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Horse Care and Comfort

sweet iron/copper-bit

By:

Miriam (Holland&Germany)

Date:

2012-Jul-24 at 07:24PM

Hi everyone,
One of the arabian youngsters I have been working with in the last few years turns out to have an allergic reaction on his gums from Monty's sweet iron/copper-bit.
He had some issues about going in frame, tended to keep his head tilted, when asked to work on the bit. The dentist found an inflamation around the bars, where the bit lies.
She stated it happens more often, that horses react to copper.
Has any of you had this experience?
Did Monty's team ever hear about this fenomenon?
Miriam

Kicki -- Sweden 2012-Jul-24 at 09:24PM

I know some horses have reacted to the nickel that was used in some copper bits, but I doubt this is the case here since it comes from Monty Roberts.

Nadine 2012-Aug-07 at 01:47AM

I've never heard of that happening, but I'm sure he could be allergic to it/ be sensitive to it. Have you tried using a stainless steel one? It's not Monty recommended, but it should be hypo-allergenic.

emlaw 2012-Aug-07 at 03:50AM

You can also get plastic Happy Mouth bits which are made from a special hard chew proof plastic, not all horses like them and some do try and give them a good old chew, but they are a warmer alternative to stainless steel if the horse doesn't like stainless steel. As Nadine says though, good quality stainless steel is hypo allergenic and should be OK if the horse accepts it. You might have to leave out the bit completely for a while until the inflammation has subsided.

Gen (Queensland, Australia) 2012-Aug-07 at 11:06AM

Hi Miriam
.
I have never heard of this before. It's good that you shared it with us :-) I just wanted to add that you can also get bits that are just sweet iron with no copper inlay in them.
.
An allergy to copper is really quite interesting as I have read that horses have a high tolerance to copper in their diet. Very interesting in deed :-)
.
See you later,
.
Gen

Miriam (Holland&Germany) 2012-Aug-07 at 06:48PM

Hi all,

We just switched back to his former stainless steel bit, so he is ridden again and doing well.

The only thing I found about copperallergies, is that mostly it's the nickel in the alloy that causes the problem. But on the other hand, often steelalloys have nickel in them, too.

Thank you for your input!
I'll keep you posted if anything occurs.

Miriam