Winter Respiratory Health
- Topics: Article
If a horse is confined in a barn during winter, he is at risk for respiratory problems. Heaves is the most common respiratory ailment in horses that are confined indoors or fed dusty hay. Heaves is characterized by chronic cough, lack of stamina, labored breathing, weight loss, lack of response to antibiotics, and sometimes a watery discharge from the nostrils. It is most common in adult horses since prolonged exposure to respiratory irritants brings on the reaction. The breathing difficulty is due to inflammation and swelling that narrows the air passages.
The main symptom, from which the term heaves is derived, is a forced effort to exhale, sometimes described as double xpiration. Air is drawn in easily, but the horse has trouble pushing it out. Forcing it out requires two movements of the abdominal wall (double expiratory lift). The horse has to tense his abdominal muscles to force the air out, giving an exaggerated lift of the flank. Many horses develop an enlarged ridge of muscle along the lower edge of the abdomen from overworking these muscles.
Decreased speed and stamina may be the only symptoms of early heaves, but as the problem progresses the horse has more trouble breathing, eventually developing a large chest and potbelly because diaphragm muscles enlarge. If he has to breathe deeply, as when exercising, he coughs. The coughing spells are also brought on when eating dusty hay.
Whenever a susceptible horse is in an enclosed barn where there is dust or mold spores, his airways become hyper-reactive. The airway walls thicken (reducing their diameter), they produce excess mucus, which tends to block them, and the muscles in the airway walls contract, further constricting the airways
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