If your horse coughs several times at the beginning of exercise, he may have upper airway irritation, tracheal irritation, allergies or a respiratory condition called inflammatory airway disease. Inflammatory airway disease is a chronic inflammatory condition of the lower airways of young horses characterized by chronic cough, excess mucus in the trachea, and mild exercise intolerance.
Airway problems of horses
If your horse coughs at the beginning of exercise, he may have upper airway irritation, tracheal irritation, allergies or inflammatory airway disease.
Horses with upper airway irritation usually have normal attitudes, appetites, and temperatures and do not exhibit increased respiratory effort at rest. Inflammation and mild airway obstruction with mucus occurs in the bronchi and bronchioles resulting in bronchitis. It is often caused by substances that irritate the airways such as molds, dusts, or pollutants.
A general physical examination with attention to the respiratory system may or may not show that there is some clear or white discharge present in the nostrils.Listening to the lungs and trachea may reveal harsh sounds, crackles, wheezes, or fluidy sounds in the trachea suggestive of the presence of mucus or lung sounds may be normal.
If your horse has a persistant cough at the beginning of exercise, an examination by a veterinarian may be in order. In many cases, improving ventilation and decreasing dust in the horse's environment will ease the airway irritation and the cough may go away.
In addition, more turnout time, sealing hay storage or not storing hay above the horses’ stalls, wetting or soaking hay fed to the horses, and switching or supplementing the diet with forages will lessen irritation and prevent coughing at the beginning of exercise because the upper airway will not be irritated by dust, molds or pollutants.