Mycotoxins in grasses - how it effects horses

From time to time you may notice behavioural changes in your horse, for no obvious reason. If these changes include more than a few of the following symptoms, your horse may be suffering from the effects of grass mycotoxins.

• General grumpiness
• An unwillingness to be touched or tensing up and reacting when touched, especially around chest and thorax
• Appears somewhat 'stiff', stepping short behind.
• Cinchiness/girthiness, not standing for saddling/mounting,
• General grumpiness when ridden (e.g. pinning ears, swishing tail, etc),
• Tightness, tenseness, impulsiveness, wanting to run off,
• Can't use your legs,
• Reaching around to bite the girth when ridden.
• Seems to be stiff especially in the hindquarters
• Uncomfortable to ride, bunny-hops at the canter
• Crossfires
• Touchy around ears, difficulty with bridling,
• Jumps away suddenly when attempting to halter 
• Sore across the loins
• Excessive aggressiveness towards you or other horses 
• Excessive herd bound behaviour (irrationally attached to another horse). 
• Bucking (quite violent and 'out of the blue'),
• Galloping off in short bursts,
• 'Nutty' or 'ballistic' behaviour.
• Excessive spookiness/alertness,
• Shies away when approached, hard to catch,
• 'Spaced out', 'wired', 'not there', hallucinating,
• Eyesight seems to be affected, can't judge jumps,
• Overly claustrophobic, extremely sensitive to noise (reluctant to ride close to the arena wall, rushes off the float, etc).

Staggers related:

• Heavy on the forehand, stumbling over nothing
• Standing 'base-wide'
• Difficulty backing up, out of floats, etc
• Discomfort walking downhill
• Slightly drunk or 'spaced out' looking
• Uncoordinated movement, staggering
• Laying down a lot in the paddock
• Dragging back feet, reluctant to go forward
• Reluctant to canter, won't canter.

and Heat Stress related

• Quickly overheats when you put covers on,
• Running madly around paddock for no reason (while other horses aren't),
• Slamming into fences/gates
• Excessive sweating, white sweat
• smelly sweats
• Sweating in unusual places (e.g. on top of rump, patches on upper neck),
• General agitation
• Fence walking

All of these symptoms can be attributed to mycotoxins in the grasses. Mycotoxins means Fungal Poisons. I found with my horses the Ergot Fungus in paspalum created a hallucinogenic type symptom as well in my horse.

It's very scary because your horse is no longer the horse you know and love - they seem bi-polar and crazy.

Treatment

• Add salt to the diet - most diets are short on salt and high in potassium which cannot be excreted through urine without enough salt. Initially for a full size horse 2 tablespoons a day increasing to 3-4.
• Get a good toxin binder - for example Mycosorb.
• Add Magnesium Oxide to the feed - 2 Tablespoons per day at least. Dolomite is not as readily bio-available.
• Get a Homeopathic remedy 'Stramonium' 30c and give 5mls twice a day in the mouth
• Remove from grass until symptoms subside.