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Discussion on Swelling of fetlocks
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Member:
twhgait
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul 17, 2007 - 5:54 pm:
Time to pick the HA brain again!
My newest mare Royal came down with swelling in all four fetlocks yesterday. The swelling rises slightly up the cannon bone. The swelling is not bad enough that you can't make out the shape of the joints, although I cannot feel the cannon bones until halfway up towards the hock. The hind legs are worse then the front. There are no cuts or scrapes in the area of the swellings. I **thought** she seemed a little warm to me the night before but I did not take her temperature (I was alone and I'm not sticking a thermometer up her bum!!). I felt the other two mares (to compare) and they felt normal. Other then this swelling, she is alert, eating, drinking and normal. Her swelling is warmer then surrounding tissue. After I noticed HER legs, I went and checked the other two mares. One mare has swelling in her left hind fetlock with a scrap and the other mare has right hind fetlock swelling with no scrapes. Their swelling is cool to the touch. Nobody is lame or stiff. At least as of now. 
I called my vet and we are thinking some type of plant poisoning from the pasture (at least for the mare with 4 swollen legs!). the other two we are thinking from stomping flies, and of course now I noticed this scrape, which my vet doesn't know about as I just found it.
They are off of pasture as of yesterday.
But here's the interesting part...I also just got new hay in and now I'm concerned the weed/plant might be in THAT. The timing of the arrival of the hay with the first mares swelling is about 24 hours. They have been out in the pasture 1 1/2 hrs a day for the last 2 weeks. It is getting low and brown as we've had no rain.
They are all wrapped on their swollen joints and all are on bute 1gm 2x day. I am to follow up with my vet on Friday is there is no change, Monday if things improve.
I can't find anything strange in their hay. Of course now I'm panicked that I'm poisoning them by feeding it!
Is this coincidence? Does this sound like a poisoning?
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Member:
nadia
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul 17, 2007 - 11:03 pm:
Hi, Kim,
I see you are in Wisconsin - same as me. Could be hoary alyssum. My horse had the same thing 2 years ago. New hay - noticed little white flowers in it - but otherwise looked good. A day later, all 4 fetlocks swollen. Vet came out the next morning and found it in the hay. The main thing about this weed is the little pods that are growing on the stem.
https://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/weedguid/hoaryaly.htm
https://www.mnhorsecouncil.org/articlesdetail.aspx?id=6
Not all horses are affected by it - just my guy and maybe one other. Now that I know what this looks like, I have seen it all over now, growing on the side of the road near hay fields! The vet had said it was a weed coming south from Michigan and Minnesota. I just stopped feeding him that hay, he got bute the first night. Vet gave him a shot of something (looks like he wrote Ketofen) to help with swelling. It took about 3-4 days for the swelling to go down - just stop feeding the hay, if you find it in there. It can cause laminitis.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Wednesday, Jul 18, 2007 - 9:32 am:
Hello Kim,
You just did not follow the links quite far enough in the article associated with this discussion. You need to check out the topic, Diseases of Horses » Lameness » Leg Swellings. It sounds like the new mare is stocking up so check out that article first. Until the others have bilateral swellings I would not think they are related and since she is only the one of the three poisoning seems less likely. You will find articles on hoary alyssum on that same page.
DrO
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Member:
twhgait
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Posted on Thursday, Jul 19, 2007 - 9:33 pm:
Sorry for my delay....Right after I posted, I found my old mare with TWO swollen fetlocks...so back to reading (thanks for the tip Nadia and DrO!!! I don't think I EVER read far enough) and decided that it had to be the hoary alyssum..nothing else fit...
All three had a huge improvement with wrapping, and I tore apart my hay looking for ANYTHING strange...couldn't find hoary alyssum, although I read that it's near impossible to find once the hay is baled...
As of today, everyone was back to normal, but because I still didn't know for sure what it was, my vet wants me to keep wrapping thru the weekend.
I was out picking manure earlier and I'm watching the third mare trying to eat grass thru the fence...I spot something white....go look....HOARY ALYSSUM!! I look somemore...and my neighbor's field has it all over. It was creeping it's way over to my fence!
Tomorrow, it's out to the pasture to look for it out there. That's most likely where the new mare picked it up because she's too afraid of the electric rope to try to pick grass thru it.
I'm relieved to at least know what it was. The new mare fit the profile perfectly..fever, all four legs swollen...and resolved by 2 days of being off of it (that's when I took them off pasture).
I'm still going to be checking the hay to make sure it's not in there too, although that seems unlikely now!
Thanks tons and tons! This site is worth it's weight in GOLD!
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