Here are the results of our social media call out in February 2022. We were blown away by the number of responses and breadth of knowledge out there. To make sense of the responses, Andi Neilson, MSc, analysed your answers, and you can read the results here.

Crucible Social Media Call Out

Question 1 What do you think causes grass sickness?

Tables of codes created can be found after the diagrams in the download.

Fig 1 Hierarchy sunburst chart showing frequency overview

Fig 2 Chart Showing Overview Frequency of Responses to the Question “What do you think causes grass sickness?”

Figure 3. Word Cloud showing frequency of words used by respondents to the question “What do you think causes grass sickness?”

Code “Multiple Reasons” has been removed from this analysis.

Q1 Soundbites:

• My lad used to eat all sorts so it’s very difficult for me to pinpoint any particular thing that could have been eaten by him and possibly not by the other horses in the herd.
• I wonder was it a combination of things that together makes a chemical reaction as a result?
• I think it had been building with her but she was in good health until the last day.
• Something unique to the horse’s genetics not being able to ‘wash out’ the toxin (why it effects some & not others).
• The only thing that changed for my mare was the yard allowing chickens to roam over the fields.
• Feels like a horrible game of Russian roulette.
• I think there is a chain of events that occur that cause a surge in botulism in the soil.
• Domino of factors.
• The rate of grass sickness cases and the prevalence of guano being used as a fertilizer in set areas in the country many years ago.
• Nobody seems to have followed up the spread of Peruvian guano and the potential for soil disturbances in said areas.
• vaccine trial was a big let down
• foggy/ morning dew/ morning sunny kinda days after a spell of damp. The kind of days where you see midges at their worst after rain.
• I have often wondered if bird droppings (especially corvid type scavengers) or their sharing of outside drinking water supplies could play a factor?
• We often focus on what the horse may have eaten, but less so on what he may have ingested while drinking?
• Could there be a link between Grass Sickness and Atypical Myopathy
• A toxin in the ground – possibly higher risk when there are field drains underground.
• I think there are a number of factors that cause the ‘perfect storm’ for grass sickness.
• maybe only certain horses are receptive to the toxin and others are not?
• a parasite which lays a toxin could be one strand of grass in a thousand acres
• I thought possibly ketone body muscle eating virus like diabetics get.
• Vast flocks of crows, pigeons & gulls.
• rig and furrow land create little micro-climates (damp, sheltered, mild) which are conducive to fungus growth.
• high rabbit and pigeon population and contamination from their feces.
• a combination of soil weather and bad luck and horse type some being more susceptible than others
• I’d been told there were other horses/ponies over the years that had been sick on that land which I hadn’t known
• bad luck
• horses that dig for grass roots
• cruel disease