Just a guess, but we think it has something to do with the protein. Generally switch to a grass hay and that works for a majority of them.
Just my experience, no research to show why it would work.
Your post made me look up what could be a possible reason. The gist of what I found, as I understand it, is that the higher protein level in alfalfa means more protein to be metabolized, which raises the horse’s temperature, which is not a good thing in hot weather.
Someone please correct me if I misunderstood.
Wow that’s very interesting. This is the first time I’ve ever heard about an alfalfa connection.
I’m in FL, mine is on coastal Bahia hay free choice with a flake of alfalfa a day. I think I’ll pull the alfalfa and see what happens. Any idea how long it should take to see a change in the horse ?
I’m planning on switching my gelding from alfalfa pellets to teff pellets, and stopping the handfuls of alfalfa hay he receives a few times a day, at least for the summer (he primarily eats coastal hay). Will see if it makes a difference in how he is during the very hot weather.
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Please post again how it goes and I’m going to start with mine too and see what happens .
I’ve had him on ProSweat which worked well last year and he’s on it now but seeing as it’s June in FL he should be sweating more than he is
Do you know if the Teff pellets should be soaked? I was just reading about them online and it didn’t say .
I noticed on TSC’s website that Standlee is recommending soaking all their pellets, including the teff ones: Standlee is recommended to be fed wet, soaked in water (2 parts water to 1 part pellet or cube) for 30 minutes or until properly softened
Don’t know if that’s a recent recommendation – I’ve been feeding their alfalfa pellets for many, many years to multiple horses, and never have done so (they’re pretty small pellets).
Since I only feed a cup or so at a time, I’m going to try feeding them dry (assuming similar to alfalfa pellet size and relative hardness), if at all possible, as my old gelding really doesn’t like mushy food.
Hm. Ok thanks. I haven’t fed pellets much so there’s a bit of a learning curve with some of them. This guy just needs to sweat. Ugh
I did find something else that’s on Chewy. Handipellet i think it was.
This was in like 2002/2003, my mare developed Anhidrosis…and we tried the OneAC but it didn’t work. The vet told us 1 can of beer morning and night. At first she wouldn’t eat it (literally picked up a single turd and put in her bucket) BUT after a few days, she started to love it lol… my mom just got whatever was cheapest (I was 11 at the time and my mares stall smelled like a frat house but thats a story for a different day!). It took a little while for her to start sweating regularly, but by the next summer we were able to stop it. Not sure if this is still a thing the vet recommends but just thought I would put it out there!
Ugh, am dealing with this in Feronia, plus mild colic early Thursday morning, the last day of a 3 day heatwave, while we were still out of town. Bless my BO for catching that; mare got banamine and pooped, but poop was hard, and she still wasn’t feeling her best. The vet was in the area so she came over, tubed her with electrolytes, found all vital signs normal, and said no food until dinner. Mare got very hangry about that! BO gave her a cup of Outlast in about half a gallon of water around 3 pm and that helped. She was 100% fine by Thursday evening. I’m just hoping colic in really hot weather doesn’t become the norm; she looks great but she is 26 and is held together with “tape and glue” at this point.
She was on One AC for 3 summers, but it stopped working. I tried Let Em Sweat late last summer and it helped some. Switched to TruSweat this year, but it’s not working, so will go back to Let Em Sweat since I have it on hand.
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When my boy stopped sweating, I tried One AC but it didn’t work. Acupuncture didn’t work. I think I tried one other brand as well without success. What worked for him was a mash of pellets and half a bottle (or more) of Guiness Stout. Sweatwerks from Horse Tech seemed to help, but he stopped eating it, even with flavoring from them. I am using up the remainder by hand filling capsules and adding a few to his beer mash! 
This is one we were sent samples of to see if we wanted to start carrying it. There is a warning for USEF just as a heads up.
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Interesting, I was just looking at Sweat-Well. I like that it’s comprehensive… I think I like that it’s all herbs but I"m not knowledgeable enough about all of them to feel sure that none are contraindicated for the mare and the other supplements she is on.
update: BO asked me to do another round of EquiWinner patches on Feronia; I was going to skip them this year because yay being unemployed sucks. So far (we are on Day 6), she has sweated underneath the patches, and yesterday I took her for a walk in her fly gear, which attaches to a surcingle over a saddle pad, and she got ever so slightly sweaty under the saddle pad. And she is back on Let Em Sweat.
I spoke with my vet who does body work and all sorts of other stuff and she recommended a product called “refresh”.
The stuff I used last year seems less effective this year so I may switch
I ordered this just now. I do wish there was more information on the ingredients so I could determine if I need to discontinue any of his other supplements, but I’m willing to try it regardless. I got the larger container.
My horse went from sweating like a perfectly normal horse to bone dry with rapid respiration sometime between 1130 and 2 pm today. I cold hosed him until his breathing was normal and then popped him into his stall under fans. The heathen Honcho pony was perfectly fine but he got hosed and stalled too in solidarity.
My horse started sweating again after exactly 7 days on this supplement! I’m over the moon happy!
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Ugh. The heat wave here caught up to my guy and he has stopped sweating. I hadn’t started him on One AC in the spring because I guess I’d hoped maybe he was “cured” or something (and it was less $$ to spend on his already ridiculous amount of supplements). But lo and behold, a couple of evenings he was “Darth Vader” breathing with flared nostrils and very little sweat. So I got the One AC and thankfully while waiting for it to arrive we had rain and a cooler spell in which he was fine. But yesterday was atrocious (feels like temp = 108 with god awful humidity). At evening feed he was breathing like he’d just run the Kentucky Derby and was pretty much dry all over except under his fly mask. It took two separate times of hosing him continuously with cold water to get his respiration under control. He gobbled dinner and was stuffing hay into his face, so feeling okay.
He has access to his stall 24/7 with a nice/strong fan going all day, but doofus prefers to go out in the roasting sun and humidity and graze. Today he’s getting locked in the stall at lunchtime and staying in until dinner. I’m hoping the One AC will kick in soon, but it probably will take another dip in temp for him to reset and start sweating again. Thankfully that is on the horizon along with plenty of rain, so at least there is some relief on the way.
I hate summer. I’m a teacher with 2 months off and I STILL hate summer. Bring on fall.
Do they ever recover from
Non sweating and get back to some semblance of normal?
IME, yes. My guy only has trouble sweating in the hottest months of the year, when even the night time temps are 80+. Once the nights cool down again he resumes sweating like normal.
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