Colic

[Mercysmom]

Came out to the barn yesterday and found my Modern filly Nefertiti doing a "dead horse impression." She will be 2 in May - she was on her back with her legs in the air the way colicky foals will position themselves.

Got her to her feet, found no manure in stall, her dinner had been eaten, some water consumed. Minimal gut sounds...but this happens to us every so often with one of our girls so we began the colic routine.

Put her outside and we went for a walk... then gave her a Banamine shot and walked some more. 30 minutes later she was thinking about eating and the desire to lie down and or roll was gone - she wasn't so much interested in rolling as she was interested in doing the dead horse impression. Followed up with our veterinarian for her suggestions...Freedom usually does this but I have been getting the water down her. Nefertiti is on a wet diet due to her paralyzed tongue.

Weatherly and Enterprise kept her moving through the day...some manure in her stall...appetite came back... tried to give her some oil and ended up with more of it on me so I would guess she is feeling better.

Nefertiti has a shiny coat on her slurry diet... just have to play with it some more as I am thinking the soaked beet pulp may have had something to do with it - Freedom was on it but still colicked and she eventually did better on soaked alfalfa cubes with a lot of "juice" in it.

Her trot is beautiful - she has never worn anything to enhance her trot like stretchies or shoes (yet)... looking forward to showing her in 2008.

Whew!

Denise

Silversong Farm

 

[Lewella]

Glad she's feeling better!

With wanting to lay upside down you might want to have the vet scope her for ulcers.

 

[txminipinto]

I second Lewella's suggestion. Another thing you might want to start checking is her heart rate. Heart rates can tell us a lot about the severity of the colic.

On oiling, please don't administer oil by mouth. You can accidently cause aspiration and you can't get enough into them for the intended effect. Sorry, just a vet tech peeve there.

 

[Mercysmom]

Many thanks for the advice. I do appreciate it.

Nefertiti has not been "stressed" to cause the ulcers as she has not left the farm nor endured any training or other stressors outside of her normal routine (I have had minis with ulcer problems and in each occurance, there has been a definite stress factor involved). Since the Banamine and bran mash and slow reintroduction to her normal diet, she is back on track and passing manure as she should but it is a red flag to watch for when we resume showing in 2008 as that is something outside her normal routine.

I am aware of the risk in aspirating oil... I had administered it in our minis under explicit instructions from our veterinarian on how it should be done and know if we get a lot of reaction/protest, I back off and monitor so we do no harm... so far, my chronic colicking mares have not had issues but it is something I am aware of and since we added wet sloppy alfalfa cubes and daily wormer (paste wormer 2x a year and manure samples tested to back up the wormings) to their diets, we have not had any impaction issues... I do count those manure piles each AM.

Since Neffie is a special needs pony with her paralyzed tongue, I do watch her to make sure she is consuming food as best as she can to mainatin body condition and to keep her happy and active. Our veterinarian and dentist felt she is doing well on the modified diet and I feel so lucky - I thought we might have to put her down but she showed me that she is not ready to go yet. On a personal note, I felt she was "alarmed" that I considered putting her down upon the first diagnosis and I am now listening to her to judge how she feels.

Many, many thanks for the advice - I appreciate it and Neffie and I appreciate our friends across the miles who are thinking about us!

Denise

Silversong Farm

 

[Lewella]

I had a yearling filly get ulcers this fall who had never been off the farm! Nothing different in her life, no stressors that we could see but she had ulcers.

 

[txminipinto]

On the topic of ulcers, it seems that it's becoming common knowledge that ALL horses (especially those stalled for any amount of time) have some varying degree of stomach ulcers. The only way to know for sure is to scope. I just assume that mine have them and watch them carefully for any discomfort. Knock on wood, I haven't had any issues.