Choke in horses

[Lucky-C-Acres-Minis]

Had our first (and hopefully last) case of choke.. This lil gal's momma cleaned her off and then (the pig she is) rooted through the fresh straw I put down.. Shortly later she started coughing.. A couple hours later she started acting like she was heaving to throw up and had a nasal discharge, and would try to eat/drink but it would come out her nose with the discharge. I remembered reading an article in a magazine not that long ago about choke and so my red flags went up.. Looked it up on the net and sure enough she was matching the symptoms, so put a call into the local vet.. Came out looked her over, listened etc etc etc and said she couldn't hear/feel any obstuction, gave her a steroid shot and antibiotics etc.. This morning she wasn't any better and we noticed her udder had decreased in size greatly because she wasn't eating or drinking so we got very concerned. So had the vet out again, another steroid shot etc and said that if she didn't seem better by tomorrow morning to call OSU .. Well I didn't want to wait that long (especially after the 'wait and sees' and what happened with the mare we lost last year) so went ahead and called down to OSU and they said to get her in asap.. Took her down with baby, nasal tubed her, flushed her and scoped her.. Sure enough she was choking, the nasal tubing/flushing cleared it out and the scope showed a 2 inch area that was irritated, thankfully no lacerations etc, so now it's just take it easy and healing time..

After we got her home and settled back in her stall it started raining and out comes a gorgeous rainbow, so hopefully that's a sign everything is fine

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[StellaLenoir]

that is very scary. Thank goodness you listened to YOUR gut and took her in. Hope she recovers quickly.

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[Gracie]

I had one of my arabs choke once very SCARY stuff, Im glad your mares ok and that you decided to call then and not wait,

 

[eagles ring farm]

glad she is ok :bgrin

it's always best to listen to your gut feelings

 

[hobbyhorse23]

I had my elderly Arab choke severely a few years ago and thanks to some posts on the forum just before it happened I recognized his symptoms the minute I saw him. We called the vet right away and the obstruction was so bad it took them ages to clear it using a tube- he's been on soaked food ever since and has choked again whenever he gets into anything dry. You don't mess with choke and your vet is a fool to have taken a wait-and-see approach with a horse whose feed is coming out their nose; that just doesn't happen without some sort of obstruction! :no: I'm so glad you took your mare to the hospital. You probably saved her life and that of her foal.

: :aktion033:

Leia

 

[Fred]

I have had our older paint choke several [very expensive] times. Found out the lady that was leasing him wasn't feeding him the same as I fed him. The choke stopped when he went back to his old feed [purina equine senior]. She fed him the nutrena and while its good feed it didn't work for him, as it tended to ball up in his throat. I have also had a mini choke and she got pnuemonia after they tubed her. [she was a pig and bolted her food]. Scary stuff and you did the right thing. That vet should know better, you don't mess around waiting with choke.

 

[Mona]

I just experienced my first(and hopefully LAST) choke episode this Spring. We were out in the pasture watching over some brush piles we were burning. I was watching the horses and noticed one colt started acting funny like he was trying to cough something up. I went over and reallized by the sight and color of the foamy stuff coming from his nose, that he was choking on a manure ball of his Mom's. I didn't know what to do, so I grabbed him and hung him upside down and tride shaking it loose. No luck. I also tried bringing jim over to the water trough and trying to get a little into his mouth...just enough with hopes if he swallowed and it was wet, it may slide down. I tried calling a vet, and we don't have ANY in the area right now that do large animals. So I went back out and tried massaging the throat, up and down the esophogus, with hope I could manipulate the shape enough to get it to free itself in there. In about an hour or hour and a half, it finally let go, and he was OK. It was sure scary, and I have never had such a helpless feeling knowing there was NO vet to rely on! I tried calling MA, but got no answer, then I called Tony, as I thought with as many horses and number of years he has been in it, maybe he had some insight for me, but all he could offer was just what I was doing, so I hoped it would be OK, and thank God, it turned out to be.

 

[MountainMeadows]

I would highly recommend only feeding your mare a mush/soup for the next several days - once a horse has choked the area is affected can "swell" from the inflamation and this will set you up for another choke, and so on and so on - it is really important to make sure that what she gets is really wet - pretty much just soup, so that it can go down easily and allow her esaphogus to heal and the swelling to go down. I would only graze her lightly and only on very short grass, so that the pieces are tiny, and make sure that she lifts her head and chews rather than just doing the "mowing-thing" that they do when they never look up. The longer the impaction was in the throat, the more damage that has been done, the longer it takes to heal.

Keep things wet, keep her on antibiotics to prevent pneumonia (from the fluid that she may have aspirated) and all should be well.

 

[HGFarm]

Glad you did not wait!! If the mare had a nasal discharge and was showing the other symptoms, your vet should have taken action!! We lost a mare due to this as her windpipe ruptured. This was MANY years ago- a full sized horse we had. It had happened early the night before so she was already in bad shape by the time we saw her in the a.m. It was horrible and that is truly a scary situation!

Glad you got to her ok and she will be fine!!

Glad you did not wait!! If the mare had a nasal discharge and was showing the other symptoms, your vet should have taken action!! We lost a mare due to this as her windpipe ruptured. This was MANY years ago- a full sized horse we had. It had happened early the night before so she was already in bad shape by the time we saw her in the a.m. It was horrible and that is truly a scary situation!

Glad you got to her ok and she will be fine!!

 

[Lucky-C-Acres-Minis]

She is doing great and is back to her perky self..

She is on soaked grain and the OSU vet recommended this for 2-4 days or so, banamine for the first couple days just to help with pain and is on antibiotics to prevent pnuemonia (sp?) for a week. We've started feeding her 3 times a day, small amounts each feeding instead of two regular feedings... Her udder is starting to fill back up (yay! :aktion033: we were really worried about that!) and we take her out for short walks to get her out of the stall and allow her to graze..

When they scoped her they were abel to see that the impaction was half-way down her esophagus and there was an area aobut 2 inches in size that was red and irritated but NO lacerations/cuts etc..

The reason the first vet said that she did not tube her was because they did not have a tube small/long enough for miniatures (dog tube is right size in diameter but too short, and a calf tube is too wide) which kind of ticked me off as if she had a feeling she may need tubed why didn't she say so to begin with instead of the wait and see? *sigh* Needless to say we will more than likely be using OSU from here on out..

 

[HGFarm]

Well thank heavens, Lucky C and yes, I would use them too. I would be pretty angry if my vet showed up to work on a mini and was unprepared or didnt have the stuff to do so, knowing what to expect.

I thank my lucky stars every day for our vet- she is awesome, knows these minis inside and out, and she knows that EVERY ONE is valuable and worthy of the best treatment.

 

[Danielle_E.]

I am :new_shocked: shocked that your vet didn't tube your mare himself/herself. My saddlebred was, when he was younger and at a boarding stable, prone to choke, 3 times!!!! He was a real glutton and a growing boy, he now stand 17.1 hands barefoot :new_shocked: He would eat his grain and pellets so fast that we had to eventually put a HUGE rock (boulder) in his feed bin. The vet and I made quite the team, she would tube and I would pump :lol: , what an ordeal.

 

[Lauralee]

Once a horse chokes, there is always an increased risk that they will do it again.

I've owned a couple of chronic chokers in the past. They can be managed, but it takes dedication and persistence.

One old mare choked on every thing including all forms of grass and grain.

I kept her alive for years by mushing alfalfa pellets plus Equine Senior. To give her a treat, I would open a jar of baby food-carrots! She was turned out with a muzzle only, and she did well.

Light chokers need to slow down their eating, or they'll set up the cycle of continual choking due to inflammation and scar tissue in the esophagus.

Put some rocks in the feed dish and feed this mare by herself to reduce pigginess.

BTW choking on grass is an advanced sign of choking....most horses won't choke on grass because of its water content.

Geldings and open mares can benefit from a shot of oxytocin during choking episodes......it relieves the choke! Ask your vet.

 

[h2t99]

I had 2 episodes of choke last year and my vet tubed our mare and and worked on her for 2 hours!! Finally he gave her a shot of oxytocin and it finally cleared!! The second episode I called the vet and he told me to try the oxtocin first and if that did not work then he would come, well it worked and saved me a vet bill!! So definately try oxytocin (if mare is not bred).