Last Saturday, Rusty started drooling out copious amounts of saliva - probably a few cups worth in the 20-30 minutes he was on the cross ties. This went on for a few days - he was fine otherwise - no obvious discomfort, still eating/drinking/pooping, etc. so I wasn't terribly worried.
One person suggested to me that maybe he was anxious about riding, hence the drool. Nope. Don't think so. Another person suggested it was just because he was old. Nope, not buying that either. I thought it was either something he ate in the pasture, or a tooth problem. I caved and called the vet out yesterday to have him checked. His teeth are fine and the vet was 99% sure it was something he ate. Turns out the clover in his pasture is covered with a white fungus (sort of like black patch fungus - same effects on the horse). I guess Rusty was the only horse hungry enough (or maybe not smart enough) to stay away from that clover.
The fungus on the clover causes excessive drooling. Apparently it isn't as dangerous as alsike clover. I think the clover is all red and white clover, although I'm going to check again this weekend for alsike, now that I did some research.
The fungus was on white and red clover in several sections of the pasture and I found in a couple of other spots as well. Rusty is due to be moved to another pasture today (which I walked yesterday and didn't see any fungus) so hopefully that is the end of the drooling problem! (Unfortunately it took me calling the vet to get people to believe me!)
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On Sunday, I had my first ride with a fellow blogger!!! Ruckusbutt of Food, Life leases a horse near where Rusty lives and we went for a nice hack on Sunday. She is a great person and we had fun (I did, I hope she did too!) and her horse was really great as well. He seemed ok with walking slow to match Rusty's slow walk! Neither one of us brought a camera, so unfortunately there are no pictures to share!
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- he has a pink nose and muzzle and I'm not there to put sunscreen on him regularly, so the long nose protects his face quite a bit;
- the long nose also doesn't have a fuzzy band on it that would rub his nose like some of the other masks do;
- the other horses haven't managed to rip it off yet - probably because it secures with a huge velcro strip on the back;
- it seems to have good clearance in the eyes as well.
10 comments:
I had a great time! Probably one of the nicest times I've had on horseback in a long time, actually. AND since you got me out early I had an extremely productive day! I never get that much done on a Sunday!!
"Brumby" lost a shoe on Tuesday and the farrier can't come until Monday, so it looks like we'll be arena babies this weekend :(
It's funny you should mention the clover. I was just talking about this with another boarder last week. She's in vet school and was talking nutrition and I asked her about clover. She hadn't heard of the issue (but did point out she has many courses still to take). I couldn't recall where I read about it and wondered if it was UK Horse & Rider, or just something that doesn't affect us here. I appreciate the info. Even more so since we are across the street, it's certainly possible we would have the same fungus.
I also found your product review interesting. Brumby is a proffesional fly mask destroyer. His newest one is elasticised under the jaw. Uh, big mistake!
Thanks for sharing the drooling and clover issue, that was interesting! What did the fungus look like on the clover? Can you get a picture to post?
That fly mask looks kinda silly, hee hee! I bet MB would not tolerate that piece on the nose. I wish he would because he has a pink nose and it's a pain to put sunscreen on it and I doubt it's effective for long. There is a new fly mask out that is also made to be used as a psuedo halter for catching, and I'm thinking about getting that for my horse!
Glad you met a new horse riding pal!!
I did some research on alsike clover a while ago since I found clover growing in my pasture. As soon as you mentioned drooling, I knew that he ingested some of that. Horses usually prefer clover over grass, so that's the first thing they eat. My horses eat our clover down to the ground. Anyway, it turns out that some people purposefully plant a little clover in their pasture to help keep the horses from ripping out all the grass. Alsike clover causes problems if ingested in large quantities. Since my pasture is so small and the horses only graze on it for a couple of hours twice I week, my horses didn't have any issues. However, horses that are left out to pasture all day do have a higher risk of developing symptoms like slobbers.
Cool fly mask. Perfect timing too as I really need to pick one up with ears for my sorrel horse. He gets sores in his ears from the gnats and that is what is making him so headshy. Haven't figured out how I will get it on him yet-:O
I've heard about the clover, but never experienced a horse getting the symptoms. Too bad the people didn't listen to you immediately, so as to save a vet bill.
And that's cool you got to spend time with another blogger.
RuckusButt - too bad about the big guy's shoe - no fun to be stuck inside in the summer! We'll have to arrange another ride sometime soon!
Story - the ears on that flymask are soft...might work for your horse.
PonyGirl - Hi! I'll post more about clover this week. I did take a few pictures, but didn't have time to post anything earlier.
NuzMuz - some clover is fine - you just have to watch for the mould - some places are maybe more susceptible to the mould than others???
BECG - you're right - too bad it took a vet call...
You're lucky you found out about the clover. We had the same problem a few years back only the entire barn was drooling like that. Unfortunately, we didn't have many options and couldn't get rid of the clover so it continued for a few weeks. What a mess.
I'm glad it turned out to be something with a simple solution. We all hate those vet calls but it's nice when they don't expose some huge costly issue.
The fly mask pretty near covers everything. That's pretty cool.
Interesting about the drool causing fungus on the clover. I've never heard of that. Very strange. Glad it wasn't serious. Great fly mask. And glad you and RuckusButt had a nice ride.
I'm glad that Rusty's going to be ok!
And how fun that you met a fellow horse friend blogger you can ride with. Cool!
The fly mask looks like medieval armour against evil flies! hehe!
~Lisa
Good info on the clover fungus! Thanks I will keep that in mind.
I have never been a fan of the full coverage fly masks - but find reg ones very useful in late summer. I am just about ready to put on Patrick.
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