Minimor
Well-Known Member
Thumps as such may be no cause for alarm, but if the thumps occur as a result of hypocalcemia it is definitely an emergency situation. A mare with hypocalcemia will be dead within 48 hours--and by the time the thumps make their appearance, the horse will be well into the hypocalcemic condition.
We had one mini mare with hypocalcemia; initially she appeared to have general symptoms--she was lethargic, not interested in feed--we first thought it was colic, then when banamine did nothing for her we thought perhaps she was coming down with a viral infection. A bit into it she was clenching her teeth, then appeared to be going into labor (she was 2 weeks short of her due date). When that didn't progress I called the vet (I realized by then that she wasn't in labor, this was something else--her 'contractions' were just muscle spasms. The vet said to just watch her & see what happened--so that is what she did. This was late the one evening. By 7 the next morning she was worse--severe muscle spasms, and she had thumps. You didn't see her shaking with her heart beat, but her body would contract & jerk with the contraction & resulting THUMP of her diaphram. I called the vet back and he sent one of the other vets out. She'd never seen hypocalcemia in a horse but was well familiar with it in dairy cattle--hypocalcemia, also called eclampsia, is rather common in dairy cattle--and so made a good guess that our mare had hypocalcemia. She had to go back to the clinic for calcium--returned & gave 40 cc IV--after 30cc had gone in the mare's muscle spasms stopped completely and just like that she was back to her normal self, bright & alert, and hungry. She did not relapse, and did not need to have any more calcium.
From onset of symptoms to 7 am the next morning would have been about 17 hours and an additional 2 hours to the time when the calcium was administered. She most certainly would not have lasted another 24 hours--with a severe calcium deficiency, muscles cannot operate properly, and since the heart is a muscle, when the deficiency gets bad enough the heart will malfunction. That is what kills the horse.
We had one mini mare with hypocalcemia; initially she appeared to have general symptoms--she was lethargic, not interested in feed--we first thought it was colic, then when banamine did nothing for her we thought perhaps she was coming down with a viral infection. A bit into it she was clenching her teeth, then appeared to be going into labor (she was 2 weeks short of her due date). When that didn't progress I called the vet (I realized by then that she wasn't in labor, this was something else--her 'contractions' were just muscle spasms. The vet said to just watch her & see what happened--so that is what she did. This was late the one evening. By 7 the next morning she was worse--severe muscle spasms, and she had thumps. You didn't see her shaking with her heart beat, but her body would contract & jerk with the contraction & resulting THUMP of her diaphram. I called the vet back and he sent one of the other vets out. She'd never seen hypocalcemia in a horse but was well familiar with it in dairy cattle--hypocalcemia, also called eclampsia, is rather common in dairy cattle--and so made a good guess that our mare had hypocalcemia. She had to go back to the clinic for calcium--returned & gave 40 cc IV--after 30cc had gone in the mare's muscle spasms stopped completely and just like that she was back to her normal self, bright & alert, and hungry. She did not relapse, and did not need to have any more calcium.
From onset of symptoms to 7 am the next morning would have been about 17 hours and an additional 2 hours to the time when the calcium was administered. She most certainly would not have lasted another 24 hours--with a severe calcium deficiency, muscles cannot operate properly, and since the heart is a muscle, when the deficiency gets bad enough the heart will malfunction. That is what kills the horse.
