When I was at the barn yesterday, I made an annoying discovery. Both of the horses have hives! Sarge has them worse than Shivna, along his belly (right in the girth area) and upper front leg and towards his back leg, mostly just on the right side. Shivna just has a few on the top part of her hind leg.
I have a feeling that it's an allergic reaction to bug bites. The bugs have been really bad this year, and though I've been trying to keep the horsebeasts sprayed down with bug spray, there's only so much you can do. There have been a lot of those giant horseflies, which are the worst! So I'm thinking maybe one of them got Sarge on his belly, since the reaction is pretty localized (and not really where it would be if it had been something he ate that he was reacting to).
The hives should clear up, but I'm not going to be riding him (unless it's bareback) until it does, since I don't want the girth to rub. Frustrating!
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Comments: 23
Nothing really in their field; it's mostly just sand. We did just get new hay, so I'm keeping an eye on that, but I don't think a food allergy would caused such a localized response (and not even on the neck or both sides) and my vet school friend agreed...
Stupid bugs!
Also, side note-- there's a big Walker at my farm that looks like Viking sort of; not sure if I've mentioned that, lol :)
Our old field had bot flies, but I haven't seen any so far here. Thankfully