So as some of you might already know if you are friends with me on Facebook, my lovely mare passed yesterday. It’s been a whirlwind of a past few days. Whatever took her was FAST.
Thursday 1PM: totally normal. Out grazing, grooming her boyfriend, totally normal.
Thursday 4PM: she’s sleeping, standing up, with her head down. Not uncommon for her especially this time of day. I notice she has had 5-6 runny cow pie consistency poops.
Thursday 6PM: I’ve finished my last ride of the day and she hasn’t come up to bug me about getting fed yet. I think it’s kind of weird and grab a halter to get her. By the time I get out to her, she has laid down and is refusing to get up. Nothing is getting her up. She is laying quietly. Temp is 102.9, quick but not super fast breathing, gums normal.
Thursday 6:20 PM: call is into vet and we give her a 1000lb dose of banimine orally.
Thursday 6:30 PM: finally speak with vet. She advises we wait to see if the banimine helps.
Thursday 7 PM: she stands up. We walk her into the barn and I retake her temp. 101.8, breathing has slowed. She just looks tired. We put her in a stall.
7:30 PM: talk to vet. She feels comfortable leaving her until morning as her fever is falling and she is standing and looking more comfy. I make an appointment for the morning.
8:30 PM: I head out. Her breathing is still a bit faster than I’d like but no where near worrying. She’s standing, has pooped, and drank some water.
9 PM: the storm of the century starts. We get 7 inches of rain in 3 hours.
12:30 PM (AM)? : I drive back to the barn to check on her. It takes me 35 min to drive a mile and a half. Roads are all gone or flooded. She is laying down, looks like I woke her up. Temp is normal, no more fever. Still a bit quicker breathing than normal. She’s peed.
1:30ish: Farm owner comes out and checks on her. She’s standing and comes over to say hello to him.
Friday 6 AM: Roads have finally been cleared and I make it back to the barn. She is dead, cold, in rigor. There are plenty of shavings around her, she simply just laid down and died. No struggle. There were no scratches, she didn’t flail. Expected time of death was around 2-3 AM.
I sob. She was 10.
I call and cancel the vet appointment.
Arrangements are made for a post Mortem.
Friday 4 PM: Pathologist begins autopsy. I’ll summarize below; I do have photos for anyone who wants to see.
- fluid in body cavity. More than usual; maybe a buckets worth.
- upon first look, intestines look surprisingly great and are intact. No rupture. Doesn’t look to be a twisted intestine.
- small intestine from about 8 inches below the stomach for about 15 feet is black and definitely looks ‘wrong’. There are some minor ulcerations inside. Nothing that shows why this section would have died though. No twists, no tumors, etc.
- liver, heart, lungs, etc all look great. Heart is 8 lbs exactly. Stomach looks amazing inside, no ulcers at all.
- no signs of a worm load. Actually besides the one section, her intestines looked really healthy.
-stomach was full of grass. Intestines had some fecal matter.
-small amount of blood in mouth. Pathologist advised it was probably unrelated to her death.
We are waiting on biopsy results but everyone was stumped. There wasn’t a really obvious ‘this was it’ thing. That section of intestine looked bad from the outside but looked pretty normal inside, and the pathologist said she really couldn’t tell why that section would have died… and also apparently sometimes the tissues will change color after death so it’s possible that it has nothing to do with it at all.
Anyone have an idea here?
Some other random things:
- she lived outside 24/7 on great grass with friends. There is one tree and it is an oak.
- She had never colicked before
- she ate the same grain as my OTTB; only differences were that she got Benadryl every night (10 pills, had been on it since March) and two supplements: a B1 supplement and a gastric aid supplement.
- she was 10, healthy, UTD on shots.
- none of my other horses have any symptoms.
