There is a belief among many horse owners that when their horse has a cough or two at the start of exercise that they are just ‘clearing themselves’ so there is nothing to worry about – WRONG. www.horsesinsideout.com/webinars
In this article, ahead of the webinar Galloping Forward with Healthy Lungs on Wednesday 19th March, equine nutrition researcher and specialist, Professor Meriel Moore Colyer talks about what causes coughing in horses and what we can do about it.
Horses don’t clear their throats or cough like we do, so if your horse coughs at all, it is indicative that there is a problem and you should investigate.
There are 2 general categories that coughing can be put under:
A virus
A lower respiratory tract allergic disorder, such as inflammatory airway disease (IAD) or recurrent airway obstruction (RAO).
While virus and allergy are quite different conditions the clinical signs are similar i.e.,
1) coughing to a lesser or greater degree,
2) nasal discharge and
3) reduced tolerance to exercise (poor performance).
A simple virus will be effectively dealt with in a few weeks by your horse’s immune system. A more serious virus such as equine influenza, may need veterinary attention and significantly more recovery time.
An allergic respiratory disorder, on the other hand, requires immediate attention and a change in management regime. These conditions are caused by airborne respirable dust so to reverse the clinical signs you need to remove as much dust from the environment as possible. This involves providing dust-free bedding, improving the ventilation in the stable and feeding a low-dust forage.
If your horse is young and you have noted a decreased tolerance to exercise in the previous couple of weeks and the very odd cough, you maybe lucky and your horses is only suffering from IAD. This condition affects 80% of our 2-year old Thoroughbred population but it is reversible provided the horse is not further sensitised. Older horses who have been coughing for a while are more likely to have RAO, which is irreversible and a challenging condition to manage long-term.
But whether your horse has a virus or an allergic respiratory condition, it will benefit from being put on a dust-free regime. Respiratory infections cause the villi in the lungs to become compromised, shrivelling down from nice long finger-like projections all beating together to remove unwanted particles from the lungs; to little disorganised bumps that cannot effectively beat in unison and are unable to move particles up the trachea and out of the respiratory tract. This allows inhaled dust to make contact with the basal membrane of the lungs and quickly causes hypersensitization and allergy.
So although coughing from a virus has a different cause than from an allergic disorder, in both conditions horses will benefit from being put on low-dust regimes. Low dust regimes can be expensive but when your horse has a virus, it is worth doing for a short time (for the duration of the virus), so you avoid initiating IAD or RAO, which will be a life-time of low-dust feed, veterinary attention and expense!
RAO can be a progressive disorder and during an episode, will dramatically affect your horse’s ability to work and will cause respiratory distress at rest, so this is something to be avoided if at all possible. This webinar will examine the causes, aetiology, treatment and most importantly prevention of these allergic respiratory disorders. While often owners will simply soak their fodder, this talk will explain why in certain circumstances that might not work, the potential negatives of doing this and what alternatives are available to reduce the dust : horse interaction.
Some horses, annoyingly, cough when out at grass and this is a thorny problem to deal with as you are trying to do the right thing by giving the horse ample fresh-air, and providing dust-free forage. Recent research (White et al, 2019) has shown that some horses are allergic to tree pollens while others react to grass pollens making this a particularly difficult situation to manage and one that we will discuss in this webinar.
Taking the principles of ‘One Health’, where a unified approach is taken to ensure that humans, animals and the environment are positively impacted by an action, we will discuss how you can improve your own and your horse’s respiratory health by implementing certain management regimes without negatively impacting the environment or your pocket!
Some feed supplements are marketed as helping horses with respiratory disorders and again we will examine the ‘ins and outs’ of these, and if they have the potential to help your horse.
So if you have one of the 14% of horses in UK that suffer from a respiratory disorder, join me on this webinar Galloping Forward with Healthy Lungs on Wednesday 19th March and discover if the recent research can help you and your horse enjoy a healthy gallop when you want to.
In this webinar the importance of respiratory health will be discussed, alongside the most common lower respiratory tract problems encountered by 14% of all horse owners. This is a fast-moving area of equine research, so Meriel will review the latest results and its relevance to you the horse owner. Prevention is better than cure so how the horse : dust interaction can be reduced while still providing the necessary forage is a conundrum often facing those stabling horses with allergic respiratory disorders. The pros and cons of different feeds and how season can affect dust levels and respiratory health will also be covered.
Reference
S. White, M. Moore-Colyer, E. Marti, D. Hannant, V. Gerber, L. Coüetil S. Bisht, E.A. Richard and M. Alcocer (2019) Antigen array for serological diagnosis and novel allergen identification in severe equine asthma. Scientific Reports 9. Article number 15170.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-51820-7
Bình luận