DAVIDSON—A new F-word is on the tongues and in the minds of many local grain and cattle producers: fusarium.
Species of the fungus have contaminated cereal crops this year. While causing significant losses in grain yields and quality, the variety of mycotoxins fusarium produces can be toxic to cattle and other livestock that feed on contaminated hay, silage and straw.
Monogastrics such as pigs and horses are more sensitive to the effects of mycotoxins and ergot. Earlier this fall Jan Manz cradled the head of her family’s most trusted horse, Old Bill, in her lap, while he lay in a pen on their farm near Davidson. She stroked Bill’s head, helpless to do more for the ailing horse as he died.
Bill was 23 years old and was a calm and gentle fellow who had the important job of teaching Jan and Tim’s young grandkids how to ride.
Bill’s death was tough, even more so because it came after a similar scene had played out earlier that day.
Jan had gone out to feed the horses and saw her daughter-in-law Beth’s palomino Goldie lying down.
“I sat down with her, put her head in my lap, stroked her and she died,” Jan says.
Goldie was Beth’s five-year-old mare that had won open ranch horse reserve champion at the Prairie Quarter Horse Breeders Sale and Futurity in Saskatoon in April.
The Manz’s three other horses Gem, Swinger and Clay were also sick and saving their lives became the priority.
Jan says their “roller coaster ride” began in September when the horses became sick. She said it started as wheezing, that turned into coughing.
“I’ve had vets out here since Sept. 24 and they were thinking it could be anything from colic, summer pneumonia…” Jan said.
The symptoms got worse. The horses had heavy breathing, rapid heart rate and rapid weight loss. Their hair was falling out.
With two horses now dead from this strange illness, Clay, a 13-year-old paint, took a turn for the worse.
“The vet told me he was a day or two away from death,” Jan said.
Having watched two horses die, she couldn’t stand to see a third go, she asked the vet what they should do.
The one common denominator seemed to be the feed. “The vet said change the feed,” Jan said.
The horses, which had been kept close to the house in a corral were being fed hay from this season’s crop. On the vet’s advice, the Manzs switched to hay and cleaned oats left over from last year. After switching the feed, Jan said Clay started getting better. As of last week, the health of all three horses is much improved.
“The horses look so much better. They may be scruffy looking to the average eye, but to us, who watched them almost die, they look amazing,” Jan said.
Jan says there shouldn’t be any lasting effects to the health of the horses, but they have a long recovery period ahead of them.
“We can’t even attempt to use them till after Christmas because of their lungs.”
The horses are part of the Manz family and are well cared for. They are used all the time, to check the cattle as well as ridden for pleasure.
“They’re like my kids,” Jan said.
Determined to learn the cause of the illness and death of their horses, the Manzs had autopsies performed on Bill and Goldie.
The autopsy results, which came in last week, concluded that the horses died of heaves (COPD) causing the lungs to fill with inflammatory cells that were complicated by heart issues.
The Manzs sent samples of their feed to Prairie Diagnostic Services at the University of Saskatchewan to be tested for mycotoxins and ergot contamination.
Results of the tests of the hay bales did not detect mycotoxins or ergot. Results of those samples came in at less than 12.5 parts per billion, which means there wasn’t anything there, said Dr. Barry Blakley, veterinary toxicologist with the U of S.
However, he said mycotoxins are not distributed uniformly in the feed. One batch may have it and another may not.
“It’s hard to predict from batch to batch,” he said.
He said feed contamination is one possibility, but he wasn’t sure if that is the extent of the cause of death without having a sample of the specific ration the horses consumed.
Blakley said horses are much more sensitive to mycotoxins than other livestock and require better quality feed. Cattle, he said, can handle at least five times the mycotoxins that horses can.
Still, if there is any doubt, he advises livestock producers to have their feed tested.
He said the Manzs are not alone in producers experiencing losses.
Blakley said he usually receives one or two calls a year on mycotoxins. Now he’s getting four to five calls a day.
“It is the most significant emerging feed-related livestock problem in Saskatchewan,”
he said.

For the full story, please see the Nov. 3, 2014 edition of The Davidson Leader.