Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Does my horse have a cold? if he does is it good to ride him?

My horse started coughing a lot when the people we board at starting giving him 1st cut alfalfa.he has a super runny nose and is coughing a lot.he is usually a pig and likes to bully the other horses but is not finishing his food and is not bucking when we let him loose. i don't even think he is rolling either.he will run a little to chase the horses but not like he usually does it. the place where we board is real sandy so i don't know if its sand colic or what.
Answers:
call the vet a.s.a.p. it sounds like your horse has equine influenza or even strangles. please call the vet it sounds very serious.

good luck i hope it isn't to bad.
There is a good chance that he has come up with quite a cold! We have race horses, and they can't race when they have colds. I suggest not to ride him until he gets better. And you may want to keep him away from the other horses. Horse colds can be contaigeous.
Could be rhino also, which simulates a cold and isn't an issue for non-breeding mares. I would just watch him and if he doesn't seem to be improving I would call a vet.
It鈥檚 probably is just a cold, but it might be something nastier so it鈥檚 best to try a stop it spreading. Get him checked out by the vet and if possible quarantine him from the other horses. None of the other horses should leave the yard for a few weeks in case they are carriers. Make sure his vaccinations at up to date too. They might be OK, horses can still get flu even if they have been vaccinated against it because there are too many types of flu.

I wouldn鈥檛 ride him for now.
Well because of the cough and runny nose I would call the vet. The eating habits and living differently are very odd so when the vet comes I would talk to her/him about that too. Horses are sometimes more like humans than animals so you need to think what you do when your sick or feel depresed. He might not be sick but just lonely so if you don't spend alot of time with him try to spend more time with him. If he doesn't get better deffinately call the vet if you haven't already.
If he doesn't seem to improve over a few days, get him checked by a vet. You said it started when he was fed fist cut alfalfa, check the feed for insects and/or dust. Some insects when ingested can make a horse extremely sick, and dust will start him coughing, often with nasal discharge.

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