My Mare has been on Dexamethasone since October 18th for a cough my
Vet says is environmental. Started with slobbers then a pretty heavy cough
And fast respiration rate. We had a lot of rain and humidity over the summer. There was alot of musty smell in the barn so I emptied the barn and cleaned it up well while my mare was outside. I put down stall dry around the parameter inside the barn thinking it is a zeolite to help rid the Oder of must /mold. I rinsed her hay with the hose. I did have a handy man that admitted feeding her some old grain that was buggy and smelly. I got rid of the hay that was in the barn but don’t doubt spores got into the loft which is dry . My vet put her on Dexamethasone 4 mg October 18th. The weather here near Buffalo has thankfully gotten cold and the barn is free of mold/must to the human nose but I’m worried because after weaning and being off the medication my mare is coughing and breathing fast again. She has the choice of being outside 24/7 but refuses to stay outside at night. She has a very large stall of 12x20 of which I have bedding down in half the stall ( that’s where she lays down) I sweep when she is outside 3 Windows always open and a large door the size of a garage door is opened. So ventilation is good. Will this ever go away or will this kill her? She is 22 and heavy as she has always been an easy keeper and quite inactive since we lost her Buddy 3 years ago. Any suggestions or similar experience with the same problem? Thanks and hope I can find my post after posting and signing out.
I post the same thing to everyone. Have you had your horse allergy tested? If you don’t know what they are allergic to, you can’t make environmental or diet management decisions to improve their symptoms.
My horse was retired/unrideable this spring because I was feeding her hay with grasses she was allergic to and she was having symptoms even with steroids and antihistamines etc. flexineb made everything 10x worse. I switched her to timothy hay (one of the 2 grasses she was not allergic to) and her symptoms improved 99%. She stopped coughing and got off steroids completely. We are back to riding WT and trails and I’m confident i’ll be able to do more when the weather gets cooler.
I will note that the allergy shots did not work for my horse, but using the results to make feed decisions did majorly. If you are feeding your horse something they are allergic to (even if you are steaming the hay etc) they will still have symptoms unless it is specifically the mold/dust they are allergic and not the grass species itself. Good luck!
Thank You for your response. I did not mention I had to buy hay from a new supplier because my usual supplier had to stop for health reasons. I always fed Timothy with some clover. Found hay locally without pesticides that many horse owners recommended, I brought several bales of the new mix home to see if she would eat it and she seemed to do fine on it. Now that she’s been eating the new hay since Early October she has this problem. The new mix is 50% PS 2000 Brand Timothy, 30% Echelon Orchard Grass, 15% Balin forage Kentucky Bluegrass, 5% Payday Tetraploid Perennial Rye Grass. I don’t know where to send the hay to be tested and how does an allergy test connect the cause to the new hay? I’m so upset if I’m making my girl ill. It’s next to impossible to find hay anywhere in the winter months. I just assumed my vet knew exactly what is wrong with her. I’ll have to put some feelers out and get moving on this. Thanks again.
I had a gelding that was allergic to, well, everything. His allergies resulted mainly in hives though, with some respiratory symptoms. Allergy testing showed he was allergic to molds, fungus, most grains, quite a few grasses (hay), pine bedding. He was also allergic to injectable antibiotics since he was a yearling.
I ended up getting a load of canary reed hay and started him on allergy shots. He lived mostly outside in a shelter. For bedding when he did come in, I used, at different times, hardwood sawdust from a local mill (who could tell me what was in each load), bamboo, paper, peat moss. I also moved the manure pile further from his paddock, after two years of him breaking out in full body hives for 6 weeks in the fall. Moving the manure pile solved that.
Eventually, he was able to eat several hays he was allergic to, without going over threshold.
One of my first ponies had heaves. She was moved into a shelter with no bedding, and ate most of her hay outside, and that controlled the symptoms for a long time. She died with heaves, not from it.
I’ve had my mare for 15 years and this is all new. She’s been in the same barn anf pastures all this time and had a gelding Buddy up u til 3 years ago. this harsh cough and fast respiratory rate is the 1st she’s been sick in 22 years She shows zero signs of skin issues or itching or hives., the two changes were a hot humid very wet spring summer and fall causing musty mildew and mold growth and new hay. The hay isn’t dusty at all but is different mix of grasses listed in the post above. She did improve with Dexamethasone, time and the cold winter weather that is hitting us now but with weaning the cough returns. Sigh……
OP I feel your pain and frustration. I also have a horse who suddenly developed allergies. No heaves or increased respiratory symptoms but a really bad cough and significant mucous from said cough. His triggers are likely pasture associated. Trying to Sherlock Holmes out the source of the allergen is mind numbing but essential. There are myriad treatments for respiratory distress. My only caveat would be when you said your horse was on the heavier side and out of work. Dex can be problematic if your horse has any sort of metabolic predisposition. Inhaled steroids are safer but $$$$. In the end it’s kind of a guessing game of figuring out the etiology of the reaction. Is it the barn is it the pasture is it the hay etc and then easing back those symptoms with medication and management.
Every little detail matters. Keep a journal. Of what you adjust and what seems to help. What exacerbates the heaves and what relieves them.
Like soaking hay reducing dust switching to pelleted forage or soaked cubes adjusting bedding adjusting turnout etc etc etc
I don’t think 4 mg of Dex is a lot but monitor your horses hoof health check digital pulses. I could go on and on. I wish you the best.
It sucks this heaves stuff. My mare gets triggered by molds especially. Had some mild episodes this summer and one that required the vet for quick relief. When you say you smell “mustiness” that tells us you’ve got decaying organic material and maybe your trigger. You’ve got to find it. Everywhere. And get rid of it.
I started lifting up anything covering anywhere there could be hay etc and shocked at what I found. Under mats - even just at the edge. I had a stall devoted just to hay - filling hay bags, storing a bale in a cart. That sort of thing. Hadn’t had time/money to interlock mat the whole stall so just had plywood down in spots.
Lifted up the plywood and could SMELL the must. Got the tractor with front end loader and took the screenings down a couple inches till every damn piece of organic material was gone and then went and used a gallon of vinegar mixed with water and a watering can and watering the stall to kill anything organic. Once all that dried brought in more screenings and went and got the whole stall kit. Interlocked matted that stall and tightly fit in mat pieces to prevent anything from accumulating and breaking down.
Have not noticed ANY labored breathing since then.
You want this horse off dex and you don’t want breathing episodes. They do damage.
Heaves is such a PIA and has us constantly paranoid. It’s SHOCKING how much organic material starts accumulating because hay has all that chaf and hay pieces.
I don’t stall my horse but she has a stall to go in and lay down at night. Don’t feed in there. Hay bags hung outside under the lean.
I always remember the research that a university took in a bunch of heaves horses for study and found that just keeping them out 24/7 ended most all symptoms. That is the goal if possible.
Of course also not mowing so grass falls over, decays and molds. Ugh. It’s a constant battle.
You can either do a skin test or a blood test through your vet. They are not cheap, but it is the ONLY thing out of thousands and thousands of dollars that I spent that gave me any real information to make changes that improved her symptoms. This includes thousands in tests at LSU Vet School (they prescribed me a $1200/month drug - yes PER MONTH, not per year, which was not even remotely realistic), the flexineb, inhalers, supplements, drugs, yada yada yada. Highly recommend it!
I added some information above, but my mare was 10 when diagnosed, no previous issues. About 18 months of really bad days UNTIL I finally switched her off hay she is allergic to - 99% better, I was completely shocked actually. You really need to do an allergy test. If she is allergic to timothy (or whatever in her hay/feed), she will continue to have symptoms, even with steroids, etc!
Yes, we did the blood test, and it was very helpful.
Another vote for allergy testing.
My gelding has spent most of his life living out 24/7. Last fall he started having asthma attacks, coughing during exercise, and the last few years we battled skin issues. Things got better after the first few hard frosts, but not back to normal.
Allergy testing in the spring revealed allergies that I expected, weeds, pollens, mould, some insects. Luckily he isn’t allergic to any grasses. But it also revealed a couple things that I never would have though of - cats, wool, and dust mites. I had to go through my tack and double check if anything was actual wool or just synthetic. And I’m more careful making sure that all of his blankets get cleaned and I never leave them at the barn where cats could sleep on them.
Allergy shots have helped, not skin issues or asthma attacks this year. Still some coughing if the neighbours are burning things, or in the dusty indoor.
@Msloveeqines Just bumped into this old thread and hope your mare is doing better? How is she? Did you ever get a skin allergy test?
