close call

[GAILS]

went out and feed this afternoon as usual. had put feed in one trough and turned to put feed in another one. noticed one mare at the first trough start to cough and act strange. i started toward her and she trotted away so i thought she was ok. but kept watching her for a while and realized she was sort of foaming at the mouth and heaving or trying to. caught her and tried to rub her throat to maybe help. nothing seemed to help so we called vet and he had us bring her in. he had to tube her and flush it out. we feed pellet feed which i thought was ok. vet said it was not uncommon for horses to choke on pellet feed. this was news to me. he suggested we mix something with the pellets. what would anyone advise? lucky mare seems to be ok. anyone else ever had this problem?

 

[Reble]

Maybe black sunflower seeds only need 1/4 cup which they chew more instead of just swallowing.

This can help with dandruff and a shinier coat. Hope this helps you.

Thank goodness you noticed

 

[Maple Hollow Farm]

I took an animal nutrition class in college and they recommend that you feed oats with a pelleted feed because it can help to prevent choking and also it scratches the intestines to help with the absorption of nutrients.

 

[Hill Haven Farms]

I feed crimped oats with my pellets. I also throw in a few alfalfa cubes to slow them down. I had a mare that would literally inhale the food with out even chewing...thats when my vet said to use the alfalfa cubes to slow her down. Good luck and good thing you caught it.

 

[sams]

My first horse (an old standardbred mare) died this way. One day she gobbled her feed so fast that she literally inhaled the pellets into her lungs. My vet was away at the time but replacement vet told me that if she was a strong mare she should be able to come through it alright. She had one week of absolute heck with rotting pellets dripping from her nose and a very hard time breathing before she passed away. My regular vet told me afterwards that it was something that was almost impossibe to recover from. I wish i would have know that before to spare her from that befor she had died. Her son is the same type of eater, always thinks he is starving so he gets some large rocks in his feed tub so he has to slow down and eat around them. Its been about 4 years since she passed away but i still go into panick mode if somebody coughs during feeding time.

 

[nbark]

Mine was choking on something and we thought it might be a piece of granola bar. She was stretching her neck and stretching her front feet like she was trying to swallow hard to get it down, just like we would. I started slapping both sides of her neck, first the right and then the left really hard and it passed. We had the phone ringing to the vet but when she passed it, she just stuck her face back into the feed bin and kept on eating. I guess it was kind of the horsey Heimlich manuever. Maybe it wasn't the granola but the pellets.........

 

[Carolyn R]

There is absalutely nothing wrong with mixing water with pellets and letting it sit for a few minute. Warm water works the quickest in about a 2/1 ratio (2parts water/1part feed).

 

[Lucky-C-Acres-Minis]

We had a mare choke on hay/straw shortly after foaling (she was eating the hay/straw in between cleaning off her filly) Had to have her scoped/tubed in order to dislodge it.. For months foaling she could only have REALLY soaked/broken up alfalfa cubes and soaked pellets.. Once a horse chokes they may or may not do it again, some don't, others do, depends on how severe the other time was and how much inflammation/scar tissue is there, the more severe/more scar tissue, the higher the chance of it happening again..

Is your mare a fast eater? One that gobbles it up quickly? If so, then feed her in a deeper pain with a decent size rock in with the feed, one big enough she's can't swallow of course but small enough she can move around to get to feed, will slow her down as the rock will limit how much grain she can get at a time since she'll have to move it around to get to the feed.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

When my elderly and toothless big gelding choked years ago everyone on LB insisted it couldn't have been on his pellets, that it must have been hay, but the vet confirmed to his own surprise that the blockage was a big lump of pellets that sort of glued themselves together in his throat. It happened again a couple of weeks later and ever since he's gotten all of his food pre-soaked and fed wet and that seems to do the trick. He had no problem with senior feed when he could chew it properly, but when it goes down his throat whole and dry, look out!

If your mare's main problem is that she can chew it but is in too much hurry to do so, I'd make sure she gets fed hay first to take the edge off her hunger then try the large rock trick or mixing in a non-gluey food like the oats so each mouthful stays a little looser. I think it must feel like eating a lot of dry mashed potatoes- that sudden, nasty, choking, won't-go-down-your-throat sensation.

Feeding wet is a pain, but it fixes it!

I'm glad you caught her when it first happened; the less time it's stuck, the less tissue damage there will be. It's such a helpless feeling to watch them do those helicopter ears and swallow convulsively and not be able to make it go away.

How do you explain to a horse why they're foaming out their nose?

Leia

 

[Chaos Ranch]

Last year when we had a new mare choke on her feed. She dropped and rolled, stood up, coughed, tried and tried to swallow it down. You could hear her saliva gurgling back up as she tried to swallow but it refused to go beyond where it was lodged and kept coming back up and she was slobbering. We aggressively rubbed and patted her throat, I was on the phone trying to get a vet out... but it was a weekend and I couldn't get ahold of them. I was trying their emergency numbers and calling friends with horses that might know what to do. Meanwhile, the other horses in the herd were showing great concern for Fantasy. While she was down and rolling, they'd come over and stand beside her, sniffing and nuzzling her. It just made me cry. She'd get up and a couple of the horses would herd her off to herself and then stand there with her.

Just as my husband turned to run to the house to get the horse trailer she coughed really hard and it came flying out of her mouth in a big nasty glob. Turned out there was a stalk/stem in the mess that must have came from the oats. She was perfectly fine after that. She went down and got a big drink from the pond and she went over and started to graze.

 

[txminipinto]

The horses I've seen choke have all choked on alfalfa cubes. Please be careful with these in minis!

 

[Field-of-Dreams]

We lost a colt last year that choked. We had finally got him to the point he'd slurp mush and was doing well. Then we went away Regionals and the person feeding didn't wet his food enough and he choked. They cleared it but he never recovered and I found him dead in the field a few days later.

Lucy