HORSE HEALTH CARE: EQUINE ANHIDROSIS
What do you do when your good barrel horse is at your front porch breathing 50 times a minute… two full hours after you have ridden him?
You panic and call the vet, anxious to know how to help him. She told me there were 2 things that would make a horse breathe that fast, neither of which I wanted my friend to have. One was tying up, and the other was anhidrosis.
The heat index in south central Texas has been brutal this summer, and she has seen more horses than usual afflicted with anhidrosis. Seems the veterinary world doesn’t really know what causes this.
I took him to see Madalyn and she did body work and acupuncture on him every couple of weeks. In between I did some basic Equine Touch work on him also. He is on a good nutrition program of Simplexity Essentials and ABC minerals, but she added vitamin C, Chia seeds, daily electrolytes and a dark beer!
The dark beer is interesting. I had to syringe it into his mouth the first day. The next day I used 2 buckets, one with all his supplements and some grain, and one had the beer mixed with some grain. By the third day I was able to mix it all together. This is a horse that has always dropped grain all over the ground, but with the addition of the beer he puts his nose in the bucket now and doesn’t pick it up til he is done licking the bottom! My beagle/mix is disappointed, as she made it her mission every morning to clean up what he dropped, and now there isn’t anything to clean up.
I continued to ride the horse lightly, early in the morning, but watched his breathing closely. I would rinse him off and then scrape the excess water off. In August there is little to no wind, and without the wind to dry him quickly the water would act like a wet suit and actually keep him hotter. I also used Sore No More as a brace to cool him.
It took 3-4 weeks for him to start sweating again, but it seemed an eternity. For now I will continue all his supplements, especially the beer. My beagle/mix might lose some weight!
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