STEAM THE HAY …it’s the gold standard for any respiratory issues and it also won’t freeze …and it increases palatability as well
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You are lucky. Thankfully by then I didn’t need to soak it anyways.
This particular horse has been referred to by one of my friends as “Hoover”.
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All 3 of mine would fit that category but at wet, frozen, ice covered hay they all drew the line. I can’t blame them!
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What?? I was literally just asking a question. Geez. If you’re going to have that type of attitude, by all means, move along.
And FYI, hot water could actually freeze FASTER than cold water. Google the Mpemba effect.
Interesting on the heart issue thought. She normally has excellent stamina; can lope circles forever without getting winded. I’ve only ever experienced her getting a little bit tired one time, and that was day three of a 3-day barrel racing clinic that was pretty strenuous.
I’m unfortunately not scheduled with my vet for a while but I am on the schedule for further testing, and thankfully, my horse has been getting better in the meantime. Spring grass is starting to come up so they aren’t eating hay at all anymore, unless she’s tied at the trailer. I’ve also been practically pumping her full of alfalfa pellets; she lost some weight as a result of this ordeal and I’m trying to get her to gain the weight back.
I rode her three times this week, the first two very light and easy, and she seems pretty much back to normal. But I would like to figure out what caused this episode so it doesn’t happen again in the future!
I’ve continued her on the CEP Daily Lung, as well as added the THE omega cookie and MVP Airway EQ, until further testing at the vet. And continuing the PEMF treatments as usual, and keeping dex on hand this time in case she ever has a flare (with permission from the vet of course).
While I have never purposefully fed frozen hay, I don’t think any of my horses would eat frozen hay. As expected, they always go for the inside of the round bale when they eat it, and they never eat the “shell” that has the snow and ice on it.
Horse ownership is all about doing the best you can, given your own, personal situation, especially when you are living in a place that freezes solid for a good part of the year.
While I was living in the UP of Michigan, which experiences wicked amounts of snowfall and below zero temperatures, there were a few horses boarded alongside mine that had heaves. Soaking hay was just out of the question; there was no barn and no way to keep the hay palatable to the horses. The difficulty of managing the heaves wasn’t in the winter when there wasn’t a bunch of dust and pollen in the air, or when the horses were in little to no work, or eating from round bales most of the time, but in the hotter, summer months when the air quality decreased and the temperatures soared.
Get to the vet appointment, and see what they say and recommend for your area. I know how much convenience round bales offer in places with very heavy winters, but I’d think buying higher quality square bales and hanging them it in nets from the ground would help encourage the excess dust and particles to fall out.
Best of luck.
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Seconding the suggestion to get allergy tested, even if all you can manage is the blood test. Only the skin test is truly accurate, but imo the blood test is better than nothing. In most asthma/heaves cases there is something that is triggering it. If you can find out the trigger you can try to eliminate or reduce exposure that will ALWAYS be the best treatment. If it’s not something you can eliminate entirely, you will at least know how to better manage it.
My mare has asthma/heaves and is allergic to several grass species and mold. Here’s what’s worked with her: not feeding hay made from varieties she’s allergic to, keeping her in as much of a dry lot as possible where we board, keeping a close eye on breathing to monitor, during high allergy seasons for grass she gets apoquel to tamp down the allergic response, she gets a eq lung supplement, and if she has a flareup we’ve found clenbuterol to be more effective for her than dex.
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The only thing that would make a round bale inferior would be storage. We cut a large field and some we do rounds and some squares. It is the same hay in a different bale!
As long as the hay is baled at the proper moisture it will not be an issue to feed rounds unless they have to sit out. Sadly most don’t have the area to store them inside until use.
Please correct me if I’m wrong - but I always perceived round bales being a larger issue with things like heaves, as a horse can eat a hole into the bale, even if netted, and then continue breathing that same air without getting any fresh air? It isn’t an uncommon sight in the winter to see my mare with her head inside of a round bale, despite using hay chix nets, and just sitting there gorging herself non-stop.
I’m trying to rack my brain to remember how the hay had been fed in our winter months to the horses specifically with heaves.
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If it isn’t dusty to begin with it shouldn’t be any different than a horse eating hay out of a feeder, un-netted where they can shove their face into it? I feed wrapped rounds, but I feed by hand, on the ground, so that has never been an issue.
I can see where a horse with heaves or allergies could have issues burying their head into any large hay mass . If I ever put out a big round for my horses ( very uncommon) we put it flat side down and in a feeder so they had no way to get their face into the center of it.
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And yet, isn’t it strange how one of the first recommendations of any asthma/heaves management experts is get the horse off round bales.
They burrow in and end up breathing any dust, field dirt, pollens, and spores that may be in there. No hay is ever truly clean, but round bale hay fed whole in fields is not good for allergic or asthmatic horses.
The advantage of (small!) squares is that horses can’t burrow into them and don’t end up breathing any extras the smalls may hold. It can be similar with large squares if they’re spread out by the flake and with rounds if they’re unrolled.
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I said that up above. The quality should be the same . It is the storage and way of feeding it.
My heaves horse had round bale hay with no issues ever. I feed by hand, not free choice. Makes a world of difference. Most people feeding rounds do so for the convenience of dropping a bale out for free choice feeding.
My horses have never been in need of that.
My parents still farm and ranch so I get my round bales from them. They had an amazing hay crop last year (lots of rain at the right time) so my round bales were the best I’ve had in years, actually.
Year before that? Kinda garbage. But it was one of the worst drought years in 20-30 years. Hay was slim.
I would certainly NOT have the storage space to buy enough square bales to feed 3 horses for 6 months of winter. So that would really not be an option for me.
When I put my round bales out, I set it on the end because that’s easier to get the HayChix net on. They really do NOT burrow into the bale. They can’t with the net on. They can kind of get some holes into it, but it’s not a stick-your-whole-head in kind of hole, if that makes sense.
I’m on the schedule with my vet, albeit not for a few more weeks. She’s very good so I’m confident we’ll figure out what her trigger might be.
Per my other response above, mine really can’t burrow into the bale with the HayChix net on it. I set the bale on it’s end because it’s easier to get the net on it, and I put a feeder around it since my one horse wears front shoes year-round. (Don’t want him getting a shoe caught on the net.) They can get little holes where they seem to like to eat but the net prevents them from really getting in there. So I like to think that the net helps.
The only time I don’t use it or at least pull it up some so they can get in there better, is when we have nasty cold spells ( -20 F ) for extended periods, so they can eat more to stay warm. Mine are outside 24/7 and I don’t blanket. (And they usually do just fine.)
Obviously if a person is not using a net, yup, they burrow deep into the bale up to their shoulders sometimes, I swear.
I asked my vet about apoquel, and she said it is not approved for use in horses. How did you manage to get it for your horse?
My internal medicine vet prescribes it off label, that said, we haven’t used it yet. I have heard it’s pricey.
There were some trials done about 5-6 years ago (I think) on horses. It’s only after those trails/studies were done that equine vets have been prescribing it, so it’s still relatively new. Having said that, the pill is not a special equine dosage/equine pill. It is the same as the canine pill. So, your vet should be able to either give you an Rx or order them herself. The trials were done primarily for horses with skin allergies (as that is the primary use for dogs as well). But many horses that have allergy induced respiratory issues have also seen a lot of relief (like my horse).
Bumping. My vet is open to starting Apoquel for my allergic/heaves mare. How is it administered?
This horse will eat most meds in her feed.
I just drop them in my horses food! They are pills that are roughly the size of a tylenol pill. They are not capsules so if the food is wet they might start to dissolve and make everything taste gross. But my mare gets pelleted grain and I can just toss them in her breakfast and she’ll happily eat them. I board, so the barn employees just drop the pills into her breakfast and do a double check to make sure she got them all.
If you are doing the feeding yourself, vs. a boarding situation you could probably just feed them with a handful of grain by hand to make sure they all go down.
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Well, we went to the vet on Friday and practically came home with a pharmacy.
I had a FlexiNeb last year but I sold it because I didn’t think it was working. Well, that was a mistake because I bought another one Friday. 
Vet has me doing a regimine of nebulized medications, and some of it will be trial and error to see what she responds the best to. One is dex, one is albuterol, and one is ipratropium. I’m doing certain ones, certain days, Monday through Thursday. And we’ll see how she does.
My mare has been absolutely fine since her little heaves episode until… we went to a 2-day horsemanship clinic Wednesday and Thursday last week. I think it was time spent in the indoor arena, in my opinion. She was kept in a dry lot pen for 2 nights, which also could have contributed. She was fine the first day, but the second day she was coughing. She hasn’t coughed at all before this. And I felt like her breathing just wasn’t quite normal.
We were entered in a horse show on Saturday with showing events in the morning and afternoon, and then 4 speed events at the end of the day. I did barrels and poles and then scratched the final two. She coughed after her runs and wasn’t catching her breath correctly. Ugggg!
She’d made 3 barrel runs prior to this without an issue, but like I say, I think the 2 days in an indoor arena triggered something again. (I believe it was the indoor arena the first time too.)
Neither arena was dusty in appearance, but you know there are those fine particles in the air regardless.
She is currently out on pasture 24/7. No hay at all right now, except when we have traveled.
So I guess now I know indoor arena dust is a trigger for her. Sucks, because about any learning clinic you do is indoors, but maybe if I can get her “under control”, the trigger will be less if I go to something in the future.
For most of our barrel runs she should be fine, because we’re spending maybe 5 minutes in the indoor (if that) and then we’re outside again.
Most places I go to have stalls outdoors (only 1 place has them indoors attached to the arena) so I’ll have to be very mindful of that too.
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That is not good news. I hope something the vet gave you will help with her breathing. Fingers crossed for you.
