Mare sweating

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AJ

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A 21 yr old, 8 mo pregnant mare appeared to be sweaty a few days ago and my first thought was, Aborting??? But the baby was still active, so we were OK. I concluded that she was wet from rain/mist due to warm temps and her standing under dripping roof. A few days later, still wet but no rain or dripping, and foal still active. She is eating well and appears fine. Any ideas why she could be sweating? Our werather has been around 0 C (32 F). A dozen other pregnant mares are not sweaty.
 
I'm sure there can be many reasons, but because of her age (21), you may want to have her insulin/glucose ratio tested. It's an easy blood test that your vet can do and Cornell has the ability to test both (most labs will do insulin but not glucose).

The only reason I'm bringing this up is when my senior mare was sweating inappropriately, I quickly learned this is one of the warning signs of Insulin Resistance. They most commonly sweat around the flank area.

Other questions - does she have fatty deposits above her eyes or a cresty neck? How are her hooves - do they feel warm?

Just something to think about - hope this helps.

Liz R.
 
Hosscrazy's comment put my focus on her diet. A week prior, I had brought her in to pamper her since she was older and in her last trimester of pregnancy. While she was in descent "body weight" shape, I thought I would up her feed and put on a few pounds and started her on Calf Manna and free hay. With the insulin/glocose comment , I cut out the calf manna. Within 3/4 days, she was dry in the morning but still sweaty by days end. After 8/9 days she was dry and no more sweats. A few weeks later I mentioned this scenario to another "mini" breeder. Last fall he had purchased 5 pregnant mares and stalled them. After a week one mare got all sweaty, and like me , thought this was an abortion unfolding. He feeds corn, which would not have been in their previous diet. He stopped feeding corn and within the week his mare was not sweating. We looked had the ingredients label for the calf manna and guess what, the third item was corn. We concluded in our laymens terms that we each have a mare that is intolerant of corn or some component of the corn.

This situation is currently being discussed by the nutritionists and vets of the feed company mfg the product and should get some feedback in due course.
 
OK Calf Manna is 33 1/3 % protein. HELLOOOOOOOOO that's a lot.

I know this stuff very well.

It will "hop" up a horse contrary to what a lot of people think and add weight like you can't imagine too. I've seen it make a couple of big rather quiet horses go coo coo. It's very rich stuff.

It is also known to be good to feed to mares in foal, but it does have quite an effect on some horses that simply cannot tollerate this kind of jump in the protein area. I don't suppose that you over fed this stuff either, right?

I think you are right on target to get your mare off that stuff.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it no more ok?
 

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