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Why cant my horse breathe2007-11-24 21:23:17

When I ride my 11 year old QH for anything close to 20 minutes he starts wheezing, when I bought him they told me that his throat would close up if he was exercised all day but that he would be OK for light rides, well they were wrong, so now he is just pasture art, just seems like a waste, if you know what could be wrong I would appreciate an answer.

Answers:

have you talked to your vet? maybe he can prescribe something or maybe perform a small operation and get him to the point that he can be ridden. A horse that shows around here has a roar, so he will sound absolutely horrible, like he is dying when he is being ridden, but the vet says that he is fine, just on hot days it gets a little worse, but he is ridden and jumped in the jumpers with no problems.

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Have you had the horse tested for allergies? If it is allergies then the proper medication could take care of the wheezing and he would once again make an excellent riding horse!

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it could have a allergy,for real

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does he have lungs

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that is a sign of a horse whose endurance has been built up wrong a lot of the time. extensive ground work and correct endurance building will correct this. ask any big time trainer and they'll tell you. if you work a horse too hard before they have the ability then you break their wind. trot him on a lunge for long periods of time, no cantering just trotting, to build up his ability to breathe. then move on to occasional light cantering and then go from there. take it slow and his breathing will straighten out nicely. any other questions feel free to ask me. caitlinwestern64@yahoo.com

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yeah i think i know what it is your horse when it was youn i would guess is that it had too much exercise and somewhere it started weakening the lung wall, fr some reason i cant remember the name but my mare had it and if we exercised her for 20 minutes or more she would start wheezing not constantly but every once in awhile also he could cjust have allergies otherwise i would suggest a vet coming out he may have pulmonary obstructive disease but highly unlikeyl but she may be able to prescribe something and see whats going on.

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It sounds like he has heaves, but I guess allergies could also be the problem. Talk to your vet about heaves, sometimes surgery can be done to help, although it is risky and expensive. Heaves is when the horse has trouble breathing after work, sometimes they are very loud, other times they can be almost silent. You should try keeping your horse out of dusty areas, and water down his hay. Dusty hay can be a big contributer to the problem.

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Have you talked to your vet and this horse's former owners about whether or not he has heaves? That's the first thing I'd check, as it sounds as though he has a fairly severe case of the condition. If it turns out that this is the case, medication will help to control the symptoms- and there are several effective drugs on the market now for this condition. Sometimes, such horses also have to have surgery to correct blockages in their windpipes. Heaves is a chronic condition, one that has to be managed carefully if you want to be able to work with or ride the horse at all. Wheezing is very definitely a sign of heaves, which is roughly like asthma in a person- in fact, some of the drugs used to control asthma symptoms in people are also used in horses for the same reason. (Animal research haters, take note of this- this is yet another example of how animal research has benefited animals as well as people.)