Unable to eat without coughing

[funnyfarmnorth]

I have a 1 1/2 yr old gelding that was healthy in every way until 5 weeks ago. Now he coughs only when he eats. Exercise doesn't make him cough. I make his grain into mashes, wash his hay, feed him in low buckets and bed him on shavings --no change. He is outside/inside as he wants with 4 other minis who have no problems. He is utd on deworming and vaccinations. He is fed 1/2 sweet feed, 1/2 pelleted feed and fine,clean grass hay as are the others. He doesn't bolt his feed and his teeth are fine. His manure shows no signs of food being poorly chewed or digested.Monday I had him scoped and they found nothing except an old, small hemmorage in his trachea. Both vets agreed it wasn't the cause and was probably from coughing. He has no signs of inflamation or abnormalities. His lungs have been checked 3 times by 3 vets including bagging his nostrils to stress his breathing. Everything is normal,lungs clear and he has no fever. He has no nose/eye discarge except while eating he gets a small amount of wet feed from his right nostril. He doesn't cough constantly and it doesn't seem to bother him but I'm worried silly. Vet has him on banamine as an anitinflamitory just in case and Monday we will start him on a medicated throat spray. Have any of you heard of a mini doing this? Does any one have any suggestions? Thanks. Donna

 

[lilfolks]

Could it be an allergy from something in your barn?

Joyce

 

[Lucky-C-Acres-Minis]

I was going to say at first perhaps he had a small piece of 'something' *stuck* in his throat but since you had him scoped and that found nothing it wouldn't be that.. Soo my only other *guess* would be that since he has a small hemmorage in his trachea, when he swallows perhaps it irritates the hemmorage and causes a 'tickle' which triggers coughing

 

[Marty]

I had one that did this from a horse I bought that coughed every time she ate and couldn't figure out what it was.

It was lungworms. And she coughed mostly when she ate. I had no clue because I am a deworming nuts case. Well alas, I had to step up my program even more and did a 5 day purge of safeguard on her waited 10 days and hit her up with ivermectrin and boom.....no more coughing period.

 

[Jill]

I also wondered if it could be lungworms. Not all dewormers get rid of them. Ivermectin does. If he has not been dewormed w/ Ivermectin recently, I don't think it would hurt to try some and be sure to dose enough. With ivermectin, too much won't hurt, too little won't help. So, I always dose more than I think they weigh. I hope that maybe will do the trick since it would be an easy fix.

Other than that, I wondered what if you tried just feeding soaked cubes, beet pulp, and some complete pellets (wetted) to see if a wet meal causes the same type of reaction? But don't put sweet feed in that "test" bucket because the texture of sweet feed won't change much w/ wetting.

 

[funnyfarmnorth]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I have soaked his feed(just the pelleted) and it makes no difference. Seems what ever he swallows causes coughing,not constantly though. He'll cough once or twice eating his grain and then periodically through out his hay. Some times it's just one and other times it's several really hard coughs. I am getting ready to do the 5 day with their next deworming. I hadn't heard about using the ivermectin soon after that. I do rotate with ivermectin and have a fecal sample done once a year and it's always clean. My Vet is making him up a cocktail of a throat spray on Monday. Hope that works, it's so frustrating not knowing what it is or how to help him. Thanks again for your help. Donna