THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 4, 1995 TAG: 9509040218
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 138 lines
One by one, the tiny horses died and no one knew why.
The first was at 1 in the morning. The owners were terrified and confused. They couldn't fathom why their prize mare, one of several exotic miniature horses at Boot Strap Manor, was in premature labor.
They knew the result: The valuable baby, the foal, would not survive. He was several weeks early and his mother was rolling around the stall in excruciating pain, bleeding, her water broken.
The mother lived, but the baby died. That was in late 1993.
``We had no idea why,'' said Dick Kelly, manager of the miniature-horse farm on Holland Corner Road. ``We just thought maybe it was a matter of her coming to a new farm. We'd just shipped her from Florida.''
Then it happened again.
And again.
And again.
Each time, owner Bessie Gower could do nothing but call the veterinarian, wring her hands and watch another foal die. Once was happenstance; twice was coincidence. After a while, it became something more.
Some of the foals were preemies, born too soon. Some were spontaneously aborted. Some came out backward, some upside down. Some were weeks overdue.
One foal was so late and had grown so big inside her mother that she could not be pulled out, even with chains. Kelly and Gower watched in horror as a veterinarian had to decapitate the young horse inside the mother so it could be removed.
``That blows your mind if you've got any feelings at all,'' Kelly said.
The deaths continued for 18 months. By the time they ended this past May, 11 foals had died. Countless others were never conceived. The mares were rendered infertile for nearly two years.
What could be wrong?
Kelly and Gower agonized. When eight mares suffered bad births this spring, including two emergency C-sections, Kelly and Gower knew it wasn't the horses, but something dreadfully wrong with the farm itself.
``We began testing everything that could be a common problem,'' Gower recalled. ``We tested the bedding. We tested the hay. We tested the grass. We tested the mares. We even tested the stallions.''
The answer came in a May 25 letter from the University of Kentucky.
It was the grass. The pasture that Kelly and Gower had planted to sustain the herd was killing it off.
There was a disease in the Kentucky 31 tall fescue that covered 30 acres at Boot Strap Manor. Scientists had a name for it: endophytic fungus, a disease carried in the fescue's seeds that causes problems with horses and cattle.
The lab found fungus all over Gower's farm. Ten of the 13 fields tested had some fungus. Some fields were 100 percent infected.
Kelly and Gower were stunned.
``We just never thought it was the grass,'' Gower said. ``We spent thousands of dollars in vet bills. We checked the horses for everything. We must have the healthiest herd in the state.''
What happened at Boot Strap Manor was unusual, but not unprecedented. The fescue fungus has been making news, especially among farmers in the South.
Georgia scientists discovered the fungus 20 years ago. They found that it made cattle unusually thirsty and lazy, hurt milk production and depressed pregnancy rates.
Worst of all, the fungus infects one of the most common types of pasture grass in America: tall fescue. It is spread by seed, not from grass to grass, and the only way to destroy it is to kill the entire pasture.
``That's not only difficult financially,'' said Dr. M.W. Myers, a Chesapeake veterinarian who cares for the Boot Strap Manor horses, ``it's just plain difficult. This stuff likes to live.''
In Hampton Roads, most horses feed on fescue, Myers said, and much of that grass is infected. Even so, Myers has seen only a handful of horses sickened by the fungus, most of them less severely than the ones at Boot Strap Manor.
Commonly, the fungus causes milk production problems and thicker placentas, which means foals have trouble separating from their mothers at birth. In extreme cases, foals gestate too long and can't get out of their mothers' wombs.
Clifton Slade, an agricultural extension agent in Suffolk, called the deaths at Boot Strap Manor ``more of an isolated incident. We attribute that to the fact that he has miniature horses,'' which are more susceptible to fungus infections.
``Fescue has probably been causing these problems for a long time,'' Myers said, ``and we're just finding out about it.''
This is not a phenomenon unique to Virginia. All around the country, breeders of miniature horses are being warned about fescue. Last month, for example, Miniature Horse World magazine carried a story titled, ``Breeder Loses Fifteen Foals And It Could Happen To You!''
For Kelly and Gower, the warning was too late. They blame the seed manufacturer and distributor for not warning them of the dangers.
``They sell grass seed that says right on the label, `Excellent for pasture,' '' Gower said. ``You do not expect to have something in the grass that kills the horses.
``If it's in there, they should tell people. They should have a warning label on this grass seed, and they don't. It's like telling a pregnant lady not to smoke.''
Last month, the lawyer for Boot Strap Manor, Samuel R. Brown II, filed a lawsuit in Virginia Beach Circuit Court against Wetsel Inc., which sold the Kentucky 31 grass seed, and the Midwestern States Fescue Association, which developed and packaged the seed.
The lawsuit seeks $250,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.
Bill Pritchard, manager of the Virginia Beach branch of Wetsel, said he remembers selling the seed to Kelly, ``but that's the extent of knowing what this is all about.'' He has not seen the lawsuit. Officials at Wetsel's headquarters in Harrisonburg did not return phone calls.
So far, the fatal fescue has cost Kelly and Gower plenty.
For example, each miniature foal can sell for up to $15,000. The breeders lost 11. In addition, other mares could not get pregnant at all for two years. Only two healthy foals were born at the farm in the past year and a half.
Kelly also spent $2,000 on medical equipment and an emergency operating table to help mares with problem births. Killing the old grass and putting in new grass will cost $10,000 more, he estimates. Extra help was hired to care for the sick horses.
``We lost a fortune,'' Gower said. ``We had people waiting in line to buy these foals.''
But the worst part, Kelly said, was the feeling of helplessness as he watched the mares suffer.
``When you go out in the barn in the morning and find one of these mares tossing and turning with one of those foals hanging half out,'' Kelly said, ``it's just devastating.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN, Staff
Bessie Gower owns Boot Strap Manor in Suffolk, where 11 foals were
lost in 18 months.
Photos by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN, Staff
The worst part of the ordeal, said Dick Kelly, manager of Boot Strap
Manor, was the feeling of helplessness as he watched the mares
suffer. ``When you go out in the barn in the morning and find one of
these mares tossing and turning with one of those foals hanging half
out, it's just devastating.''
``We just never thought it was the grass,'' said Bessie Gower, owner
of Boot Strap Manor farm in Suffolk. ``We spent thousands of dollars
in vet bills. We checked the horses for everything. We must have the
healthiest herd in the state.''
by CNB