At my wits end...coughing horses

[Ellen]

We ran into that problem with a filly 3 years ago. She was vetted tot he gills. Had the tracheal wash, has on anti histamines, she ate wet beat bulp instead of hay, we wormed for lung worms, and would seem to do better, then crash. This was when we found the vet we use now.

He wondered, did she come in contact with rhino at some point and was she struggling to fight it off. I know there is a threat of over vaccinating, but he had us give 1 5way in 1 week intervals. Now she is fine. I will say in her case at times she ran a fever, but her breath did smell.

 

[luvsminis]

We talked with the other vet this morning (the one that lives so far away of course LOL). Anyhow, he explained to us about the rhino also, and said to go ahead and give her the 5-way booster or just the rhino shot, plus to have our regular vet mix up some cough syrup with cortisone, DMSO, and gentocin, this will help heal the blisters that are normally seen in this type of virus. He explained that on most of the horses that he has scoped, they have a lining of blisters all down their throats, and when they breath and the air rushes over the blisters, that this is what causes them to cough. We called our other vet and he did mix up something very similar to what the other vet had said, but didn't leave instructions on how much to give. When we picked it up, he was gone and will be back later, so now we wait to find out the amt to give. I had bought Equine Junior because it has the hay in it, but she doesn't want it, wants her hay..........so, I soaked her some, anything to get her to eat. She does eat most of her beet pulp though and some of the other feed.

I read an interesting article this morning on the internet. They had said that one of their horses had coughed for an extremely long time, and that they had tried everything. Upon going to a bare-foot farrier seminar, he found out that if the hooves are not properly clipped and balanced, that this can cause coughing because it causes some kind of pressure on the airway. He said after getting his horse properly clipped by a bare-foot farrier, that the cough disappeared. Anyhow, I thought it was interesting, and this point I'm willing to try anything suggested. Hopefully, this mixture will do the job too.

 

[albahurst]

Good luck- keep us posted.