Anhydrosis: sweating again?

[quietann]

So… Spinning off from the anhydrosis supplement thread…

Has anyone had a horse just start sweating again, without intervention? 'Cause I have one.

Feronia is 27, retired, and has had anhydrosis for 5 ish years. We’re in Massachusetts so it does get hot and humid in the summer. I’ve used various supplements, acupuncture, and Equiwinner patches, all of which helped some, until they didn’t.

So I was worried about how hot it would get on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Upper 90s, and over 100 on Tuesday, and quite humid. When I visited her on Monday, it was 96 F, and she was sweating in all the appropriate places. Ditto yesterday and today. I hadn’t started any anhydrosis treatment, because we had a cooler and wetter spring than normal. Yesterday, the record-breaking hot day, she apparently was outside of her shed in the sun for most of the afternoon.

She’s completely normal othrwise. Eating and drinking fine, cranky about being hosed off, cranky about the epic bugs, perky… Just her usual self.

Weird.

Photo for tax (and yes that right knee is worrisome…)

[Marla_000]

Does she get extra salt in her feed?
This is my first time having a
Non sweater in Fl. After having many many horses and over 50 yrs.
But our brutal heat started back in April. She gets 2 TB. Salt in feed year round. But she’s black
And in April still had a heavy coat

I hope your mare continues to sweat but I’d still watch her carefully.
.

[Texarkana]

I’ve had 3 anhidrosis horses and all 3 had summers where they didn’t sweat and summers where they were fine without much rhyme or reason.

[quietann]

Yes, 2 TB salt per day. I’m watching her as this is such a surprise.

[RhythmNCruise]

I wish mine had done as well as you pretty girl over the past few days down here in NC. Monday he was okay, slightly sweaty, not huffing and puffing. I hosed several times, fans left on all day and night. Yesterday, coat was a little drier and slightly elevated breathing. More hosing, fans left on. He’s been in the barn under the fan every time I’ve gone out to check on him, so he at least knows where to go. Today, barn manager called just as I was turning onto the road to the barn to let me know my horse was standing in his stall breathing heavily, no sweat. I got there and sure enough. I’ve seen him worse (really blowing hard), but it was bad enough. Hosed for a long, long time, gave a bath, and he was closed up in his stall with hay and water and fan for the rest of the afternoon. At evening feed he was fine, though still a tiny bit of heavier breathing. Got hosed down again, and thankfully some thunderstorms were kicking up around us (never directly where we were) and the wind started whipping, clouds started filling the sky, and the temperature dropped a good 15 degrees almost immediately. Mr. Horse was very glad, as was I.

I procrastinated on starting One AC this year and just started him on it Monday, which was the first of the really hot days. I bought two containers and I feed two scoops twice a day. I’ll keep feeding it, hoping that he resets with this little drop in the temps (still hot, but not 110 heat index hot!).

I’m eyeballing those Equiwinner patches. I’ve only used One AC and Platinum Refresh (switched back and forth between them one year), and I THINK they worked, but it took the weather cooling off so the horse could reset, and I swear if it got brutal again, he’d still all but stop sweating. Those patches sound interesting (if a little magical).

Might stop and buy him some beer on the way to the barn tomorrow, LOL. I’ve never tried that either.

[quietann]

It’s one of the things about anhydrosis - it’s so hard to predict what’s going to happen. Feronia also has mild heaves, but the two conditions don’t track each other much. I’m curious to see whether she will still sweat when the temperature drops a little.

She is outside 24/7 and her shed has a solar powered fan, which isn’t very strong but she seems to cope. The BO is adding solar powered ventilation fans to draw air through the shed more.

[Amberley]

In my experience as long as it cools off at night relative to the days heat they will sweat. Once the temperature differential is too small they stop. That happens some summers here but most of the time it does not, so we get intermittent non-sweating as described above.

[quietann]

The Equiwinner patches worked for Feronia, enough to make them worth buying again. But I still think they’re voodoo.

I realized today that there was another time I saw her in a full sweat; it was over the winter when the BO had brought the horses up to the barn for the farrier. They were all blanketed, though Feronia is blanketed more lightly because she runs a little warm. So I arrived, and she was in a stall that was maybe 45 degrees, wearing a 100g blanket, and she was quite sweaty underneath it. I was surprised because it honestly had been years since I’d seen her in a full sweat, other than a few times when she’d been sedated.

[quietann]

But that’s the thing… In this little heat wave, the overnight temperature was maybe 15 degrees lower, so still in the 80s. So not much of a drop.

The extreme heat is over now, and we’re supposed to have 2 days with highs around 70 to 75, and mid to low 50s at night.

[Amberley]

I think its the number of days in a row that really does it. You’d probably have to collect a ton of data to really tease it out.

I am so jealous you are having those nice temps, I don’t think it will be 70 during the day here for months, sadly.

[RhythmNCruise]

Yeah, I’m jealous of those temps too. I’m happy to see upper-80s as highs next week! It’ll be at least late September or early October before we see any high temps in the 70s again.

And I agree, it’s when there isn’t enough of a cool down overnight that it seems mine stops sweating. When it’s still 80-85 degrees at midnight, that’s brutal. Yesterday’s actual temperature got to 102, I think. That was when I was heading out to the barn for evening feed. Thankfully the storms blew up and around us and cooled it down (to the mid/upper 80s instead of 98-102). I think it was 74 this morning when I went out. Brrrrr! (LOL!)