Grass Sickness

Sam_22

Sam_22

New Member
Apr 6, 2007
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Northern Ireland
Hello all

I have been seeing a lot mentioned about grass sickness recently - what is grass sickness? What causes it, why do they get it etc? I've been asking around my yard and no-one has heard of it :confused: I'm just worried incase it's something I need to be watching for in my pony.

As always, any and all advice much appreciated :)
 
Oh my goodness - I'm so shocked I'm speechless. I hope and pray this never happens to my pony. :eek:

Thank you for posting that link for me MrDCBags - I understand what it is now.
 
CVB - thank you for telling me that it's put my mind a bit more at ease now. Maybe that's why no-one at my yard had heard of it. What a horrible horrible disease. :(
 
We have lost two horses which vets thought to be victims of grass sickness.

First appeared to have mild colic, classic inability to swallow and suddenly dropped dead, second was daughters competition horse which went from show /competition fitness to being unable to swallow over the course of four days despite our pleading with the vet to take our concerns at his loss of weight seriously on day 2.

We now tend to take all horses with sudden unexplained weight loss into the vet hospital. Apparently we were told it is endemic in most of England as well now :eek:
 
Oh goodness thats awful eml. So sorry to hear that. I couldn't believe what I was reading when I was finding out what it was - it's just horrible. :( I had read in a horse magazine (the name escapes me now which one) about it being a big concern over in England this year :eek: It's scary to think that it could happen to our equine friends.
 
if researchers knew what caused grass sickness i think us horse owners would breathe a huge sigh of relief! unfortunately they don't. There has been links to clover content, botulinum bacteria in the soil but nobody is sure the exact cause. There have been 41 cases in england in 2 months.

There are 3 forms, acute, sub acute and chronic. Chronic cases stand a small chance of survival, acute is untreatable and sub acute is invariably fatal. I think grass sickness originated in scotland, it used to affect the working clydesdales.

It really is like an invisible assasin. You don't know when it will hit and because the cause is unknown you can't stop it. I lost my beloved first pony to grass sickness. As eml described, it started like colic. But when their swallow reflex has gone that's it. My vet couldn't really give me much adivce on how to prevent it, but we do keep ours off the grass during the risk periods during the day. And they always get a feed to keep their guts moving.
 
eventerbabe

the person who did the talk to us did comment on some of the associated factors - for example it is more likely if the ground has been disturbed some how (harrowing, etc etc). So needless to say, plans to harrow one of our paddocks got swiftly changed.

It was a good lecture (at the Eriskay AGM). One of the other interesting things was that they had thought it was pretty much isolated to Europe, and horses, but have started to find that there are existing conditions (with different names) that are basically the same thing e.g. in donkeys in africa. It needs further research to confirm it is the same. (They can only really diagnose from post mortem :( )
 
newrider.com
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