I have had two emails recently about ponies collapsing and having difficulty breathing and one of the causes of ponies (especially small ponies) developing asthma attacks is an allergy to oil seed rape so check if you have fields of OIL SEED RAPE (yellow flowers) nearby. We have two small ponies who came into the sanctuary recently from up country who have been diagnosed as having an allergy to rape. These two are very badly affected and actually collapse. We recently moved them to new grazing believing it free of rape and they became ill, on research we found rape growing half a mile away behind some trees and the ponies had to be moved back to their coastal grazing where they were perfectly all right.
Incidentally, whilst on the subject of breathing and coughs, a pony that came here diagonosed with COPD was found to have stress related breathing problems (double breathing) which sometimes produced a cough……….in a relaxed atmosphere with no riding his “COPD” vanished.!!! Remember, some ponies can get stressed when brought into a stable so it is easy to diagnose COPD when the symptoms are stable related.
Rosemary
