Watch: Warning to Shropshire horse owners as mare beats illness with 95% death rate
A warning has gone out to Shropshire horse owners as a mare is getting back to full strength after surviving a little known illness with a high mortality rate.
Following the incident, horse owner Donna Martin, of Newport, has warned fellow owners about the dangers of the animals eating sycamore seeds which causes sycamore poisoning – or equine atypical myopathy – which kills the muscles.
It has a fatality rate of about 75 per cent but Ms Martin said vets had said her horse, five-year-old Molly, had a five per cent chance of survival after she was diagnosed.
Against all odds, Molly is now on the road to recovery two weeks later.
The scare started this month when the horse showed signs of stomach pains. She then began pawing the ground and rolling and then could not move.
Ms Martin, 44, raised the alarm on January 2, when she arrived at the field to find Molly standing still, with her head hanging to the ground and sweating.
The problem initially stumped vets until a blood test showed the horse was suffering from sycamore poisoning.
The horse's heart rate was 60 beats per minute, well above the normal heart rate of 38 to 40bpm and the number of enzymes recorded in her muscles was a two million – the normal level is between 300 and 500.
The disease is believed to be picked up by horses when they eat sycamore leaves and the tree's distinctive helicopter seeds. The leaves had been blown into the field from nearby sycamore trees.
Ms Martin warned other owners in the area to be aware of the problem. She added the worst cases were usually recorded in October but Molly's case showed the leaves could still be poisonous months later and after the leaves had lost their colour.
She said: "I was told by the vet they could run a drip to try and flush the toxins out but there was a 95 per cent mortality rate for horses with sycamore poisoning at Molly's stage. I haven't had the bill yet but it is running into thousands.
"Every three hours from the Friday until the Monday me and (partner) Rob were up here giving her another drip and were injecting her with pain killers every 12 hours."
On Monday Molly's urine had returned to a natural colour – from the previous red – and her heart rate had come down to 44bpm.
Ms Martin said the horse was now improving and would survive.
