Danger in the Feed: The story of being your own detective.

In this episode, 4 equine specialists join us in a discussion of identifying toxins in feed, hay or pastures.  Experts from Minnesota (Dr. Krishona Martinson), Ohio (Janessa Hill and Emma Matcham) and Pennsylvania (Laura Beth-Kenney) share their tips on what to do if you suspect your horses have ingested a toxin, and most importantly, avoiding it in the first place!

Transcript

Kris Hiney: Welcome to Extension Horses Tack Box Talk series, Horse Stories with a Purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney with Oklahoma State University, and today we're going to be talking about what to do if you suspect your horse has ingested some toxins, whether feed, forage, pasture, and kind of what to do about that. And so we're very lucky, we have an entire guest

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Kris Hiney: gaggle of Equine Extension Specialists with us today, to share their expertise. So, we're just gonna let them all introduce themselves one at a time, say their position, where they're at, and then we'll jump into questions. So, Laura, I'm gonna let you go first.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Alright, hi everybody, my name is Laura Kenney. I'm an Extension Educator in Pennsylvania, focusing on horses.

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Kris Hiney: And Krishona, your turn.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Hello, I'm Krishona Martinson. I'm the Equine Extension Specialist at the University of Minnesota.

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Kris Hiney: And we've got some new people joining us today, so from Ohio, Janessa, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

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Janessa Hill: Yes, hello everyone! My name is Janessa Hill. I'm the Agricultural and Natural Resources Educator here in Holmes County, which is Amish country, for those of you outside of Ohio, and specifically working with Extension Equine, and I lead the Ohio State Equine team.

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Janessa Hill: And with me today, I was super excited, I'm at an auction barn for another event and working this morning, but I had a colleague and one of our state specialists here with us today, and she was able to join us.

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Janessa Hill: Hi, I'm Emma Matcham. I am a forage agronomist and an Extension State Specialist at Ohio State. I'm based out of Columbus campus, but get to go all over the state, including Northeast Ohio here with Janessa.

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Kris Hiney: This is gonna be fun! So we've got lots of people with lots of experience and story, so I'll toss out an easy question, and I don't care who wants to take it to begin with, but what might maybe have an owner start to think, there's something wrong with my horse, and it's something…

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Kris Hiney: Feed-related. What are some kind of key signs or signals?

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Laura Beth Kenny: Probably getting a new batch of feed, new batch of hay, especially if something has changed recently in the horse's diet, environment, even weather changes can influence what's going on out in the pasture, in the hayfields.

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Kris Hiney: But what would make you think, oh, it's toxicity versus, like, oh, he's got Flu Rhino, or he's just colicking, or does it get a little murky?

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Well, Chris, I could maybe jump in, and, you know, we tend to get

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: some of those stranger calls, and the… one of the current situations I had is very unfortunate, but an owner came out, and there were a pen of just deceased horses.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: So, when something that extreme happens.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: usually you're like, huh, wow, they were fine when I fed them at 5 o'clock last night. It is now 6 AM, and we are no longer alive. That is a very severe, case, and hopefully a very rare case, but that is when you start to think, okay, it has to be a toxin.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Right? Because what else can take a horse down that quickly?

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Kris Hiney: Right. So especially if there's multiples, right? Because even in infectious disease, like, it doesn't all start, like, bang at the same time, like, so…

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Kris Hiney: That would, if you have more than one horse affected, so dead is up, that was just terrible, right? But…

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Yes.

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Kris Hiney: Anything else that kind of symptoms… G.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Sudden onset, and…

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And like Laura said, maybe there's been a new feed, or a new hay involved, or fed recently, but I think it's the multiple horses, sudden onset, and I think also, there's nothing else that would make logical sense. There's no… there's no broken bones, there's, like.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: You think, is it hunting season in some of our rural areas? There's not an obvious wound, or a gunshot, or something else that would happen, right? It is, wow, everything was fine 12 hours ago, and now there's absolute carnage.

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Kris Hiney: So this is, like, worst case scenario for you, then. Yes. So, Janessa, Emma, have you seen other, like, symptoms that get you guys called up with, hey, I've got some concerns my horse ate something?

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Janessa Hill: Yeah, when I get calls like that, it's… I'm a forage agronomist, I work across livestock species, so…

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Janessa Hill: When I get calls from horse owners, it's usually in the spring, and that's when they're moving out to pasture, and some of our wheat species are changing. I know that this can happen with feedstuffs at any time of year, but in my position, that's when I get calls like that.

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Janessa Hill: And it's sudden onset, and it's when they haven't been traveling with their horses or introducing new horses, so probably not something

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Janessa Hill: That needs an epidemiology approach, some sort of infection. So it's…

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Janessa Hill: the same population of horses. That's why it calls. It's also variable, like, there's a lot of factors involved with it. I can think a couple years ago, here in Northeast Ohio, I got some phone calls we were in a drought, and they hadn't changed pastures, or they hadn't changed anything, and all of a sudden, the horses were eating things that they

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Janessa Hill: wouldn't normally eat because they were in a drought and over-eaten pasture, and unfortunately, had eaten some toxic weeds, and they were very, very sick, and like Krishona said, like, things that are quickly onset and, quickly change most of the time, not for the better.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah. Yeah, my own case, of my personal horses, having neurological symptoms in multiple horses at one time. I was like, that doesn't strike me that the mosquitoes got you, so the time.

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Janessa Hill: Nope.

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Kris Hiney: It's just off a little bit, and so, yeah, we'll talk about my story a little bit later on. So, so obviously, you guys, we're gonna say, like, you got something going on, you're gonna call the vet,

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Kris Hiney: and if they're dead horses, you probably still might call the vet, but… but I think we're gonna kind of approach this like, okay, what kind of things should people be looking for investigating, like, sleuth work to help…

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Kris Hiney: Figure this out, because it may not always be clear from a, you know, a…

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Kris Hiney: just a regular, I guess, even if they do a necropsy, or blood work, or whatever, if they're dead, I guess you wouldn't do it. But yeah, so talk to us a little bit about, okay, what are we supposed to go look at? What's gonna be like, I gotta find out what the heck happened here?

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Well, Chris, maybe I'll go ahead and, you know, the worst case scenario that I shared earlier actually recently happened, to… to a horse owner in Minnesota.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: A large breeder came out, and a pen of two-year-olds had been… were deceased in the morning, and they were fine in the evening. This owner was an experienced owner, and I think what he did really helped solve the,

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Solved the mystery, but the horses were sent for necropsy.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Because at that point, you don't know what you're dealing with, and that… that became really important information. The individual… the horse owner took hay samples, because they… they did feed some new hay, same hay supplier, but a new batch of hay.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: They also had fed a new grain product, and he happened to save a bag.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And then he just made a note, right? Like, where were these horses in the pen? Who was fed first that day? What pen, like, in what order were they fed? Had the water changed? They grabbed some water samples. So I think because this horse owner grabbed

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: every kind of sample, so tissues from the horses during the necropsy, hay samples, feed samples, water samples, and then just wrote down things in a notebook. What order were they fed? What was the weather conditions? What changed? What was kept the same? Because it ended up not being what we all had thought.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: You know, originally, because they had been fed a new batch of hay, even from a consistent hay supplier, what does everybody think? Emma, what does everybody think?

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: It's gotta be.

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Janessa Hill: You're always blame me.

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Janessa Hill: Every time.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Always blame the hay. And, like, logically, that would make sense, right? That was the only thing that was really new along with the feed, so it had to have been something they ate.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: But again, I will stop and let others, then we can continue talking about how we solve the mystery, but I would take as many samples as you absolutely can, and I would write down everything when it's fresh in your mind.

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Janessa Hill: I think that's really good advice, and I would also recommend that people take samples in duplicate. You're going to send things out to the lab, but keeping a sample

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Janessa Hill: somewhere safe, well-labeled. If it's hay, keep it dry and at room temperature. I'll let others chime in on storage for duplicate samples for other products, but take your samples in duplicates, so that if you need to run a secondary test later on, you have that material.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Yeah, that's a great point. Most of the time when I get a call like this, it's after the veterinarian has been involved, and they can't figure it out. So, at that point.

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Laura Beth Kenny: I might have some information on, you know, what organ systems were involved. Did you get blood work? Can you tell me it was liver-related or kidney-related? And that helps us narrow down our list of suspects so much. So having blood work, having that necropsy done is incredibly important.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And then, yes, taking all those samples, keeping duplicates, because a lot of times people will call me and they'll say, hey, I want to test migraine for toxins.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And I say, okay, we have to know which toxins. There's not, like, a broad spectrum test that we can just run to see absolutely everything that could possibly be poisonous to horses. So we need to narrow down that list, and we need to know what we're testing for.

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Kris Hiney: And even with feeds, I have a question what you guys maybe do practically on your own, and I know this is different, right? If you have your own personal horse you're in charge of, or horses are in, like, boarded or everything, but I know, like, I typically will buy a couple bags of feed, dump them in the container, and then throw the bags away.

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Kris Hiney: But that's, like, not what you should do. I'm owning myself here, right?

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Janessa Hill: Yeah, you definitely want to make sure you keep those lot numbers and the UPC codes on those if you're buying a commercial feed. And unfortunately or fortunately, if you're using a local feed or mill to put together your feed.

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Janessa Hill: It's great, but if it's a multi-species one, it's definitely a risk that you're always taking, even if they do clean their equipment very well, but if they mix

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Janessa Hill: Anything with ionophores at that mill, as well as do horse feed, there's always a chance of contamination.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And the only thing I will add is, I think it's also really important to have good relationships with people in your circle. This horse owner had an excellent relationship with his veterinarian. The veterinarian then, who I have a great relationship with, connected me with the horse owner.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: that horse owner had a good relationship with his local feed mill, with that… with his local hay supplier. So I think it's also important

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: You know, to develop those relationships, because when you have a really odd situation, or an emergency, it's so much easier to navigate when you have people in your corner.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, but the, you know, I was just thinking practically, I'm gonna ask you guys to put you on the spot, do you keep all your tags and labels for everything?

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Hmm.

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Laura Beth Kenny: I do not. I wish I was that good, but I do not.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, it's just not something you think about, right? You're like.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: you know.

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Kris Hiney: Just assume everything's fine.

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Laura Beth Kenny: the chances. Right.

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Kris Hiney: You get rid of the trash.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Although, you know, that… and I think, Janessa, that was you that… that suggested that. I'm like you, Kris. I have bins with lids, just because if anybody ever gets out, you know, I want to try to limit them eating a whole bunch, because my horses are very food-motivated. They would not stop. They would eat the whole thing.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: But, you know, I also have bought the same commercially available ration balancers for probably 20 years.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: The situation I'm referring to, it was a local mill, and, you know, Janessa and Emma, you're kind of stealing my thunder here, but it wasn't… No, that's okay! It was a contaminated feed source, and, it was kind of an accidental sale.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Right? But I think if you are starting a new product.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Or if you open the bag, like, I have open… in my 20 years, I've opened a bag, and it was moldy. I called the manufacturer, they were like, oh my gosh, we had no idea, they were wonderful. I didn't feed it, because I could visually see that it did not look normal. So…

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And I did keep that bag for a little while, just because I knew the company would want all of the information to see if it was a one-off or if it was a larger lot problem. But yeah, Kris, I never thought about that, but I think that's a wonderful recommendation, is if you are…

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: especially switching feed products, or if something looks off, or if you're buying it from a local mill. I mean, I use my feed bags as a garbage bag anyway, so I usually have one kind of hanging out.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: So, it's probably not a bad idea just to keep them on hand for a little while, especially if you're starting something brand new.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, I feel like we get along, Krishona.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, so on the feed, we're gonna, like, we're gonna take duplicate samples, do things, we're gonna hang on to it. Now, on the… let's ask you forage people, because you're all a bunch of Forage people here.

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Kris Hiney: So even within hay, right? Because we know that, like, it can be… something can be in a flank or two, so what do you… like… because you could test the rest of your hay and it'd be fine, right? So how do you navigate that little world?

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Go ahead, Emma. I'll let you go first, and then I will add my two cents.

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Janessa Hill: Yeah,

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Janessa Hill: Kris said something can be in a flake or two. When something is in just a portion of the bale, that's usually some sort of weed that got baled. It wasn't at a high rate in the,

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Janessa Hill: In the fields that the hay was being made in.

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Janessa Hill: But our more common issues with horse hay will be more distributed throughout the bale. So if you're looking at a mycotoxin issue, or any sort of mold, that's gonna distribute in the bale more, and a standard

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Janessa Hill: hay sample for nutritive value, that sampling process will pick that up. You can have a weed issue in just a flake or two, but generally.

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Janessa Hill: working with a hay dealer that you trust, and… or if you're making your own hay, knowing where the weed issues are in your own farm is really helpful. Janessa shared something with me earlier today.

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Janessa Hill: About the challenges of horses not being able to pick through hay if you're feeding in a net.

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Janessa Hill: And needing to be a lot more careful about avoiding weedy hay when you're feeding with an net, which I thought was a great tip.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Yeah, and just to add to that, thanks, Emma.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: You know, I think people always blame the hay or the feed. But I think there's 3 things we really need to keep, keep it… just keep front and center. First, we need evidence of ingestion. So, obviously, if they're eating the hay or they're out in the pasture, you can have poisonous plants in a pasture and the horses will eat around them, right? So, you have to have that evidence of ingestion.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And in this case, in Minnesota, they actually took

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: stomach contents, and were able to find the ionophore.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Which was the culprit.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: in… in the feed that was accidentally sold, to… to this owner. So you need evidence of ingestion, and you need symptoms. And where I was struggling with is there's very few weeds that will cause poisonous plants that will cause horse death in 12 hours. So I was looking for, like, Japanese yew.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: But that's a shrub, it's not really going to be in a hayfield.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: I was looking for waterhemp, and I just… the hay was actually nice hay. The little bits of weeds I were finding was… they were non-toxic, and they wouldn't cause something to happen that quickly. The other thing we like to see is actually if we could look for the toxin.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And when they actually analyzed the feed, and then when they analyzed the stomach contents of the horses, they did find the ionophore.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: So then we knew what it was and where it came from. So it had nothing to do with the hay, which was… which what everybody was swearing up and down just had to be.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: you know, the culprit in this case. So, again, evidence of ingestion, you have to have the symptoms that match. And in this case, there just aren't very many poisonous plants that really match the symptom of a very rapid onset of death. And then the toxin, and you know, like Emma said.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: A basic hay analysis is not going to identify the toxin, and unfortunately, with a lot of toxic plants, we don't even know what the toxin is, so it's impossible to analyze for.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: So your basic hay analysis is not going to identify weeds or toxins. It's going to identify fiber and carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals if you request it. So I think horse owners just need to really know what a hay sample will and won't do.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Yeah, and you said two things that got my brain going. Weeds and hay can be very difficult to identify, so even if you can find it, a leaf has been, you know, twisted and crushed and dried a million times. It can be really tricky to figure out what that is once it's…

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Laura Beth Kenny: Not much more than a stem and some crumbles.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And then also, when you're going out into the pasture, you know, I guess in this case, the horses were in a lot, but if your horses are in pasture, and you think, oh, they must have eaten something toxic.

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Laura Beth Kenny: I see a ton of toxic plants in pastures every time I go out and do a pasture consult. The horses aren't touching them.

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Laura Beth Kenny: So, what worries me more is if there was a weed, a toxic plant that the horses had been eating, and now I can't find it because they ate it all. So, you know, it's… it makes it a lot harder once you think about that.

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Kris Hiney: So… so let's maybe talk about, on the… on the pasture detective side, because you… right? I'm like…

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Kris Hiney: if you don't have a monoculture, or, like, that you use to improve pasture with, like, you know, it's seeded, it's one thing. There's a lot of stuff out there, right? And some things horses eat, and they don't, so how would…

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Kris Hiney: How do you narrow down that little hunt?

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Kris Hiney: Into what may be out there that is potentially a culprit or not.

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Laura Beth Kenny: I think part of what you need to do is have an expert on hand.

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Laura Beth Kenny: that can identify all of your plants in the pasture and know which ones are toxic and which aren't. So, yet another shameless plug for Extension. Find your local county office and see if they can hook you up with somebody who can identify all the plants. Maybe it's not all the same person that knows which ones are toxic and which ones are there.

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Laura Beth Kenny: But it's… it's a puzzle, and you might need multiple people to get that.

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Laura Beth Kenny: That figured out.

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Laura Beth Kenny: You know, there's lots of great reference books. I have one, A Guide to Plant Poisoning of Animals in North America, and it divides the book by what organ system is involved with the certain plants.

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Laura Beth Kenny: So if you can tell me this horse had a liver, like, elevated liver enzymes or, you know, liver failure, I can flip right to that chapter. And so, having that kind of detail from your vet, from the blood work or the necropsy, can help a lot.

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Kris Hiney: And, and I kind of, you know, my advice off of experience, too, just, you know, in some practical things, are, like, fence lines.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Mmm, sick.

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Kris Hiney: because we all know the birds like to introduce very specific new plants to fence lines, right? They just do.

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Kris Hiney: And if anybody's horse is out there, anything like mine, fence lines are things they like to go, oh, what's on the other side? So it doesn't matter how big the pasture is, right? I mean, maybe there's a point that they're not like, hey, I want to live somewhere else.

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Kris Hiney: But they always seem to be, like, attractive to that area, so that's something I tend to think about.

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Kris Hiney: And then there's also, you know, you could have had a herd of horses live somewhere.

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Kris Hiney: you introduce a new horse, right, and that new horse is like, well, I might want to give this a try, right? And then…

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Kris Hiney: cropped over. So, like, I don't know, you guys have any stories or experience with that? It's kind of like, hmm, those are some things to get your mind going.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Well, you know, Kris and Laura, those are excellent, recommendations, and I can tell you that nothing good grows in swampy areas or dense woods.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: So, usually if you have, like, an open pasture, lots of sun.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: you know, it's not wet, that's not really where we find the poisonous plants. We find them on the edges, like you said, Kris fence lines, but we also find them in areas that are just always wet, that maybe animals shouldn't be grazing, or where it's heavily shaded.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Because in those areas, the grass just doesn't do well. So, I always tell horse owners that if it has a yellow.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: flower.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: It's probably not good, and if it is in a swamp or woods, it's also probably not good.

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Kris Hiney: So do you… so now is the, like, who wants to share their favorite poisoning stories? I mean, you did a good one there, a bad one, right? Using a lot of valuable horses at one time, that's a terrible story. And I know we've heard those big ionophore stories, they've… they've been really recent lately.

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Kris Hiney: But, Laura, Janessa, do you have some kind of, like, fun detective stories that you figured out?

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Laura Beth Kenny: Yes, I'm not a very good detective, because a lot of the cases I get, I can't figure out. There's just nothing there. You know, I've had horse… and it was never a…

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Laura Beth Kenny: broad poisoning of lots of different horses. It'll be one horse has something that the vet can't figure out. So I come out, and I'm like, well, it could be this, could be this, but, you know, it's up to you to get it tested.

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Laura Beth Kenny: So, I don't have the best stories. I've had, you know, bleeding, low vitamin K, I've had excitability in a certain pasture, just…

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Laura Beth Kenny: Just stuff that, you know, maybe, maybe they ate everything that was there.

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Kris Hiney: At one time, they're like, where's all the toxic weeds?

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Kris Hiney: Did you have any good ones?

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Janessa Hill: Yeah, we've had a few here in Ohio where I've gotten unfortunate phone calls. One that really sticks into my mind, I kind of led into a little earlier, we've been in a drought here in Ohio for a couple different years in the summer.

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Janessa Hill: And we're not really great, and I'm kind of in this boat of not overgrazing our pastures sometimes, right? We might be a little overstocked on most of our horse farms, and we can manage it, but it's not always something that when we're in a drought, we can manage well.

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Janessa Hill: And unfortunately, like Krishona was saying, this weed was in a lower-lying, like, kind of wet area, and we ultimately found that some sheep and some horses, unfortunately in an overgrazed pasture, had ingested some poison hemlock.

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Janessa Hill: At the rosette stage.

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Janessa Hill: And that is pretty lethal, and obviously they didn't make it, and… but myself and Soil and Water and the veterinarians were all on the team to kind of be there, boots on the ground, looking to see, and…

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Janessa Hill: That's what we… with the vet's help and with all the testing, we were able to diagnose that that's unfortunately what the animals did, is they ingested the green thing that was still in the field.

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Janessa Hill: And if they have the option to, they're obviously not going to eat that. But this was in a very severely overgrazed field, and unfortunately, that was what they chose to continue to eat as it was green.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Yeah, and Kris, I mean, I don't know, I get pulled into a lot of…

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: situations, because again, the answers aren't obvious, and like Laura, a lot of times we can't figure it out, but another issue we had is, there was a large farm that was feeding bulk grain out of, like, one of those big upright grain bins, and

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And they had horses outside, horses inside, it was a large boarding facility, and they kept having issues with neurologic horses and blindness.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And they couldn't figure it out, but eventually, the person delivering the feed watched and figured it out. Here, their bulk bin was not sealed well, so moisture was getting in, and that feed was molding in the very bottom, so when they opened up the chute.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: A whole bunch of moldy feed would fall out into a bigger bin.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: The workers didn't always catch it, and the horses that happened to be fed that, like, those scoops of feed were the ones, because of the mold, that were,

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: that were having the neurologic issues and the blindness, and that's… those are the symptoms when you ingest mold, like, moldy feed. So they got a new bed, made sure it was sealed up, never had a problem again. But sometimes this… sometimes the issues are just…

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Like, nobody knew the bin was leaking.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Right? And you just… it's just good to have people that are always observant. And again, if you see a clump of mold, just don't feed it.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: You know, and stop and think, where did this come from? Why is this happening? You know, it wasn't moldy when we put it in, but it's moldy coming out.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Yeah, and I just attended a really great training on mycotoxins in.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: an animal.

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Laura Beth Kenny: feeds, and not only grains. Hay can have mycotoxins, even fresh pasture. You don't necessarily need to be able to see the mold for mycotoxins to be present.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And it's not necessarily going to be evenly spread out throughout your grain or your hay, so taking lots of multiple subsamples and

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Laura Beth Kenny: trying to figure it out that way, you know? I guess…

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Laura Beth Kenny: If you're in a situation where nothing else is making sense, and you can't find anything, test for mycotoxins.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And again, it goes back to take a lot of samples, right? And I like what Emma and Janessa shared. Keep some for yourself, because you might have to send them in a second time, or to a different lab, or whatever reason.

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Janessa Hill: Yeah, or you get one sample result back, and it makes you think of something else you should test for. I've never regretted having duplicates.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, and I think the detective work, so I always, like… and I think I've told this story before, but it's my own story, so I get to tell it. My incidents was also, like, think about what's novel in their environment, because, of course, they're horses, and that's what they're gonna go do.

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Kris Hiney: And we had, cut some trees down, and there was a brush pile. And, I had, you know, thought I knew what species of trees were in this brush pile, but apparently I'm not a… I don't know what that is, an arborist? Is that a tree?

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Janessa Hill: Dendrologist.

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Kris Hiney: Dedrologist? That sounds…

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Janessa Hill: Dendrology, it's the study of trees. 

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Kris Hiney: It's dead.

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Kris Hiney: But we had that, and so my horses came up neurologic, and so then I was like, oh, what did they do? Like, and so went investigated, and actually I could see which tree branches they had eaten. You could tell, right, that I really looked at all these, which ones they had actually eaten some leaves from.

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Kris Hiney: took those samples, took all the… I was like, okay, we can figure this out. And sure enough, I didn't know, because the canopy was pretty high up in the air when we had them cut.

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Kris Hiney: They were Black Locust.

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Kris Hiney: Well, turns out they shouldn't eat that, so… But even, like, I just… I didn't know, because when we had the person come and cut these trees down, I did not know that species was even in there. And then after that, we did a war on black locust in the… in the pasture, so…

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Kris Hiney: And, for you guys that are probably dendrologists out there, when you cut those suckers down, they'll sprout from the roots for a long time, and you gotta be, like, on top of your game until they give up the ghost. So, that was my project for many years then, is black locust destruction.

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Janessa Hill: And also thinking after you have storms. A lot of people don't think about what gets blown into your pastures, but our storms are kind of big here in Ohio when we get them now, and they seem to be happening more frequently.

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Janessa Hill: But even though you might not have a poisonous weed or tree in your fence line or in your pasture that you know of, it could be coming from the neighbors, and sometimes, unfortunately, we get those calls, too.

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Kris Hiney: Well, even if you do, like… because when the… when they were in the canopy, right, it was fine when those trees were standing, but… but…

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Kris Hiney: I mean, and I guess you get our storms now, but I'll say Oklahoma storms kinda… we're pretty good at it, right? So that'll blow a tree down pretty easy, and so…

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Kris Hiney: horses, doggone it, are like, oh, hey, look at this. I mean, the other day, my horse was carrying around a 3-foot stick. I'm like, what are you doing? So, like, just stop! You have all this! Like, we try really hard to make this good, and you're like, well, maybe I'll fall on this stick and die, so…

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Laura Beth Kenny: And I know it's a lot to ask every horse owner out there, but familiarize yourself with the most toxic plants.

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Laura Beth Kenny: You know, maybe you can avoid a situation like this if you can identify, you know, water hemlock, and poison hemlock, and you, and the stuff that can, you know, kill a horse, and not a lot of bites.

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Kris Hiney: Alright, what other kind of tips or tricks do you guys have for us, all of you 4 Extension people, that will keep our horses safe and non-poisoned?

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Laura Beth Kenny: I just said mine. Learn your toxic plants, test your water.

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Janessa Hill: vigilant in watching your pastures and being aware of what weeds you've got there, but also knowing your horses. Some things start very, very small and then get very big very quickly, but even the slightest sign of them being off in any way, shape, or form

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Janessa Hill: can sometimes really help you and help your horses. So making sure that we're doing our daily observations and really knowing our animals and their TPRs is super important.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: And then I would just add to follow your gut, right? If something looks off, or feels off, or, you know, like the Ohio crew said, if your horse just… if something isn't right.

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: take notes, change something, take the… if you've just fed a new bale, remove it, right? Like, just be very…

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Krishona Martinson - UMN Extension: Just be very observant and follow your gut.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, that's great advice, and I'll always be… my plug for behavior. Behavior is your guide, right? So, take everything seriously when something looks a little bit off. It's time to start doing some investigation. Soon.

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Kris Hiney: Well, I really appreciate, your guys' time today, and definitely, I can put links to, great resources relative to poisonous plants. I know all of you produce resources about poisonous plants.

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Kris Hiney: But there's some regional differences, so we can try to put all those, links together in the show notes.

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Kris Hiney: Certainly you could always visit Extension Horses, our website. We also have a lot of great information relative to feeding and toxic plants there as well.

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Kris Hiney: And yeah, you guys, appreciate your time today, and that has been another episode of our Tack Box Talk, Horse Stories with a Purpose.