Health warning for horses concerning sycamore pods being poisonous

G-G

G-G

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Apparently a new occurrence this year that the pods are proving potentially fatal for horses. Early signs of a problem include excessive thirst and what appears to be signs of colic. It can affect the very young and old in particular but having said that an 8 year gelding who was in the same field as my mare, was rushed to hospital today but it was too late to save him. We also have a 5 year gelding and a two year filly in hospital. The filly is very ill.
Rio was the stupidest horse I had ever met but he was an adorable plank, who completely smitten with my Molly, followed her everywhere and would cry if you put a head collar on her because he thought you were taking her away, and didn't deserve today . Rip Rio.
 
So sorry to hear about Rio. Friend of mine has just had a yearling recover from this. Fortunately the vets managed to work their magic and he's fine now. I spoke to the vet involved the other day and asked why the sudden increase in this disease and he felt it was possibly down to a form of bacteria/mould affecting the trees.

Its a hideous thing to happen to any horse - not unlike grass sickness which has increased in recent years as well. Remember Sheikh Mohammed lost Dubai Millenium to this despite throwing as much money he could to save him. I know they are doing huge amounts of research (prob funded by Sheikh Mo) into grass sickness and there have been recent breakthroughs into finding a suitable treatment including a Lambourn vet practice who are confident they can now offer horses a pretty realistic chance of recovery. A friend of mine had a German riding pony yearling who developed it 18 months ago. Fortunately for her, she had recently had a baby so was up every 2 hours feeding the baby. She would then go out and feed the pony to keep the intestine moving (grass sickness causes paralysis of the gut). The pony survived, made a full recovery and she was able to sell him on this summer.
 
There is some very good information on this at the Liphook website. It's a toxin that developed in some of the seeds and maybe the leaves.

As for The grass sickness, I think Sheik Mohammed gave a relatively small amount that didn't do much at all for Grass sickness research according to someone who worked in it.....considering what he could have done for it, it was shameful.
 
Part of the problem with EM is that weve only recently (in the last couple of years) been able to pin it down to the sycamore/maple family. Its a difficult thing to research too, because (understandably!) people are reluctant to offer their horses for testing, and also - theres no definite thing to say a tree will or will not have the toxins in - even one tree can have only a small % of seeds with high enough levels to make a difference, so there is no guarantee that you will be feeding the toxin to the group.
The theory with it being very old or younger animals that get EM is because the older ones are a bit more succeptible to most things - and the young ones arent able to develop any form of resistance to it (as far as they can)

Its a horrible horrible thing for horses to get, and almost all of them that develop it die. Weve been lucky at work so far and only seen two - its been prolific around us (my friend had five shires die on one farm just a couple of weeks ago - she was praying the fifth one would pull through, but sadly she succumbed as well) This year our success rate is 50% - one made it in ( the rule of thumb is that if the horse is up when the vet first sees it, theres a chance you can pull it through) but sadly went into shock as soon as he came off the lorry and we had to euthanase him within an hour of him arriving. The horse that has survived was the field mate - his muscle enzymes were high (he was tested as a precaution) but not anywhere near so bad - and we were able to help him at least. The earlier you catch it, the more chance there is of survival - but it wont happen on its own.

My heart goes out to anyone who has a horse or a fieldmate of one that suffers from EM - colic/wounds - anything like that are not so bad to compute, theres usually some reason its come about and you get a bit of time for things to sink in. EM hits with no warning and is so so fast (my friends horse got it last year - she was at a competition in the morning, came second - got home,turned her out and the horse was dead by mid afternoon - ive been a nurse for almost 20 years now and never met anything that kills so fast) usually all that people notice is that the horse is a bit off colour and doesnt seem quite right - we were talking to one of the Donnington Grove vets about it the other day and he was saying even the "usual" signs arent specific any more - they have found it in some horses who havent presented with the known signs at all.

Hopefully this will be everyones first and last experiences of EM - its the thing that scares me more than anything else that mine could get. RIP Rio, hopefully your friends will be ok.
 
It's a terrifying condition.

The social media world is doing brilliantly in advertising this, and it's great to have it here as well. There are things people can do to prevent it happening, fencing off sycamore trees and feeding enough supplementary hay, are two big things.

It scares me as well, though luckily I don't have any sycamore trees in my field, but I hope everyone is checking!!vField maple is supposed to be ok, but I might fence mine off despite that....

I'm so sorry for anyone who has lost a horse from this horrid condition.

Nx
 
Unfortunately the sycamore is far too good with its design, the helecopters that were so much fun when I was a child do too good a job of carrying the seeds along !!

We still can't believe it appears to have not come to our area too badly yet ( touching every bit of wood in the vacinity) it's badly affected all the surrounding counties (well, most of the Country!!) and seems to have almost jumped over East dorset and west Hampshire - long may that continue.
 
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My friend lost her Welsh Cob mare to AM (Atypical Myopathy - is EM a variant?) Horrible, horrible way for a horse to go. Horses out 24/7 seem to be more susceptible than those stabled for a proportion of the day, presumably because they have more opportunity to take in the toxins.
 
Exactly that. The advice in the hope that it will help is to restrict grazing time, use good grazing (not bare paddocks) and as fizz says above to give additional forage (ideally not on the floor for obvious reasons!) so they aren't hungry and scrabbling about hoovering up everything.

(Yes - I did mean AM (tho it's also known as equine atypical myopathy) For some reason my spell check doesn't like me using a and m together in capitals (god knows why when it's a known pairing !!) and changes it at every bloody opportunity !! I really need to educate it....)
 
Thanks for the kind words. The 5 year old is back at the yard, the two year old is still critical. Where my mare is there are no spare fields to try and move them around. Areas around the trees have been fenced off to try and protect them but it's in a conservation area so trying to get help from the National Trust, who own part of it and the current owners of the main yard, who have made life so difficult for the woman who runs it as they want to build on the place, is not helping towards trying to protect the animals.
I was told by a very reliable source that Sheikh Mo gave all the insurance money from DM to research into grass sickness and it was not a 'small amount'.
 
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I think that although you can say S Mo gave an not unreasonable amount (mine was a reliable source as well) but once it was divvied up it was nearly negligible and didn't last for long. I know my friend who worked in GS research was really cross with everyone saying how generous he was when in reality it didn't make that much difference. The one thing that did happen was a spurt in interest however. I guess people's perspective depends on what grants they have had approved......money doesn't go far in research as I know only too well.

I SO hope that this sycamore disease can be treated faster than progress with Grass sickness. Both such devestating diseases.
 
That's not what I was told. It was all the insurance money from DM and it was a lot of money in anyone's terms. This was very soon after DM had died and the person who told me worked for SM at the time. He would have no reason or anything to gain by lying or exaggerating to me.
 
I've had a bit of a look, he gave $1 million and set up the Dubai Millenium Research fund. I couldnt find any papers dated later than 09 that were funded by it, but my search wasn't near exhaustive, it's a bit petty of me to look at all I know ;) and only one GS conference. When you consider what he could have done, I find that disappointing.

Nx
 
Grass Sickness research could be a bottomless pit for funding with respect to all concerned.
Keeping feed management as simple and consistent as possible seems to be the way to go re equine nutrition.
I cannot tell you the incidence of GS but my UK based brother lost two high quality showjumping ponies some years ago.
All he could tell me was that the grazing ground at the livery was horse sick with little or no grass and lots of weeds.
Mixed grazing on pastures is the best policy but not enough livery style set ups seem to use it.
 
GS seems to be very high in Scotland and down here in the West Country. My boss lost 2 horses 2 summers ago and there were a lot of cases round here. His horses were being grazed on a steep bank which had only ever had horses grazing on it (despite him having cattle he never rotated). Likewise the friend who saved her German pony, only ever grazes horses. We have a small flock of sheep here who move fields every 3-4 weeks on a rotation with 2 groups of 2 horses. This not only keeps the fields looking better but it also controls the worm count for both sheep & horses.
 
Good news about your 5yo G-G, hope the filly pulls through too.

I haven't looked into the research in any detail but my understanding is that current thinking suggests the similarities between grass sickness and AM are due to the actions of botulism-type organisms, and the link with grazing in the case of GS in particular, and to a certain extent with AM, is that when the grass is poorer, horses are more likely to ingest more soil or other plant matter including sycamore seeds where the latter occurs, thus increasing the risk of exposure to the toxin in either the soil (GS) or the seeds (AM).
 
Sycamore trees are the vermin of the tree world imo. They aren't even indiginous to this country, grow quickly and spread like mad.I have them growing all round the back of my garden as the local farmer seems to encourage them to grow on his land. Are the pods poisonous to other animals; sheep, cattle etc?
 
Cruella said:
Good news about your 5yo G-G, hope the filly pulls through too.

I haven't looked into the research in any detail but my understanding is that current thinking suggests the similarities between grass sickness and AM are due to the actions of botulism-type organisms, and the link with grazing in the case of GS in particular, and to a certain extent with AM, is that when the grass is poorer, horses are more likely to ingest more soil or other plant matter including sycamore seeds where the latter occurs, thus increasing the risk of exposure to the toxin in either the soil (GS) or the seeds (AM).
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That's exactly what my vets have been saying re GS round here. Seems to be when the weather conditions are warm and wet.
 
I've seen horses die of botulism from silage. Dreadful and very similar to GS, though any horse can get it. These are dreadful toxins all of them and we seem to be so helpless in the face of them. Let's hope research of all kinds gets good results on these horrid conditions.
 
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