Post by yanny on Oct 10, 2014 21:11:13 GMT -1
Hi everyone, earlier this year I lost my gorgeous little cob JJ to grass sickness. It's a horrific disease that vets don't fully know the cause of. However they do believe it's caused by a bacteria that's present in grass that most horses are immune to but some aren't. I thought I'd do a thread about it because it's becoming increasingly common and a lot of people I've spoken to (even experienced horsy folk) have never head of it.
It's most common in horses between the ages of 3 and 7, and usually affects horses that are out eating grass 24/7. However some stabled horses who are only fed hay or haylage have been affected.
We didn't even know he had GD at first. He was always a keen eater; typical cob! But one day I brought him a slightly different feed; it was mollichaff showshine, as I thought he was looking a bit on the slim side, he was a bit of a gangly youngster. It was cherry flavour and smelled gorgeous so I thought he'd love it. However when I offered it to him, he wouldn't eat it. I assumed it was the new feed, but had none of the old stuff left so I fed it to my other horse as a treat and left him, assuming he was just being picky.
However he continued to not eat and soon wasn't even grazing so I called the vet out, who said it was just impaction colic. He removed some faeces, and said he was dehydrated so pumped water down his nose, and said if he doesn't improve give them another call.
JJ seemed to brighten up slightly but soon lost his appetite again. Another vet came and said she thought his intestine had been dislodged, she said to try and lunge him and make him buck etc to try and move it back to it's usual position.
This made no difference. The third vet that came said he definitely had grass sickness. By now he was foaming at the mouth, shaking and had lost so much weight. His eyelashes were also drooping.
She recommended us try and nurse him through but not to expect good results. We bought a bag of blue chip, some topline cubes and other tasty fatty feeds to try and give him some energy. We added boiling water to the hard feeds to make them into a liquid, then cooled it down and syringed it down JJs throat. We constantly tried to get him to eat anything as by now he'd stopped grazing, even if we took him to the best most lush grass he'd try one or two mouthfuls then stop. He wouldn't even eat carrots or treats. We tried for 3 weeks to get him to eat and he had good days and bad days. We both worked 3 days a week and in all our free time we spent tempting him to eat; whether it was carrots, polos, marmite sandwiches, treacle, bread, Guinness, anything.
It eventually got to the point where he couldn't drink. He'd be laid down most of the time, then get up to drink, but cough most of it up as the horrible disease had paralyzed his throat.
Finally, he was just too weak to stand up. He would lie down then try so hard to stand, but he just fell back down. It was absolutely heartbreaking and we couldn't stand to see our beloved, cheeky, energetic little cob in this state. I made the single most difficult decision of my life and had him put to sleep. My dad and aunt stayed with him while it happened as I couldn't stand it. But I know it was the best thing for him as he by then was just skin and bone and would have starved to death otherwise. He was only just 4 years old.
I thought I'd post this to try and raise some awareness. Grass sickness is still shrouded in mystery and I think people with youngsters should be very wary of it. Keep your ponies off grass for some of the time and give them hay instead. Avoid stress as this is said to bring it on as well. And look up other ways to avoid grass sickness. The survival rate is so low and even the few who do survive are often never fully back to their old selves and Are still prone to the disease. They are apparently developing a vaccine so hopefully this will prevent a lot of cases.
In the meantime keep a lookout for symtoms and spread the word; let's stop this awful disease once and for all.
It's most common in horses between the ages of 3 and 7, and usually affects horses that are out eating grass 24/7. However some stabled horses who are only fed hay or haylage have been affected.
We didn't even know he had GD at first. He was always a keen eater; typical cob! But one day I brought him a slightly different feed; it was mollichaff showshine, as I thought he was looking a bit on the slim side, he was a bit of a gangly youngster. It was cherry flavour and smelled gorgeous so I thought he'd love it. However when I offered it to him, he wouldn't eat it. I assumed it was the new feed, but had none of the old stuff left so I fed it to my other horse as a treat and left him, assuming he was just being picky.
However he continued to not eat and soon wasn't even grazing so I called the vet out, who said it was just impaction colic. He removed some faeces, and said he was dehydrated so pumped water down his nose, and said if he doesn't improve give them another call.
JJ seemed to brighten up slightly but soon lost his appetite again. Another vet came and said she thought his intestine had been dislodged, she said to try and lunge him and make him buck etc to try and move it back to it's usual position.
This made no difference. The third vet that came said he definitely had grass sickness. By now he was foaming at the mouth, shaking and had lost so much weight. His eyelashes were also drooping.
She recommended us try and nurse him through but not to expect good results. We bought a bag of blue chip, some topline cubes and other tasty fatty feeds to try and give him some energy. We added boiling water to the hard feeds to make them into a liquid, then cooled it down and syringed it down JJs throat. We constantly tried to get him to eat anything as by now he'd stopped grazing, even if we took him to the best most lush grass he'd try one or two mouthfuls then stop. He wouldn't even eat carrots or treats. We tried for 3 weeks to get him to eat and he had good days and bad days. We both worked 3 days a week and in all our free time we spent tempting him to eat; whether it was carrots, polos, marmite sandwiches, treacle, bread, Guinness, anything.
It eventually got to the point where he couldn't drink. He'd be laid down most of the time, then get up to drink, but cough most of it up as the horrible disease had paralyzed his throat.
Finally, he was just too weak to stand up. He would lie down then try so hard to stand, but he just fell back down. It was absolutely heartbreaking and we couldn't stand to see our beloved, cheeky, energetic little cob in this state. I made the single most difficult decision of my life and had him put to sleep. My dad and aunt stayed with him while it happened as I couldn't stand it. But I know it was the best thing for him as he by then was just skin and bone and would have starved to death otherwise. He was only just 4 years old.
I thought I'd post this to try and raise some awareness. Grass sickness is still shrouded in mystery and I think people with youngsters should be very wary of it. Keep your ponies off grass for some of the time and give them hay instead. Avoid stress as this is said to bring it on as well. And look up other ways to avoid grass sickness. The survival rate is so low and even the few who do survive are often never fully back to their old selves and Are still prone to the disease. They are apparently developing a vaccine so hopefully this will prevent a lot of cases.
In the meantime keep a lookout for symtoms and spread the word; let's stop this awful disease once and for all.
