Owner is frantically trying to figure out why this is happening. Within the horse’s normal parameters, nothing in her environment or activity changes. Which leaves the horse itself being the issue:
Lipoma (horse is grey)
Hormone fluctuation?
Anything else?
FYI: occult blood has been found in a fecal, but after owner asked vet twice there seems to be no demonstrative level of concern. Vet simply refuses to address the question other than simply re-test in a month or so.
No answer for you, but I had an older (north 20s) horse, my Good Horse, who had colic/digestive issues. He was put on a daily mix of mineral oil, electrolytes, DSS and water. I doubt it’s a terrific intervention for a younger horse, but kept my guy “moving” and comfortable.Vet figured he had some kind of lymphoma (we didn’t do extensive testing, given his age) but the meds kept him from backing up (for quite a while.) He NEVER got flaked hay (he’d colic on that) but ate soaked denjy hay and his senior equine “soup.” Also green grass when seasonally available.
How has a high intestinal parasite burden been ruled out?
Lilitiger… what is DSS? I’m not sure this owner will subscribe to mineral oil daily. She’s balking at probiotics at this point. She’s also decided horse does better on 1st vs 2nd cut. I’ve told her about older horses and mastication as I’m sure vet has as well.
Simkie: I was told horse receives appropriate dewormer for tapes & encysted strongyles spring & fall with fecal egg counts done at least 3x a year with appropriate follow up if needed (never has been necessary). Closed herd, just the one horse and a mini friend, paddocks picked at least 3x a week, stall bedding is Snow White, property impeccably maintained. No risk of cross contamination unless staff was saying they were deworming and were not.
Which sadly apparently is not implausible, given other recent events.
DSS is a surfacant.
It might be worth repeating the deworming to ensure it was done properly.
Manure been checked for sand?
Maybe try putting on a psyllium supplement?
DSS is for (I think) helping with hard poop, helping soften, helping with impactions. I had my special “medicine” which was HEAVILY diluted with water, but yes, with a younger horse, I’m sure someone would have ocncerns about giving mineral oil (also part of the recipe) daily. My guy was old, it was palliative, and it really helped. He slurped it down mixed with his senior equine soup (would add hot H2O to it and let it soften into a slurry, then add the meds). As I recall, he had no more impactions on that med. But again, he was an old guy. For him, the cut would not have mattered - if he ate flaked hay, he’d have problems, so he got nice soaked denjy (tim and alfalfa)
Make sure the horse is getting enough water. Feed him alfalfa cube soup or beet pulp soup or just a dab of molasses in water, whatever he really likes. Soak his hay, or at least wet it down. Softer hay is probably good.
If the owner is in fact an idiot and can’t or won’t put oil in the mash or switch to a softer hay, they probably won’t take any of the other suggestions either. The vet may be a dolt, or may just have had it with this client.
Anyhow, also realized I don’t totally understand the situation. Has the horse been impacted for 30 days? Really? what are the symptoms? Has he been tubed? Or is this a questions about aftercare?
If the horse has been impacted for 30 days I would be getting another better vet out like 28 days ago and the horse would have been tubed.
My very healthy big mare had a spate of impaction colics, 4 over the course of six months from one December to June. It was a cold winter and spring, and I think she stopped drinking, and she may have developed a dislike to her heated water bucket (slimy, too warm, stray electricity, who knows). I responded by giving her a second water bucket near her hay, and during the period she seemed at risk, giving her lots of soups. Nowadays, if I think she hasn’t drunk enough overnight I give her a soup. I also stopped using the heated bucket, and for her I stopped alfalfa hay because I felt like there was some correlation that I didn’t want to risk investigating more.
I called the vet for tubing on one of these colics, but the other 3 just got Banamine and me sleeping at the barn 
and they resolved just as fast as the tubing.
So sometimes it can be something very subtle that comes on, and you really have to investigate the horse and most importantly get water into them.
Make sure the water is clean and changed and scrubbed daily.
@Scribbler “q” = every. The horse is colicking every 30 days.
Usually you see it with regard to medication dosage timing. q12h, every 12 hours.
First thought is if owner is relying on other people to take care of this horse, maybe the other people are shortcutting or
stealing the horse wormer to sell or use, not feeding enough hay or, or, or. Maybe owner needs a little more hands on
to know what’s really happening.
Plus upgrade the hay. Are they just too cheap for second cut? Maybe owner is cheaping out on more things. ???
This horse has not had access to sand turn out in nearly a decade. However she is fed occasionally on stone dust out of a food-grade plastic tub that she dumps over in no short order. Think she’s ingesting stone dust? Btu her indoor, which hoss is turned out in in inclement weather has that travel-rite footing. That’s what, carpet fibers and sand as well? I can’t imagine she’s eating that but again, see above post about the plastic tub and dumping the hay out.
What’s alarming is that she’s still having pretty hard fecal balls despite eating only soaked hay and grass. And her grain is being wet.
I’ll run the psyllium by the owner and mention the DSS. Both of which I’m sure will go over like a fart in church.
So owner really doesn’t care if horse lives or dies? Well, you can’t fix stupid.
If this is a mare you might want to think about the relation of colic to the heat cycles. Does mare not drink because of pain somewhere in her cycle? Colic to weather: is it hotter and horse is dehydrating, or cooler and horse isn’t drinking? Or does BM go away every month and not top up waters? or what?
is 30 days the point at which folks relax and stop monitoring horse and go slack on the water? Does horse get clean fresh water every day, bucket scrubbed? If there is a big tub in the paddock, can they hang a 7 gallon flatback bucket on the fence that is dumped and scrubbed daily?
Thank you! I just thought it was a typo! Always good to learn things from COTH!
Lots of good questions. Money is no issue whatsoever. Horse has a staff of – no joke – 5 people. Only one is forgetful enough to have said X was administered when it wasn’t. And a mini for a buddy. Horse was brought home b/c she nearly died after vaccines years ago and was told to quarantine horse or PTS b/c next vaccination would surely kill it.
No. It coliced once 2 months ago. (mild impaction… vet pulled lots of manure on rectal, tubed, then horse passed lots more) Then acted like it wanted to colic 30 days later, was found cast in the stall. No vet this time, just lots of hand walking, grazing, and an unusual amount of manure passed in the following 90 minutes.
Owner is by no means an idiot – just very worried about introducing anything new. Horse has manyMANY allergies, alfalfa being one. She has access to the best veterinary minds out there and just asked me to roll around possible causes of these “colic” episodes. I’ve shared my opinions with her, as have the vets and she’s still searching. Wants to take into consideration any possibility.
I haven’t been able to pin owner down to why she suddenly prefers only 1st cut, since horse lived on 2nd days with 1st cut for evening meal & night check for years. I know it has something to do with this recent colic event.
I love this client and this horse as well. I really appreciate everyone’s input on this.
Horse gets fresh water poured twice, sometimes 3x a day. I mean, dumped, scrubbed and refilled. We’re tracking water consumption and it has gone down considerably since the soaking.
and no, we’ve not slacked off at about 30 days, thinking we’re out of the woods… if anything, we’re all even more vigilant since owner noticed this pattern. Does an event happening twice qualify for a pattern?
OK, that makes more sense. Can the horse tolerate Banamine? Possibly not. It’s a muscle relaxant and I’ve found it tends to help things move along. I’ve also wondered if my horse could have had episodes I never even noticed, if they came and resolved overnight.
i would focus on maximizing the amount of water going into the horse, whether that’s beet pulp or hay cube soup or molasses water or whatever flavor the mare likes. Also get enough salt into the horse in her mash, that she wants to also drink more water. Make sure mare is getting out and getting some exercise every day.
Dry manure with adequate water intake = slow transit in the gut.
Elderly grey horse, simplest explination is probably internal melanoma compromising transit. Abdominal ultrasound could be pretty useful.
Given the cyclical presentation, a tube of quest plus isn’t a bad idea as encysteds hatch in waves. Perhaps this horse hasn’t been getting the wormer, perhaps she’s been spitting it out, perhaps the warm winter just means her burden is higher. Paste her, and immediately send her out on the longe at the trot. They’ll swallow when asked to move out sharply.
Treating for hind gut ulcers would be another box to check/dart to throw at the board.
Being a grey and the cyclic nature, I would be
concerned about internal melanoma although it could’ve a lipoma too. It doesn’t sound like vet is interested in taking the investigation further. I would for sure be feeding sloppy wet food so it has a better chance of clearing any forming obstruction. That will help
until it doesn’t.
Susan
Simkie, you and I are on the same page (!). Vet did abdominal u/s at my urging and said there were no melanoma or lipoma present. Which of course we know is impossible to rule out without necropsy.
I also suggested u/s of ovaries but vet did not pursue that.
Do 24/26 yr old horses still come into season?
Sure, elderly mares can come into season. They’re sometimes even bred and carry foals safely to term.
A belly tap might be a next step, and could give clues as to potential internal melanoma not seen on ultrasound.
If the vet has checked out of this case, it may be worthwhile to pursue the opinion of someone else.
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