Allergies

I decided to put Calvin in the bigger pasture where there are more horses and I don't have to clean. Quite a bit of thought went into that decision, but ultimately it's because I got tired of cleaning the pasture, grass hay is $$, and Calvin is getting fat. The only problem was that I had to switch him to alfalfa as he has been on orchard hay for a long time.

I set him up in a stall to transition him slowly to alfalfa for a week:

Day 1: Pretty cushy setup 

Then exactly 6 days into that transition, he exploded in hives:

Neck, shoulder, face, & haunches got the worst of it

Called the vet and she said that it sounds like allergies. "Really? Because he's been on Alfalfa his whole life until 3 years old?"  Vet: "Yep, it can happen at any time and feed is a very common allergy, also I think it's a pretty big indicator that this happened right when you transitioned him."

I'm wondering if it's the pesticide he's allergic to that they spray on the alfalfa that my boarding facility uses, or if it's the alfalfa itself? I think I'll ask where this place buys their hay & research that.

I also realized that there were wood chips in his stall (better seen in the first pic), which also might have triggered the hives. Either way, I pulled him from the stall, stuck him back on orchard, and now he's back in his original pasture.

If he returns to normal, safe to assume it was the alfalfa (or maybe wood chips...), but only time will tell. 

Also ignore his ghetto yet functional fly mask--he likes to destroy fly masks

:(

Ugh Calvin, you're a mustang and therefore you're supposed to be super hardy ... didn't you get the memo?