn in Louisianna years ago when nine horses died in one morning from blister beetle. They were feeding a alfalfa based pelleted feed from a national company that was made in Texas. The sales rep for that company told the barn owner that the alfalfa used was from Texas but the pelleting process neutralized the cantharidin (the toxin) in the beetle so it was safe. That is simply not true. All nine horses were finished cutting horses that belonged to customers of the trainer that owned the barn. Lots of explaining to do. Hearing those horse suffer was what nightmares are made of.

Soooooo.... if alfalfa is used in your pelleted feed you need to track down where the alfalfa came from. And does the feed company use the same source continually. Sigh.....  you don't hear of BB poisoning coming from pelleted feed very often,  if at all, in my case... but mostly from infested hay. 

What we have been through with our herd has been a true nightmare. I am blessed they are all alive. I feed about 6 am and i'm thankful I found the first one then and we acted fast. He was in pain i'v never seen before. It was your average colic X10.

Part of one beetle can kill a horse. There is no way to neutralize the toxin. The instance I cited above was directly from pelleted feed made in Texas with Texas alfalfa as the base ingredient. Most companies will not take that risk, and source the alfalfa from safe regions. This was one of the top national feed companies. They paid for the horses. 

A race horse trainer asked his hay guy to guarantee there were no blister beetles in the alfalfa he sold him.  Hay guy agreed.  Several of the horses died of blister beetle poisoning and the trainer sued him......and won.  

My alfalfa cubes come from Canada.

I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this.  Prayers for some awesome recoveries for all of your horses.

I was talking to a lady the other day about some feed she had in her store ... she had me sold on it until she mentioned the company grows all their own alfalfa in Texas ... no thank you...