I found a horse that would be a perfect compliment to our hobby farm herd. Except for the heaves. The horse is older and we’d keep him until the end, but I want to know how much he has left and what I can expect in the future.
Our horses live outside 24/7 with free choice hay, ample shelter, and concentrates/supplements/meds 2x/day. Pasture from May to September. Steaming and wetting hay would be very challenging in the winter (Wisconsin).
Tell me what end stage heaves looks like.
I arrived at my barn in time to see the last three months of life for a late 20s horse with severe, end-stage heaves compounded by significant seasonal allergies. He burned so many calories trying to breathe that they couldn’t get him above BCS 4, despite pouring on the senior feed. He lived out and was being maintained on twice-daily Ventipulmin with IM dex for exacerbations. It wasn’t my horse and no one asked me, but I wouldn’t let one go that far. He was in some degree of respiratory distress 24/7.
Contrast with: I also managed a mare who developed heaves shortly after arriving at our property. (She had lived out with her previous owner and apparently didn’t present in that situation.) She was never as bad as the first horse I described, but she did require a lengthy course of prednisone to get her back on track. My vet initially said she thought the mare would be on steroids for life. Surprisingly, she responded VERY well to management changes and maintained, no drugs needed, on 24/7 turnout and absolutely no hay, ever. We were able to manage pasture so that she had something to chew on all winter (more moderate climate than yours!) and she was a very easy keeper. In cold winters we supplemented with some bagged, low-dust forage. She had a nasty splint fracture one winter and was on strict stall rest for several months. Despite being in the best-ventilated stall on the property and religiously soaking her hay, she had to be pulsed with Ventipulmin a couple times to get her through. That mare lived into her mid 20s and was euthanized for unrelated reasons.
I would be very hesitant to take on a horse with heaves unless it had been well-managed for some time and I were in a position to replicate that management quite exactly.
I wouldn’t even bother with hay to be honest. I knew someone who kept all her older horses on Equine Senior. You can add soaked alfalfa pellets.
It shouldn’t be that difficult if you don’t mind keeping the horse close to the house. I keep my old mare as close to the house as possible as she needs multiple meals a day. It’s simpler to walk out and dump the feed bucket right over the fence that surrounds the patio. Then you don’t have to make multiple trips to the barn or pasture each day. Soaked feed is heavy to carry. I still make multiple trips because of my other horses, but it is so much easier keeping her close to the house.
Soaking hay is incredibly time consuming. I did that for one of mine- the vet thought she had heaves. It was actually inflammatory airways and she recovered fully. That vet was ready to write her off as a complete loss. Pfft. But i do not recommend soaking hay. Wet hay makes me itch like crazy! It’s heavy to lift. Just a lot of extra work. I could soak one meal a day, but multiple meals??? Ugh.
I had another horse start coughing severely after the neighbor burned. I guess he is sensitive to smoke. But it sure was embarrassing to have him coughing and hacking when I took him riding! He also fully recovered with a short course of steroids.
Even if the horse sounds bad, i would not hesitate to try treatment, as you have no idea how well the owners were managing the disease. If it is unmanageable, then euthanize. Nothing is worse then being unable to breathe. Some people feed cow hay, or leave hay in the rain and wonder why their horse has heaves.
In end stage heaves, they drop weight, and struggle to breathe. They may huff like they ran a race just standing in the pasture. They tend to overheat in summer, start huffing, and need to be cold hosed to bring their respiration down. You see this in Florida a lot with heaves.
Hay seems to be a major trigger. So does dust. Some are allergic to pasture grass (or the pollen in it) and can’t be on pasture. Full turnout with a shelter, is much better then being stalled for these horses assuming they aren’t allergic to pasture. You probably don’t want to feed hay anywhere near him.
If you have the time and resources to commit, then I see no reason for you not to try. If the owner is very negotiable on that price, and the horse has the training you want, then yes. But that price tag is too high in my opinion for a horse with medical issues. I paid $600 for my dead broke foxtrotter and she has no health issues. Unless he’s a show horse, i would not pay that much.
Heaves is degenerative, progressively getting worse as the horse’s lung scar up and lose capacity. A vet should be able to give you a good idea of how much of his lungs are useable. From there it’s up to you to keep it under control and get veterinary care whenever it flares up and fails to respond to your current treatment.
I have one with heaves who is most affected by heat and humidity. Prednisone worked well for him prior to his starting Prascend for PPID. Our current care is hay in slow feeder nets (round bales), RespiFree, and in the summer 1-2 Hydroxyzine (antihistamines) and exercise. I keep Ventipulmin on hand for flare ups and call the vet if the response is not what I expect, or if I’m seeing issues when I shouldn’t (caught pneumonia before it actually became pneumonia that way).
Exercise is a primary method of keeping him breathing. Not just to keep him fit (which minimizes the stress on his lungs - very important for the horse with heaves) but because exercise naturally triggers bronchial dilation. The effect lasts for hours. I have, without drugs (because I forgot to give them to him before I rode) gotten his resting breath rate from 32bpm to 18bpm with exercise. That day was fascinating because I checked his heart rate as well, before riding, immediately after I dismounted, and fifteen minutes later. Immediately after dismounting his heart rate was up from pre ride and his breath rate was down!
I check his breath rate multiple times during my daily visits to the barn and have a baseline rate that tells me if riding is optional that day. In 2017 it was 18bpm, in 2018 it was 20bpm (yes, 18-20bpm is high - those numbers were the best we could get after drugs and exercise in the heat/humidity - his cooler weather rate is much lower). Last year he was on restricted exercise (limited handwalk only) due to injury so he was on Prednisolone all summer. I expect to have to put him on Prednisolone as standard management eventually, but the longer we can put it off the better. I also use a stethoscope to listen to his lungs, and heart. It’s a bad day when the lung sounds distract from the heart beat.
Every summer brings new challenges in managing his breathing, but it is manageable and we have not reached the end of what we can do pharmaceutically. He’s still able to be off the drugs in the winter (lives outside with netted round bales) unless he gets exposed to an allergen in a bale. And I do my bit in getting his cardio vascular system fit in the spring before the heat arrives, and in the summer rides to open his airways.
Specific to your potential horse - it sounds like he is currently well managed on Trihist, and dry hay. The two key questions are what’s his current lung capacity? and are you willing to spend the time/money to keep on top of his heaves?
End stage heaves doesnt necessarily look any different than beginning heaves. Owned a horse that developed heaves( otherwise known as aspergillosis)when she was 15. We tried soaking her hay etc and that didnt do any good. The key for her was putting her outside to live, 24/7. No bringing in due to rain, snow, heat etc etc. lived outside for the rest of her life. And we took all hay away from her. She ate Equine Senior and soaked alfafa cubes and grass in season. She was a QH mare that was a very easy keeper. I put her down when she was 30 when she couldnt get up anymore. The heaves didnt enter into it. The only time she had trouble breathing was when she didnt want to do what you wanted to do. Then she’d huff and puff but if you turned her loose she’d take off like a racehorse. She was used as a trail horse and did well.
It really “depends”. No one can foretell the future with much precision, vets will give that a try if you like. Just how bad the case is, and how it develops over time, or whether it develops over time is something that you will find out, and can well be dependent on the care you can provide, and on luck. Have seen one case that “disappeared” entirely with a change in care. Had another case come in to board short term at our farm, and the owner refused to give Ventipulmin because she was afraid the horse would “flounder” if she did. I kid you not, it was heartbreaking to watch- that one was close to “end stage”. If you like the horse, and want to give it a try, you will have to know when to pull the plug and give up if things don’t go well, do what is right for the horse. Your best efforts may fail. Or not.
I wouldn’t knowingly take in heaves in that cold environment. If he needs wet hay you’d have to provide it.
I have a 34 year old pony that has struggled with heaves at some level since he was in his 20’s. In the past, I had always been at barns that I couldn’t control all of the variables. Type of bedding, spraying for weeds, etc. Since I have brought him home, I have been able to control pretty much everything about his daily life. The things that have helped in no particular order:
Feeding hay outside and on the ground. No hay nets and no round bales that he would love to bury his head in.
Spraying early and often for weeds. Buttercups were the bane to his breathing during the spring/summer.
Eating a mainly mash diet. This was brought about due to another old guy issue…leaky gut/ juicy fart syndrome. After trying many different supplements to help, the thing that made the most difference was increasing his short stem fiber (and senior feed/beet pulp didn’t help). I started adding 2-4 lbs of soaked timothy pellets to his diet per day. He now gets most of his winter time calories from soaked cubes and pellets divided into 2 feedings. He can chew on hay, and enjoys this activity, but he can’t chew it enough to make short stem fiber. The hay he swallows, without the added stf in his diet, was irritating his gut. During the grazing season, as long as the pastures are kept short, he can maintain his weight and gut health on grass alone.
No bedding in his stall or run in. There are times that this sucks, and I feel bad for him, but it is better for his health overall. I am going to try flax bedding and see if that would be a compromise. It is supposed to be dust free. He does love to lay down and take a nap. I try to make sure he has a couple of places that are stalky hay left overs as a bedding area for him.
Each of these things made a marked improvement over his breathing health, but the combination of all of the things has made it so he doesn’t have to be on ANY medication.
YMMV
I don’t see where his current owner is soaking the hay he gets, but rather feeds cleaner squares instead of having him sticking his head in a round bale( good choice). With the amount of riding and work he is getting his condition must be manageable.
He looks like a nicely trained, dead broke horse who is definitely worth a look if you can afford the monthly medicine requirements. At 14 he has many years ahead of him if you are diligent in his care.
Our mare was treated for heaves this August. She responded to soaking hay and a 3 week treatment of oral Dex. I no longer have to soak her hay as we are not 100% sure what actually caused it, but she is fine now at 18. We just watch her carefully.
Get a PPE and have the vet do a thorough check of anything affected by heaves. He is worth pursuing.
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