PLEASE HELP Horses got out

[Whitewave]

Someone let my horses out last night between 7 :00 pm and 8:30 am

I came to the barn and my 2 yr old stallion was into the hay , brand new bale is down to two flakes left hay is 50>50 alf/Tim......My 12 yr old gelding did not appear to have gotten as much and is not bloated like my stallion.....Stallion looks like a mare that carried a foal for 2 yrs he is hudgely bloated and not walking too great,

Feet are not hot he does not want to drink...Please someone tell me what to do? i did not feed either one of them this moring and have locked them in their stalls ...

Please help

 

[Jill]

Call the vet.

The alfafla in it is what would worry me.

Your vet may want them on banamine and ice feet for a week or so... I think if they eat too much of a hot feed it can hurt them days later.

 

[justjinx]

I would do as Jill suggests--founder can show up later. call your vet and go from there. jennifer :saludando:

 

[Lauralee]

Definitely call the vet and withhold concentrated feeds for now. The alfalfa would worry me, as it is nutrient-dense.

 

[Whitewave]

Vet called me back and said " dont worry horses can not founder on to much hay , you can never feed them too much hay " okay i said but we are talking about a Miniature Horse who only gets a 1/4 flake hay twice a hay do i need to give him some banimine > will he colic cause of too much Alfaha ? vet replied " no not likely if he had gotten into the grain or was out all night in grass then I'd be worried " "just keep him locked up today and watch him if he starts to roll call me back "....

Okay gee what now ..This vet is well known around here and deals with a bunch of minis in our area so do i take his advice or call another vet?

Thanks for the fast responses ...

 

[Marty]

I would worry about impaction more than anything else at the moment but I would NOT lock them in their stalls at all. That's the last thing I would do.

Can you find a dry lot area to turn them out in?

They need to keep moving along to help digestion. A natural pace would be fine and I would not force exercise right now either.

If they are in their stalls and not able to exercise naturally, that's no good.

Let them out in a dry lot area someplace so they can move on their own. Turn them out.

Hopefully you will see the bloat go down.

Now this part I am not sure of, but if you do not have access to a dry lot, maybe you can turn them out on a badly over grazed area where they can't consume loads of grass. I feel that grass is nature's laxitive and might help expell some of the hay and push it on through. Not sure about that one but it's just a humble guess if you don't have a dry lot available to you. But I'd do dry lotting first. Not saying I'm right or I"m wrong but that's what worked for me when I had this problem.

 

[Black Magic]

Two things. First we have kids around here the turn horses out. THey had six horses running the neighborhood this summer. It was ridiculous. Everyone thought that everyone else had the other person's horse. I had a bay gelding. WHen the police sent people over looking for an arabian gelding the woman got mad at me. THEN... someone showed up for a bay mare... ooops.. again.. wrong sex. I cannot tell people enough, keep your horses padlocked in at night.

Second thing. Our big mini did the same thing one night, but didn't get as much T & A. He was bloated, but that was it. The vet said not to feed him for three days, just let him graze on our over grazed lot, and to watch his bowel moments. A few days later, I gave him a grass hay for a couple of weeks. The grass hay kept him happy but let his system get back to normal. I raked up the lot, so I could see if his potty habits were normal. The vet left a bottle of banamine in case we called back and he needed a shot right away. Banamine can also be given orally. One horse I saw at the vet needed to be hospitalized... but in the end, he was okay too.

Why not call a university equine hospital and see what one of the interns there tell you, and what you should watch for.

Please keep us posted.

God Bless,

Lynn W

 

[Minimor]

I would do as your vet said & not worry too much. I'd worry less about the alfalfa than if it was a very dry grass hay that a horse pigged out on. The dry grass would be more likely to cause impaction. At most I'd expect that you might get some diarrhea, and possibly a bit of cramping/colic--very similar to what you get with a stomach flu that causes severe diarrhea.

Like I said, that is all I would expect if this was my horse. We do feed alfalfa & the only time we've ever had a colic issue was with a Morgan gelding. Two of them got switched from alfalfa cubes to alfalfa pellets which were much more green. He did get a bit colicky--nothing much--and he had some loose manure. It lasted very briefly.

 

[Whitewave]

THANK - YOU ALL very much ... I stayed with the horses All day and turned them out in my dry lot.....Vet did say not to feed them anything for three days and to contuine to turn them out ....I did give my stallion 1cc of Banatine per vet suggestion cause he just was not wanting to move at all even with a whip cracking at his heels he just stood there but after the batamine he started moving slowly.....I am spending the night in the barn tonight with my "mean" dog (she doesnt care too much for strangers) and will work on getting a more sucure door into the barn and i have already fixed the doors so that they can not be opened easily.

once again Thanks to you that gave me some sound advice , it really meant alot to know that strangers were willing to step in and tell me about thier experiences with over feeding (or self feeding in this case)

Thanks agian and God Bless YOU wonderful people !!

Jenn

 

[Black Magic]

Just let us know, when you're back where you should be and not out in the barn with the doggie. We've got you and yours in our prayers tonight. (Kids always pray for minis at night, so it seemed fitting they had a specific one in mind). So keep us posted.

I wanted to tell you, that even if you just run chain on stall doors, anything to be able to lock them is invaluable. That one night when the kids let nine horses in our neighborhood loose, was a nightmare. People were crying all over the place worried about their horses, afraid to call the police if there had been a bad accident and they be blamed. One was an older horse that is partially blind, I wanted to kick some kids butts. Our gates were opened then too, but our QH mare and our gelding stood across the open gates and refused to let anyone out. They did allow other horses in though, and I was out searching for other horses and came home to more horses then I left there. Plus it was very dark , so checking sexes of horses in the dark wasn't on my to do list either, and I couldn't be sure of who was what breed and what color, etc. This mess started around ten p.m. and lasted until lunch the next day, before everyone was back where they should have been. My mini stallions were still safe in their pen, but any one of those horses could have hurt our beloved gelding.

So pardon my hijacking the thread, but I never want to go through a night like that one again, and I don't want anyone else to have to deal with a mess like that either. I finally got the police involved, because it was such a mess. I drove around, as were other horse people driving around, telling everyone to call the sheriff with the info on their horse, so that we could coordinate who was where. One couple had their horses grazing across the street and brought them in. The wife blamed the husband for the open gate and visa versa. Those people were ready for a divorce. She was so glad when we called her to tell her... "keep your gates locked"!

God Bless,

Lynn W