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Usually, grazing horses don’t touch plants that are toxic. Sometimes they do…
And sometimes, it ends up being bundled in their hay! According to this article, if a horse eats enough of the Singletary Pea, they will have paralysis similar to EPM as well as other neurological signs.
If this plant is as easily recognizable to you as it was to me… I thought you might like to know more so read the articles below.
Heads up for those of you in Texas, New Mexico to the East Coast and along the West Coast in California and Oregon.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Click to go to the original article.
This is very common in my area.
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Singletary Pea, Caley Pea
Lathyrus hirsutus was once planted as a cool-season crop that was plowed under in the spring as a green manure. It is fairly common roadside and field volunteer plant in river bottom soils. On several occasions we have seen horses develop stringhalt in both rear limbs while grazing this plant. Stringhalt is the name of a condition in which with each step the rear leg is lifted very high then the hoof snaps to the ground. Lathyrus sp. (sweet pea) are known to cause spinal cord and nerve damage in people that rely heavily on the peas for their nutrition as do poor young males in India.
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Very, very interesting. We had a horse several years back that suddenly had all kinds of neuro symptoms. Could barely walk, collapsed, ran into fences. My regular vet had no clue, specialty vet did a 2 hr exam including x-rays of head and entire spine. Still no clue. Blood work neg for EPM, west Nile, etc. Meanwhile 2 more horses in our area came down with it also. One had to be put down, the other lived. Only connection was that all of us bought out of the same batch of hay. I’ve never heard of the singletary pea, but it sure makes me wonder. Our horse eventually recovered, but we sold him as safe for trail riding only. Thanks for this article, I’m going to mention it to my vet.