Reducing the risk of equine grass sickness #KeepCalmAndFeedHay

This is a risky time of year for grass sickness, and the changes necessitated by the coronavirus are not exactly helpful. Many of you are probably roughing your horses off. Consequently turnout is increased and exercise decreased. You may also be making fewer visits to check on them. To help reduce the risk of grass sickness try making any changes slowly, so perhaps increase turnout over several days instead of all at once.

One of our key pieces of advice is to feed a ration of hay or haylage at least daily. This is thought to help keep the contents of the gut stable at a time when the nutritional content of the grass is changing rapidly. For more advice read the attached information: https://grasssickness.org.uk/advice/potential-management-practices-which-may-reduce-the-risk-of-grass-sickness/

If someone else is checking your horse for you, make sure they are aware of the clinical signs of grass sickness, and get them to watch our for any subtle changes in behaviour: https://grasssickness.org.uk/advice/the-clinical-presentation-of-grass-sickness/

If you are unfortunate enough to experience a case please do report it on our website to help contribute to our research effort, your assistance is greatly appreciated:http://grasssickness.org.uk/research/reporting-grass-sickness-cases/

We are currently working from home due to the coronavirus, if you do have queries please email info@grasssickness.org.uk and we will do our best to help.