Never underestimate the need for salt.
I was doing a routine check on the mares yesterday and Patsy came up to greet me.
I was rather alarmed to see her like that. She had been standing in the shade of the mares shelter with the other horses so I sure wasn't expecting anything amiss.
It wasn't overly hot and humid, pretty much the same as it has been for several days.
I consulted with Shayla and with the vet. There were no signs of distress other than the rapid breathing; she was eating and drinking normally, so we ruled out colic but gave her a dose of banamine anyway.
Vet said I could bring her in in the morning if needed, but by the cool of the evening she was pretty much back to normal. I figure she was like that for at least 5 hours. I was pretty worried about her.
What I think happened is that the mares were not letting her at the salt tub, which was in the middle back of the shelter, and without enough salt she couldn't sweat enough to cool off. This morning she spent 5 minutes licking salt, and later I brought out a bucket of loose salt and added it it to the tub.
And I moved it to a better spot where nobody will get trapped and picked on.
Patsy was normal today, so I think the salt was the issue, leading to anhidrosis.
7 comments:
Good thing you were vigilant and could easily solve the problem.
That's a good reminder and not just in this weather!
Wow. Scary. Good thing you caught it fast. I try to keep out several salt blocks, but I don’t see them using them very often. It hasn’t been a super hot summer either. Kind of on the cool side. I hope that continues to solve the problem for you. She looks good now.
You are so right about free feed salt and how important it is. I had a 50lb block out for my gals and they loved it. I've since moved to a loose 'feed' salt and dump it in a couple of pans.
They eat it and have been doing well in this heat.
You are a great caretaker of your equine.
Glad you caught it early and were able to figure out what was going on with Patsy. It is very concerning when equine breath that hard. Looks similar to how our Cierra reacts when she gets multiple bug bites. Her breathing is not as fast, with deeper labored breathing.
We offer salt in grain pan indoors. After trying salt various ways outside (mounting salt block holders in shed, buckets, big blocks, pans etc) all ended up covered with sand.
Yeah they tend to dump out the pan if if has loose salt in it. This morning they had it all dumped out, blocks and all!
i never knew that was what horse salt is for.
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