SafeChoice Senior--possible monensin contamination in So CA

[Simkie]

Apologies if this has been posted somewhere else…took a look around and didn’t see anything.

Nutrena posted yesterday on their FB page addressing a rumor that SafeChoice Senior had been tested positive for monensin by UC Davis following the death of two horses in Southern California:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/nutrena/posts/?ref=page_internal

There are a lot of comments there to wade through but the short of it is that two horses dropped dead and a small amount of monensin was found in the feed–testing is not exact at the very small levels here, but UC Davis results say less than 1 ppm and state that less than 1 ppm is not unusual and not harmful to horses. The UC Davis results also note that there’s an oleander tree on the property that the horses do not have access to.

Sounds like Nutrena is doing further testing but says there is no risk or recall at this time.

Thoughts? It’s a bit of an odd situation.

[trubandloki]

I give them some credit for being up front and not pretending it is not happening.

[walkinthewalk]

Were autopsies done on the horses? That’s the only way to know what killed them.

I am always the one looking at the suspicious side of things. If the horses had a human connection and someone did not like the human, it’s possible they were murdered.

[Simkie]

There’s some additional information on Kevin McGlinchey’s FB wall, including a timeline. He’s the owner of the first horse that died.

This all just seems so odd. His initial post made it out that each horse died within 24 hours of eating the feed, but his update seems to show that the first horse died suddenly after eating the feed with no signs of illness for 5 days and the second horse died after eating the feed with no signs of illness for 8 days.

It’s not 100% clear, but it doesn’t sound like either horse was necropsied.

ETA some math: At 1 ppm (and Davis says there was LESS) there is only 22.68 mg monensin in the whole 50 lb bag. This article says a toxic dose for most horses is 1000 mg.

[MissAriel]

I hope they are also looking into the symptoms of the horses prior to their death, as well as doing an autopsy - or at least blood tests post-mortem.

The issue is that the analytical tests have become so good at finding trace levels, you can have a positive test well below levels at which there is an issue. The toxic level for horses is 2-3 mg/kg body weight, or roughly 1g monensin for an average sized horse*. At the levels found (0.1-1 ppm according to the FB post) the horses would have needed to consume over 2000 lb of the feed to reach that toxic level.#

I really hope it wasn’t a case of someone feeding oleander to the horses - either knowingly or unwittingly. :no:

I do hope the poor owners can find the cause of death. Based on what info is available now, it seems unlikely to be monensin in the feed. I do agree that it is good of Nutrena to be following up on this and doing their due diligence. People may argue that they are doing it for their bottom line, and not for horse safety, but those two goals do not have to be mutually exclusive.

• http://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2015/02/Monensin-and-Lasalocid-Toxicity-in-Horses.pdf

1ppm = 1 part per million, ie. 1 g monensin in 1,000,000 g feed. 1,000,000 g is roughly 2000 lb.

[MissAriel]

@Simke - thanks for the information. Looks like we were both doing our math at the same time.

[cutter99]

@Simkie

There’s some additional information on Kevin McGlinchey’s FB wall, including a timeline. He’s the owner of the first horse that died.

This all just seems so odd. His initial post made it out that each horse died within 24 hours of eating the feed, but his update seems to show that the first horse died suddenly after eating the feed with no signs of illness for 5 days and the second horse died after eating the feed with no signs of illness for 8 days.

It’s not 100% clear, but it doesn’t sound like either horse was necropsied.

ETA some math: At 1 ppm (and Davis says there was LESS) there is only 22.68 g monensin in the whole 50 lb bag. This article says a toxic dose for most horses is 1000 mg.

I found something else odd about his post. He says in it that he owned the first horse that died, but later in the comments he says both horses belonged to fellow boarders. Who owned the horses?

[Simkie]

@cutter99

I found something else odd about his post. He says in it that he owned the first horse that died, but later in the comments he says both horses belonged to fellow boarders. Who owned the horses?

Yeah–yesterday when he posted he made it sound like he was just a concerned bystander who boarded at the barn where the horses died. Now he’s the owner. Why lie? It’s all just very odd…

[cutter99]

I also wonder about the oleander. And why did one horse die so quickly and the other show no symptoms then die quickly as well?

[Ghazzu]

Without tissue samples from the affected horses, I’m having a hard time seriously blaming the feed.
It could possibly have been unevenly distributed in the bag, but the lack of confirmation vis-a-vis necropsy results is troubling.
And oleander could most certainly cause death via acute cardiac effects.

[MissAriel]

@Simkie

Yeah–yesterday when he posted he made it sound like he was just a concerned bystander who boarded at the barn where the horses died. Now he’s the owner. Why lie? It’s all just very odd…

I think this post is just poorly worded. I think he should have put quotes around the text from the owner of the first horse to make it clearer which statements were his, and which from the owner. In this copy of his post, I have bolded what I am guessing was the information from the owner.

From FB:

I want to clarify the facts regarding the deaths of the two horses at my barn. This is directly from the owner of the first horse that died

[B]I am the owner of the first horse that died. I want to make sure that the facts are clear.

1. I opened a new bag of Nutrena senior on Wednesday April 19 and split it into two cans. I started feeding the two horses from the new bag that day
2. Monday April 24 my horse died suddenly at 6:30 AM before his morning hay from what we assumed was heart failure. He was standing and fell over and died within minutes
3. The second horse died on Thursday April 27 shortly before 7PM, in a similar manner, which raised suspicion about my horse’s death.
4. On the advice of our veterinarian, we informed the state veterinarian the next morning and she asked us to send samples of their hay and supplements to tested by the state
5. On Friday May 12 the results from the state came back. The Nutrena Senior tested positive for monensin.
6. We have a number of other horses at our barn who have been on Nutrena and only these two who shared the same bag died[/B]

Hi friends,
At the barn we board at here in So Calif. 2 horses died after eating Nutrena Safe Choice Senior dry pellets. The Nutrena product tested positive for monensin. One horse died 17 hrs after eating the Nutrena and the other horse died 22 hrs after eating the same. Both horses were eating from the same allotment. I threw out our Nutrena Safe Choice. Please everyone beware before using Nutrena products! UC Davis California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System tested the feed."

[cutter99]

Thanks MissAriel! That explains some of it!

[Ghazzu]

And every time something like this happens, I wonder why major feed manufacturers don’t just use dedicated ionophore-free milling equipment, if not ionophore-free mills.
At some point, the economic losses of bad PR, if not actual payouts in confirmed cases, have to add up to significant $$$ lost.

[JB]

Nutrena doesn’t seem to be addressing the fact that monensin was found at all, seemingly more concerned that a mere 1ppm isn’t enough to kill a horse.

It does appear that 1.4ppm is what’s the currently known lowest dose that can kill, and that an LD50 is between 2-3ppm

I DO hope it is still possible to, and the owner(s) will, have necropsies done on the horses. That will be the only way to prove monensin did or did not kill them.

It is unfortunate that even a single bag could contain a hot spot with enough monensin to easily kill a horse, while leaving the rest of the bag, let alone the batch, testing with very low to even no levels. That makes it that much more critical to do a necropsy.

[Kolsch]

So what do people expect? That the feed be ionophore “free” or ionophore “safe”?

I don’t run a mill but elsewhere I’ve seen listed the testing requirements and procedures of ionophore “safe” mills. If Cargill professes to be nothing more than “safe”, then they probably did their job.

If they profess to be ionophore “free”, which I don’t think they do, then they did not do their job. I don’t think there are many of the big companies who advertise being “free”.

I would think that when Cargill loses enough of their market to the “free” companes is when they’ll also become “free”.

I’d rather feed a “free” product and given the option will do so, just for peace of mind. I’m hoping that Cargill realizes that this is where the market is headed and goes there sooner than later.

http://www.thehorse.com/articles/343…ign=08-11-2014

[Kolsch]

https://www.nutrenaworld.com/ionophores

the latest from Cargill about the situation

[MissAriel]

@JB

It does appear that 1.4ppm is what’s the currently known lowest dose that can kill, and that an LD50 is between 2-3ppm

Where did you get these numbers? Everywhere I looked said 2-3 mg per kg body weight was the LD50. Which as I showed above translates to more than 2000 lbs feed at the 1 ppm monensin level - and the tested levels were less than 1 ppm, but difficult to quantitate - maybe as low as 0.1 ppm. Yes, there could be a localized area of higher concentration. Additional testing of multiple samples should get at that.

As Ghazzu pointed out, the oleander seems just as likely, if not more so, given what is known.

[JB]

I expect a horse feed to be ionophore-free. If there’s room for even minor contamination, there’s room for major contamination.

MissAriel, you are right, I was going off memory and typing in a hurry, thanks!

[Simkie]

The statement released by Nutrena this afternoon is very well put together and thought out, IMO. They do state that the majority of their mills are ionophore free, which is interesting.

[Brian]

@Simkie

ETA some math: At 1 ppm (and Davis says there was LESS) there is only 22.68 g monensin in the whole 50 lb bag. This article says a toxic dose for most horses is 1000 mg.

Sorry Simkie, I’m not following your math …

If 1 ppm equals 1 mg/kg

And 1 kg equals 2.2 lbs, then there’d be 22.68 kg per 50 lb bag of feed.

Then wouldn’t the monensin concentration be 22.68 mg per 50 lb bag of feed? (as opposed to 22.68 g)

at 22.68 mg per 50 lbs concentration, then each pound would have .454 mg of monensin

To convert mg/lb back to ppm, multiply by 2.2 or .454 mg x 2.2 = 1 ppm

MIssAriel, I think the concentration you’re referring to may be in the feed…2-3 mg/kg and not per kg of horse body weight. 2-3 mg/kg is also equal to 2-3 ppm.

If the concentration in the feed from Nutrena was 1 ppm, then 4-6 lbs of feed could potentially been fatal.