blueprintminis
Well-Known Member
Last night I missed the end of the IAMHA on-line auction because my then 8 day old filly was acting very strange and I thought she was dying. She was born 23 days early, during the day when I was not present to assist. But, she seemed "done" and she was good and upright and strong from the beginning. The only thing, up until the other night, that was a little strange was that on her 2nd day I wanted to put her and mama out in the yard for some sunshine and exercise. Her 1st excursion out of doors. No one was there to help me and I didn't think the filly would know to follow mom if I led the mare so I decided to carry the filly and let momma follow. When I put one arm around the front and the other arm around her back and started to lift her off the ground, she "melted" in my arms. She went as limp as a cooked noodle with her head hanging down and her tongue hanging out. It alarmed me and I thought Oh My, I've scared her to death! I carried her on outside and was going to lay her down in the grass. When I went to put her down, she "woke up", and scampered off behind her mom. I kept a close eye on her and she seemed totally normal and very happy to know there was more to the world than a 10 X 10 stall. The next thing I noticed was on Thursday evening when I went down to feed. The filly would have been 1 week old at that point. I was going to take the mare and baby out of the stall so I could give it a good cleaning. The filly was lying down, asleep. When she awakened, she jumped up, but buckled at the knees and started trembling. She kinda staggered over to mama and started nursing. Within a couple seconds, she was acting completely normal. I noticed, however, that she had a little mushy yellow diarrhea on her butt and thought Oh Great, I've got a sick foal. So, I put her and mama out and watched them closely to see how bad her "squirts" were. Well, she was all full of herself, running circles around mom, bright eyed and bushy tailed. She showed no s/s of being ill or feeling bad at all. Since she was the last foal due, she is still in the "camera" stall so after they had their time out and came back in I knew I could observe them thru out the night on the monitor. She seemed completely normal and happy. Well, Friday evening, I was trying to watch the end of the IAMHA auction as I had a couple mares I was going to "snipe" at the last second. I thought the auction ended at 8pm eastern time, but it was actually scheduled to end at 9pm eastern time, so I thought I would have plenty of time to get to the barn to get the feeding done. WRONG!!!! The filly was lying down, had more mushy diarrhea on her butt, and seemed to not be able to stand up. I helped her to her feet and she was very wobbly. But, she went and nursed and started bucking around the stall. I left the stall to prepare for feeding and when I looked back in, the filly was lying in a heap. I ran to the stall and found her to be unresponsive. I picked her up and brought her out into the aisle and attempted to lay her on the concrete floor, but she put her feet down, her head up, and she was alert and bright eyed once again. But it scared me enough to call the vet. Her temp was 101.4. Her umbilical stump was tiny and dry and she showed no tenderness or concern with it. She was checking out everything in the barn aisle and going to her mama regularly to nurse. She only made a tiny bit of creamy yellow poop, which didn't stream or squirt out. The vet thought she might be getting septic or maybe getting a little ulcer. Suggested giving her some kaopectate and a tiny dose of gastric gard. Wanted me to call him first thing this morning and he would come evaluate her. I filled a 6 cc syringe with some kaopectate, and when I gently inserted the syringe into the edge of her mouth she fainted dead away!!!! She laid limp on the barn floor with her eyes rolled back in her head. She laid there like that for about 20 seconds, then opened her eyes and got to her feet and seemed perfectly normal. I had to give her a little more kaopectate and again, when I put the syringe into her mouth she "fainted". I called the vet again. He said I have given him more challenges to try to figure out than any of his other clients. He told me to keep an eye on her over night and to call him with an update first thing this morning. This morning she no longer had diarrhea but she seemed to be "passing out" more. It seemed related to 1: being startled/scared, and 2: when she has been resting and/or sleeping. Once she is up and awake, she acts and looks completely normal. She is a precious and gorgeous palomino filly (aren't they all precious?) and I thought enough fooling around. I called my vet and told him I wanted to take her to the OSU vet hospital. He called ahead and made all the arrangements. The drive is about 2.5 hours and I got there as quickly as possible. Upon arrival, there were several people waiting. Before the horses can be unloaded, however, the owner must go sign the releases and give them a rather sizeable monetary deposit for the services to be rendered. While I was inside, one of the senior vets had looked into the trailer and saw the mare and foal. The filly was standing and nursing. By the time I returned to the trailer to unload them, the filly had laid down. I went in and got the mare and led her out. The filly laid quietly in the trailer. The vet went in to get her to stand up and when she approached her and bent down, the filly went limp and her eyes rolled back in her head. The vet picked the filly up and carried her into the treatment area. The filly never moved. Her legs were slack, her head hanged loosely and her tongue was sticking out. She went to lay the filly down on the floor and the filly jumped up and took off. Boy were the vets surprised. They started checking her over immediately. Listened to heart, lungs, took temp. So far everything seemed normal. Drew blood. Some tests results are quick. Some take longer. The quick ones all came back completely normal. The ultrasounded her heart to r/o fluid around it or any abnormalities. Normal. They took a pulse ox reading. Normal. Blood pressure was normal. They had to use a human pediatric cuff on her. It was so cute! Anyway, they did an ekg. Good, strong, normal rhythm. The rest of the blood tests (liver function, kidneys, IgG, white blood cells, red blood cells, hemoglobin, the works ) all came back within normal limits for a 9 day old foal. About this time, another senior vet stopped by. This one said she had practiced for a number of years in California and had some larger miniature breeding farms as clients. She said that occasionally they would come across a newborn/young foal with cataplexy/narcolepsy that appeared to have a genetic component and that they all eventually "grew" out of. She said she did not remember which miniature bloodlines seemed to have it most often. What I had described and what the vets there had witnessed sounded just exactly the same as what this vet had witnessed at those breeding farms on occasion. It is not dangerous only scary to those observing it. They assured me that she most likely would grow out of it. When I got home, of course, I had to "google" it and came up with the following info:
Narcolepsy is very common in miniature horse foals, and can last for 30 seconds or so. There is indication that narcolepsy may be heritable. The symptoms of narcolepsy are different between horses to an extent, but generally consistent within an individual. Narcolepsy may be stimulated by excitement (taking a horse to a show, for example). One method of treating narcolepsy is to give the horse the long term medication emipromene, which reduced REM sleep over all. However, it may have gastric disturbances as a side effect.
Reference:
van Nieuwstadt, RA et al. 1993. Narcolepsy in horses. Tijdschr Diergeneeskd (article in Dutch). 118(23):765-8.
So, there you have it. The mystery of the fainting filly. Seems that the little bit of diarrhea was only causing the filly to be distressed (probably from mom being in foal heat or the feeling of the poopy on her butt) and the distress was causing some of the episodes of cataplexy.
I have never heard of such a thing in minis/horses before and I thought I would pass this info on. Sorry I have not learned to post photos on here, but if you want to see a photo of this adorable little girl, you can go to www.blueprintminis.homestead.com and click on the foals page. She is the palomino filly that is listed under the 2008 foals section.
Narcolepsy is very common in miniature horse foals, and can last for 30 seconds or so. There is indication that narcolepsy may be heritable. The symptoms of narcolepsy are different between horses to an extent, but generally consistent within an individual. Narcolepsy may be stimulated by excitement (taking a horse to a show, for example). One method of treating narcolepsy is to give the horse the long term medication emipromene, which reduced REM sleep over all. However, it may have gastric disturbances as a side effect.
Reference:
van Nieuwstadt, RA et al. 1993. Narcolepsy in horses. Tijdschr Diergeneeskd (article in Dutch). 118(23):765-8.
So, there you have it. The mystery of the fainting filly. Seems that the little bit of diarrhea was only causing the filly to be distressed (probably from mom being in foal heat or the feeling of the poopy on her butt) and the distress was causing some of the episodes of cataplexy.
I have never heard of such a thing in minis/horses before and I thought I would pass this info on. Sorry I have not learned to post photos on here, but if you want to see a photo of this adorable little girl, you can go to www.blueprintminis.homestead.com and click on the foals page. She is the palomino filly that is listed under the 2008 foals section.