One of my horses every 3 or 4 months has an épisode in which hé shows thé typical signs of colic but when i call the vet hé does not have colic i mean not thé Real true colic. Hé passes manures etc but acts like he has colic. I scoped him and hé does not have ulcers. It is Always in thé early afternoon and last About an hour or two. Thé last couple of Times i called thé vet and when hé came thé horse was allready fine, so today ( it happened again) i waited before calling thé vet, thé horse was not right and After an hour hé was fine again. Do somebody know what it could bé?
Of course we are only guessing.
Colic simply means a pain in the stomach.
Horses have rituals like when they lie down to sleep, roll etc.
He could have an enterolith, which moves when he rolls.
I believe they can see the shadow of an enterolith on an MRI nowadays. Usually they are found in an autopsy.
I had a mare that had colic episodes every few months, but never had any impaction. It always looked and acted like colic…and responded like colic would.
Finally, one time it was really severe…to the point we had to euthanize her (vet was out multiple times and she was blowing through some very powerful pain meds…gums were looking bad). We did do a necropsy…thinking it was a small intestine twist.
The did the necropsy…no signs of colic. A really good vet dove deeper and it turned out she had severe pancreatitis. Very rarely reported in horses…but will present like colic. There was nothing we could have done differently to treat her, so euthanizing was the best and only option. The report suggested signs of acute on chronic pancreatitis…so likely all of her “colic” episodes were actually pancreatitis episodes.
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Any chance she’s tying up?
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That IS what i thought as hé IS a quarter horse and tested myhm n/myhm. But hé moves normally though
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Maybe gas?
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May be reacting to some component in the hay. I have one that colics on alfalfa in hay. I have to bale some meadow grass fields for her especially. Our main crop is alfalfa/grass mix. Makes her lie on her back, legs in the air, rolling and moaning. I presume it’s the difference in protein levels, being higher in our main crop, and lower in the meadow grass. No problem if she doesn’t get the nice alfalfa/grass mix hay. It took me a while to figure this one out. But something for you to consider.
Could it be choke for some strange reason? I’ve had one of my younger guys who loves to wolf down his grain choke on it, though mildly (I now wet all of his grain but he can still once in a while choke even on that)… He acted like he was colicking (as in rolling around in his stall and looking at his belly, trying to poop, straining etc) but it was so fast. As in he was totally fine when I brought him in and he was eating his grain and then 2 mins later was presenting like colic, so I had a funny feeling it wasn’t colic. Took me a few minutes to figure it out. He was fine in less than 30 minutes though as he was able to swallow his grain with me massaging his throat. Just a thought??
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I’d guess gas.
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My guess is also gas colic. My gelding had that a few times recently. He quickly went from slightly uncomfortable to frantic. He was passing manure the whole time. The first time he had worked through it before the vet arrived. The vet left me with anti-gas (like Peptobismol), and the next two times, the horse recovered completely with just antigas and a few minutes of walking. The last episode, he was so frantic from pain that I had trouble dosing him with the antigas, but I was amazed that it passed so quickly after I managed to dose him. Now I always keep a few bottles of antigas on hand.
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Doubling down on this. If it occurs during or immediately following a meal, consider choke. I literally had my vet on the phone for a colic one time and in the middle of describing the horse’s behaviour I said hold up, it’s done. Signs of colic completely absent and horse is grabbing a drink - choke resolved. Thank you for your time for this not actually colic but self-resolving choke.
This happened several times on a small, single-handful of feed. Switched to soaked feed and, knock on wood, no colic-mimicking chokes since.
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To me, that is still colic. You don’t have to have an impaction or a twist or something to constitute the true definition. Stomach pain is colic. My guess would be gas colic. Does banamine resolve it? Once the gas passes, horse will resume acting normal.
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Nvm…answered my own question!
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Yes banamine résolve it, Yesterday it resolved alone
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I’ve seen people put them on a lunge line and smartly pop the whip to get them to jump and pass gas…
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My horse went through an issue last summer with gas due to a change in feed formulation. Took me a week to figure out why so we spent the better part of a week doing fart longes every evening 
Another years ago got into watermelon rinds that had sat in the heat a little too long. Same deal - a fart longe. lol
You don’t even need to get them to jump. A few minutes at a smart trot will do the trick. However, you want to be absolutely sure that you’re dealing with gas and not something that could be worsened by exercise.
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My older QH would gas colic in Spring and Fall and sometimes in between. Most of the time, I was able to put him in my trailer and take him for a ride down Bumpalong Lane (in Southern Pines). A short trip usually solved the issue. But if not, my vet was quick to come out.
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I always administer EquiSpaz or ColicBuster (Amazon has both) whenever I see symptoms like that. If it resolves, it is likely a gas colic. If it doesn’t, you probably need banamine or need to call the vet.
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Thank you everyone, i feel i am not alone…could it bé maybe hindgut ulcers? My horse scoped clear but for gastric ulcers. With hindgut ulcers thé diagnosis would bé more difficult
I mean, it could be, but that’s not what I’d suspect. It sounds like gas colic to me, but that is definitively still “true colic” and can cause things such as a displaced colon, etc. To me, it should still be taken seriously. I had a horse with recurrent gas colic. After spending several thousands on diagnostics, we figured out he could not digest a specific type of hay…the kind he was raised his entire life on…and the kind we were keeping in front of him 24/7 in case he was ulcery. We took all long stem hay away from him for 2 weeks and he had no colics. Then we put him on soaked alfalfa pellets, then soaked cubes, then chopped alfalfa, and eventually normal alfalfa, orchard, or timothy hays. All were fine for him. But the coastal hay he grew up on was the problem.
I’d look more into diet/pasture kind of things instead of ulcer symptoms considering you’ve already had him scoped. I have extensive posts on here about the horse I have described if you want to search those.
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