Yes, I have the Haygain. Although they are expensive, they work well. I have the smallest one, but wish I had gone with the next size up and may eventually end up buying that one.
How good is the ventilation in the barn? Can he have an open window in his stall? Be next to a door that’s cracked open? Is there an indoor attached to the barn? IME those are the worst.
Agree that attached indoor can be quite bad for horses with respiratory issues. Hay storage loft above the stalls can also be an issue.
Thank you so much for the kind words and advice. My goal with him was to event, but that can’t happen when he can’t breathe well. So maybe jumpers when he gets better. He’s coming 6 and a big 17h warmblood so we haven’t done much jumping yet.
That makes a lot of sense. My horse has never seen a round bale though. Maybe I will inspect the straw that the other horses are on for mold.
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Wow, you didn’t have any side effects with that? My horse stops coughing with around 4-8 mg oral a day, which is around 2-4 mg that gets into the bloodstream. However, I don’t think I could show with dex, I’ll have to check the rules.
It was a cow barn, so the ceilings are low. He has a window and I have it open a few inches. I was going to open it more but it’s covered in ice now. The barn he is in is attached (but has a closed door) to another unheated barn which has the indoor. There’s some ventilation but I wouldn’t say it is very good because they’re trying to keep the warm air in.
The hay is kept in a separate barn.
My 11yo OTTB developed horrible allergies and coughing this summer (I’ve had him since he was 3) and it continued into fall and winter. I took him to Cornell and had intradermal allergy testing and respiratory diagnostics performed. He’s allergic to everything. Even me! The vets at Cornell said 80% of horses respond well to immunotherapy, although it can take a year or even more to be most effective.
He was also diagnosed with equine asthma. I just completed a 10-day course of the Aservo Equihaler, which is a relatively new horse inhaler, using a new drug. He used to cough so much at the canter he would nearly fall down, now he coughs once at the beginning of a ride - he got his last dose a week ago.
He lives out 2/47, which was the number one thing vets said could make a positive change, but we were already doing. He does eat off of a round bale, but it is in a net that prevents them from burrowing their faces into it. The vets said the round bale was the one thing they could pick on his environment for, but there’s no alternative if he’s to stay on pasture board.
I’m hoping the Equihaler holds him over until the immunotherapy really starts to work. Zyrtec and Benadryl didn’t do much for him, and while dex provided immense relief, he also went right back to being horrible as soon as he was off of it. Good luck!
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Glad your horse is doing so much better!
What was the drug?
The drug is unique to being used for horses in the new inhaler, which is about a year old. It’s called ciclesonide. https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/animal-health/companion-animals-products/aservo-equihaler
Thank you!
It would be nice if they had studied administration with different styles of inhalers. I have the Aerohippus which seemed to do a great job of getting the bronchodilator we tried into my horse’s lungs … but she had a reaction to either the drug or the carrier. Of course she did. Because my horse. lol Anyway, I shall talk to my vet to see if it might be worth giving ciclesonide a try with the Aerohippus. Or it could be that is the drug they had in mind last time we talked inhaled steroids as opposed to systemic since systemic is not an option.
