coliced horse

[chilcotin hillbilly]

[ltb2180]

[Vance M.]

mineral oil and walking usually takes care of it. Iam sorry to hear that it didnt work

[larry]

10 cc's of banamine

[Mike Leonard]

Sorry to hear about your horse.

Colic is an ungoing probelm with horses that are stalled dry lotted and fed, it is seldom a probelm for a free ranging horse. Nature built the horse to graze from 16-18 hours a day. This steady but slow intake of feed worked well with the horses stomach which acts a good deal like a large fermentation vat. When fed large quanities of feed after fasting for a fairly long period in horse terms many times with rich feed it can cause the old still to act up. Other factors can cause a horse to colic as well. Parisites are a common reason so regular worming is important, bad teeth that are unable to properly chew the feed, so tooth floating on a regular basis is also encouraged. Banamine is a drug which can eliminate or lesson the pain involved with stomach torsion and this is usually administered by a vet into a main line, but can be used intermuscularly by a lay person but it acts slower. Mineral oil is best administered with a nostril tube and a pump mixed this howevers is a touchy process and should only be attempted by somebody that has a firm understanding of the process. The tube must be into the stomach of the horse or you stand a very good chance of killing the animal by drownding them.

When quick vetrenary help is not available here are some suggestions. I always carry a bottle or two of Bell Horse drops http://www.vetvax.com/horseproducts.html

The Belodona in these control or eliminated colic and fatigue. Also a quick hop into the horse trailer and a little ride down a bumpy road will usually cause the horse to eliminate and ease the stomach. Much like rocking a colicy baby.

Keep the horse on it's feet if it is trying to roll, but if it is resting laying down just observe it but don't stress it it may get over the tummy ache that way.

If the horse has rolled many times before you found them and they are in extreme pain the vet is your only answer.The cause of death is usually a twisted gut and they can't last long this way. So get the vet there. Sedate the animal then with several helpers roll the horse onto it's back and gently rock it side to side for a time. If the gut is not already swollen badly many times it will relax back into proper position and the animal can be saved. If you do save them you must ananlize closely all the things that may have caused this and take proper measures to ensure it doesn't happen again. It seems once they colic really bad they are more suseptable to it in the future.

[Shorty]

Mike you are good! I was ready to give a big long explenation on this one only to find it already done. Not only that you hit the nail on the head like usual. The only thing I'll add is to give them about 2cc of Ace along with the bannamine. Most vets will tell you not to do this although it works very well. The Ace helps them to relax while the bannamine takes away the pain.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

Thanks guys for all the advice, its all great info. I live 150 miles from the nearest town, so hauling to a vet is usually out of the question. So the advice is well taken.

[Mike Leonard]

10-4 on the Ace Shorty, but here again Ace Promazine is only directed to those who know excactly what there are doing. Ace is a relaxent, but too much of it relaxes them forever.

Be very careful with these injected drugs, many times people leap on them as their only means of defense, and to me they are a last resort.

Sorta like the old saying ( be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater) LOL!

[Mt Goat]

If you do feed alfalfa, and corral your horses like most people have to. If your feeding Baled Alfalfa you may try switching over to feeding Alfalfa Pellets. If you soak the pellets with water and let it sit for 5 or 6 hours then feed, it helps as a preventative for sand colic. My vet had told us this a few years ago, he told me over time any sand in the horses stomach will get pulled out by the wet feed. My horses look alot better now than they ever had before we switched over to the pellets.

[Cowboyvon]

You have to be careful anytime you change there feed...especially adding or changing to alfalfa pellets I know I found out the hard way. I lost my good heel horse last year to colic and he had never colicced before but I had just changed his feed. I was at a roping and got him to the vet within 30 mins of him starting.. he was at the local vets most of the day and they couldn't do anything with him so I hauled him to South West Equine clinic and had them put him on the table. These guys are good and they get to see alot of cases.. they showed me how the colic had caused a lose of blood to part of his intestines and that part had already started to turn black. This horse was 14 years old they told me they could re route and add to or something or other I can't remember exactly but the bottom line was this was going to cost at least $12,000.00 and really that wasn't the deciding factor what was, was the fact that he only had a 60% chance of living through it and 2 in 5 chance of being the horse he was. I went a head and had them put him down that horse didn't owe me anything so that was best.

I've had other horses colic and most of the time we do what was said above.. 10 cc of banimine and if you can a trailer ride down a bumpy road.. If your having trouble with sand there are some products that work pretty good that have psyllium in them that is suppose to bond to the sand and help move it out.. I just use bran it seems to work good.

If you can keep some grass hay in front of them all day helps alot with all colic and of course the best is having them out in a good pasture. If your feed in a pen or a stall feeding the same time every day helps.

[Machias]

[catdogs]

I wrote this a few years ago for a BCH newsletter - thought I'd throw it in here.

Understanding colic in the horse.


Before talking about causes/preventions/and symptoms of colic, it is important to understand why and how colic happens in the first place. Horses have a very unique digestive system in the animal world. They are much different than the ruminants. It all relates to their natural defense against predators. The idea for ruminants was to go out at night, consume large quantities of food, retreat back to the thick cover, hidden from predators, and regurgitate their food and thoroughly digest it in the safety of the timber. The horse is not built like this. Their main defense from predators was to run. They can’t run, when they have just consumed a huge quantity of feed. They were designed to eat a little bit all the time, so they were fleeter of foot and not running with 30 pounds of grass in their belly. Since their main defense was to run from predators, there was no need for the four chambered stomach and the ability to regurgitate the food. The main thing that makes a horses system unique is that it is a one way system. Peristalsis or peristaltic movement is contractions of the digestive system that move feed through the digestive track. Most all other animals have anti-peristalsis or anti-peristaltic movement which is the ability to back up the system should something go wrong. We even have that ability. For example, we drink too much; up comes last night’s dinner. There are other unique differences in the horse. He has an extremely fast rate of passage in this digestive system. It moves at about 1’ per minute. Now, if you are walking to town, that isn’t very fast, but in terms of digestion, that is extremely fast. Add the fact that they have over 70’ of small intestine and 30’ of large intestine, which adds further to the probability of something going wrong. Interestingly, their stomach only holds 2-4 gallons, not much bigger than ours. This stomach simply acts as a temporary holding facility.

Colic is broadly defined as any digestive disorder and more specifically, an intestinal blockage. This blockage can occur for a variety of reasons. The three main types include impaction, spasms in the peristaltic movement, and excess gas build up. For example, in the excess gas build up, the body absorbs what it can out of the small intestine then feed passes on to the cecum where most of the digestion takes place. This cecum acts as a large fermentation vat where bacteria and enzymes break down the feed. This process creates a lot of gas which is why horses fart a lot. Colic can occur when excess gas builds up in the cecum and starts trying to go back up the small intestine. We have gas trying to go up, feed coming down, the two eventually meet a point of equilibrium and then, we have a blockage. Now we have Colic. Sooo… what are the symptoms of colic, what can we do for a colic horse, what was the cause in the first place, and what can we do to help prevent it.

First the symptoms, which include: not eating, obvious pain or discomfort, looking at the belly or kicking at the belly, profuse sweating, and wanting to roll. Colic in itself is not fatal, it’s when the animal twists a gut that it usually results in death or when the blockage does not pass fast enough and the intestine looses blood flow and starts to die. What happens when a horse twists a gut is a blockage creates a hard spot in the intestine. They roll to help ease the pain of the belly ache and the gut twists right at the blockage. It is no different than making hotdogs or sausage, once you twist it, it stays, same principle as the clowns that make figures out of balloons. A healthy horse can roll all he wants and as soon as he stands up everything falls back into place but a colic horse if he does roll, (which by the way does not always result in a twisted gut) increases the chances of making that fatal twist. A twisted gut can be operated on, but it is costly and less than a 50% chance of recovery and an even less chance the horse will cure 100%. Soo….. What can we do for colic? Well…keep them moving to keep blood circulating and don’t let them roll. If they are lying down and not rolling, that’s fine, keep a sharp eye on them. Also, give a pain reliever like Banamine. I have also used a few cc’s of Ace as a mild tranquilizer which will also act as a pain reliever. Lastly, oil them, and I don’t mean with Pennzoil or Valvoline – that’ll kill them for sure. I mean mineral oil if you have it. If you don’t have mineral oil, vegetable oil or Canola oil will work. Use lots of it. The idea is to lube up that blockage so it passes. I’ve seen vets pump 3 or 4 gallons down a horse so you really can’t over do it. I just get a Gatorade bottle with a the nozzle cap, fill it up, tip the horses head back and try and get as much down the throat as possible. Make sure you use a plastic bottle, no glass.

Now, on to causes/preventions: Avoid bad feeds. Hay that is moldy is not fit for a horse. Hay that is dusty should be watered down. Avoid sudden diet changes. Horses should be changed to a new diet gradually. For example, keeping a horse in the corral all winter and pitching him hay, and then all of sudden opening up the gate to a pasture full green spring grass can cause problems. Horses should have free access to water, especially when eating cubes or pellets; these are extremely dry feeds that absorb a lot of water. They should have all the water they want. They should have free access to salt. Salt does 2 things for the horse, first, it helps the body retain water, and secondly, the cecum is very acidic and the salt is basic so it helps neutralize the ph. Parasites can cause colic, especially Bott fly larva. They attach them selves to the inside wall of the intestine and can restrict it to half its normal size. Horses should be on a regular worming schedule, which for me, is at least twice a year. Bad teeth can cause colic, if the horse is not chewing his feed well enough, that may contribute to a blockage. Other contributors which we may not have much control over is old age and/or a faulty valve where the small intestine dumps into the cecum, this valve is supposed to keep feed and gas from going back up the small intestine, also, sand colic is when horses are grazing and unintentionally consuming sand. Maybe the soil is wet and the roots are pulling out as they feed or the soil is sandy and they are ingesting the sand when they feed. Either way, sand is not a good thing for the horses system. Try not to over graze pastures to the point that horses are eating dirt while trying to graze. Horses that bolt their feed can be prone to colic. The cure for that, (other than knocking his two front teeth out) is to feed in a manger. Place large objects in the manger with the feed so that the horse has to pick through it to get to the feed. Feeding twice daily instead of once a day can also reduce the chance of colic, remember, horses are designed to eat a little bit all he time. This is where the term “eats like a horse” came from, but it is a just an old saying. A horse does not eat anymore than say a cow does. They will eat about 2.5 -3% of their body weight in dry matter.

It is interesting to note that because the digestive system works so quickly in a horse, they are leaving a lot of nutrients in the feces. They are actually designed to Coprophagia, which means to eat their own feces. You go out on the range where wild horses live and you will see piles of horse manure 3 feet high. If you come back in the spring, those piles are gone. They didn’t melt with the snow; those horses came back and ate them. You start starving a horse and he will start piling his feces as a natural survival instinct. Obviously you don’t want your horse doing this because of the parasites. There were horses here long before the Spaniards brought them here, and it is believed that they became extinct from high parasite loads.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

Great article Catdog, I can't wait for my wife to read it. I want to thank everyone for sharing their knowledge with us. A great big thank you from my wife.

[mulemanbl]

Great Articles and I'm also sorry to hear of your losses. I just lost my horse yesterday to colic. He was 22 years old and STILL going strong. Found him friday morning sitting in the corral like a dog. Walked him and gave him some banamine. Took him down to the vet and she gave him the the works. He had a standing heart rate of 77 which is WAY to high and almost fatal. I knew it wasn't looking good. She told me he needed surgery and it was expensive. We sedated him and got his heart rate down and I took him home and kept an eye on him. Saturday morning his heart rate was 96 I called the vet and he told me he'd be a couple of hours before he'd be able to come. By the time he got here the his heart rate was at 126. The vet told me it was amazing he was still alive. We put him down and man, was it tough. I tell ya what If I knew I could of cloned that ol' horse I would have. Myself, my family and my other mules and horses are all feelin a little bit empty right now. Thanks for the articles and good luck to everyone on having healthy nags.