Sucker-punched

[redkan]

Quote:
Unfortunately, yes, tomato and potato plants can be toxic to horses (see link below) and I would think if it can be life threatening to horses would most certainly be so to a small shetland. I'm so very very sorry your daughter has lost her friend.

You can google "plants toxic to horses" and get numerous websites that list common yard & garden plants that can be toxic, even to the point of fatality, to horses.

http://www.oakequine.co.uk/html/pdf/Factsheets/Horse/24_269893.pdf

 

[horsejody]

Quote:
Yes, it can. Equine digestive tracts are very sensitive. She may have not drank enough water and, if it were hot, she may have been been slightly dehydrated and magnified the effects. Also, some plants are stronger than others. Ponies can be little piggies and can eat more than their share. I'm guessing the plants may have caused a stomach upset resulting in colic. (BTW I grow tomatoes and brugmansia flowers - both in the same family as nightshade- so I have done a bit of research on it). In moderation the green part of the plants can cause digestive upset.

Sorry for your loss.

 

[2manyhats]

ninjapoodles,

So sorry for your loss. She was beautiful (BTW, so is your little girl).

 

[ninjapoodles]

Thank you all. We won't ever know for sure what happened, as a necropsy was not possible due to the heat and state of decomposition by this morning. It's just SO hot, and she was solid black.

I don't know what to think about the tomato--I only have the one plant (which has dipped down and spread, so it looks like 3 plants), with tiny baby green tomatoes on the bottom half. There are a good dozen horse-toxic plants out here, especially trees, but she's lived here for 3 years with no ill effects, so I just don't know.

About 3 days before she died, Victor got to chasing around with her, and she got really exhausted, so I separated them, hosed her down and scraped the excess water off a few times to cool her down, and she appeared fine after a few minutes. That's the only unusual thing I can think of that happed in the days leading up to her death.

She was just lying down in the grass like she was asleep. No sign anywhere on her of having rolled or thrashed around, no dirty places on her body from rolling, and the grass around her was perfectly undisturbed. It honest to gosh looks like she went to sleep and never woke up.

I'm starting to wonder if perhaps she had a congenital heart defect that we never knew about, and all the running from the other day just pushed it past what it could keep up with? She's certainly never had to work much in her whole life, only being ridden at a walk.

I feel like this property is cursed. This is the third equine death I've had here, and we haven't even lived here 3 years yet. The first two were necropsied, though. My old stallion was just, well, old. And he'd lived a hard, hard life before I owned him, so getting into his mid-twenties was probably pretty good for him. And then I lost a 3-year-old colt to a sand-colic impaction...but in that case, it was obvious he was sick, and we tried everything we could. Both of those horses were euthanized to end their suffering. So there was a lot of awareness there on our part.

Just coming home and finding such a young, fit pony dead for no apparent reason...that's another thing altogether. A sickening thing.

 

[asher]

I'm so sorry for your and your dd's loss! :-(

 

[Scrambled Egg]

So sorry Poodles...

..

..

..

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

Your poor DD... I'm SO very sorry :aww

 

[BeardedChick]

I am very sorry for your loss. He was a beautiful fellow.

Horses can and do die very suddenly from aneurysm. I pulled this info off of The Horse's website for you, as I've heard of it happening far more times than I care to:

In general, most horses that collapse and die suddenly are the victims of an aortic aneurysm, which is a weakening in the wall of the aorta--the major vessel leading from the heart. This area of weakened wall can rupture and the horse then bleeds out internally. In other words, there are no external signs of bleeding, except that the mucous membranes of the mouth, nose, eyes, rectum, and genitalia become very pale. People can develop a similar weakening of the wall of major vessels, and surgical intervention to strengthen the area is usually indicated if the aneurysm is diagnosed prior to its rupture. So far, we have been unsuccessful in developing successful ways to either diagnose or treat these aneurysms in the horse.

Alternatively, horses can develop a rhythm abnormality in the heart beat, most often atrial fibrillation, which is an irregular contraction of the collecting chambers of the heart. Under circumstances of great stress, this rhythm abnormality can lead to collapse and possible death, although more often it results in exercise intolerance.

If you have an account on their site, you can pull up the full article at:

http://www.thehorse.com/viewarticle.aspx?ID=5331​

 

[Chick_a_dee]

Quote:
Tomato leaves are poisonous I believe, I knew that anyway, but I remebered it because I was just watching something about vegetables in the middle ages, and people didn't eat Tomatoes for a while because the leaves were poisonous and they thought the fruit might be too, or something like that, it was like devil fruit for a while LOL. She could have been slowly poisoned from eating your Roma Tomatoes, being that she was only a Shetland, it wouldnt take much eating and you didn't know so you couldn't have really done much about it at the time.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Thanks for the info. She didn't show any signs of colick-y symptoms, but if that kind of poisoning could cause a fairly quick death, it's a possibility. I went and read the article at The Horse about aortic anomalies, and that certainly fits the way we found her.

It's just horrific, regardless of what happened. A horrible thing to have to explain to a child.

This is the price we pay to surround ourselves with animals.