IF he is off hay why is he eating round bales? And what is a mild round bale?
But glad he’s getting better!
P.
[QUOTE=Polydor;7980119]
IF he is off hay why is he eating round bales? And what is a mild round bale?
But glad he’s getting better!
P.[/QUOTE]
If it was RDC…they can go back on hay when healed (at least that is what I just read). Sounds like they have started introducing hay again and it has been ok so far.
Was interesting to read about it…I knew it was a concern caused by bute but hadn’t really read much. Here is one article. http://vetbook.org/wiki/horse/index.php/Right_dorsal_colitis
Follow-up on pony in case anyone is following this thread or looks later: Pony has had a bad colic episode since my last post. (7 colics in 11 months) He survived after many bags of fluids. He has returned to normal and looks better than he ever has since I got him – now on his liquid diet of senior feed soup and very limited fescue hay. He has visited a vet with a gastroscope who says he has one of the cleanest results to be found anywhere - no signs of ulcers. Moved on to the ultrasound of the gut. No thickening there. But lots and lots of fluid around everything. Did a glucose tolerance test to see if he has IBS. Perfect healthy response. So with this similar feed plan suggested by kch7238 we are doing pretty well. Although the problem is not entirely solved since the mystery fluid remains and his intestines are floating.
Has his kidney function been checked? Heart? In a way, it sounds like congestive heart failure or kidney problems. Something is keeping the system regulating his fluids from functioning correctly.
I still say he could use a vet school workup.
…and just incase someone every checks this link later… this pony is still alive. He had a total work up and ultrasound reveals a clean ulcer-free gut. All other tests were normal. we did do the wormers suggested. Vet said he checked everything he possibly can. The only mystery was the fact that he’s carrying a lot of water around his intestines. Reminds me of what happens to me with gluten…
We keep him on a liquid diet. He is allowed to eat hay in the pasture at night. It’s a round bale. There’s no hay in his stall. When we take him to shows, we give him hydration hay. I would do that all the time if I could afford it.
We watch him very carefully and when he shows the smallest signs of colic, we put him on the lunge. The idea here is that it is a gas colic so we just have to get him to move it through. Banamine is not used unless we didn’t catch him in time and he is more acute. We’ve been able to avoid banamine for several months now. He was 4th in Junior Beginner Novice at AECs. 
And last weekend he won the JBN division at a schooling show with a 23.
[QUOTE=zelle;8408011]
…and just incase someone every checks this link later… this pony is still alive. He had a total work up and ultrasound reveals a clean ulcer-free gut. All other tests were normal. we did do the wormers suggested. Vet said he checked everything he possibly can. The only mystery was the fact that he’s carrying a lot of water around his intestines. Reminds me of what happens to me with gluten…
We keep him on a liquid diet. He is allowed to eat hay in the pasture at night. It’s a round bale. There’s no hay in his stall. When we take him to shows, we give him hydration hay. I would do that all the time if I could afford it.
We watch him very carefully and when he shows the smallest signs of colic, we put him on the lunge. The idea here is that it is a gas colic so we just have to get him to move it through. Banamine is not used unless we didn’t catch him in time and he is more acute. We’ve been able to avoid banamine for several months now. He was 4th in Junior Beginner Novice at AECs. And last weekend he won the JBN division at a schooling show with a 23.[/QUOTE]
Congrats, although it sounds like he’s still having quite a bit of trouble. Have you tried an exclusion diet to find what he’s eating that may be causing the trouble? To me it sounds like the round bale is the culprit.
Just throwing this out there, didn’t see it mentioned in my quick read-through. I have one who had recurring colics, about every six weeks, diagnosed as primarily gas colics, but included the tight filling in the right flank. He was also generally itchy. On the suggestion of another COTHer, and a total wild hare, I took him off of any feed with soy. He had one mild colic about a month later and none until (~a year later) an episode this past spring when the grass started coming in. But I’m pretty confident he had a low-grade allergy to soy. His gut was also hyper-active when he was having episodes–I didn’t catch any reference to gut activity during your pony’s episodes.
In any event, good luck with him!
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absolutely do not increase the horse’s confinement.
he had no history of colic and now in your hands, is colicking. this is not your fault, but we can infer from the data that the cause is a change in his management.
which means you need to emulate his old management practices, and quick.
first thing i’d do is scope for ulcers. i’ve never heard of ultrasounding the stomach for ulcers… do you mean you scoped? just because you don’t see anything on the scope doesn’t mean the horse doesn’t have ulcers… the stomach is what… like only 8% of the digestion process?
everything you have said about this horse’s change in lifestyle screams ulcers to me: no grass, all hay, confinement, work, stressful herd situation. all precursors to ulcers.
second thing i’d do is change him to a full turn out situation. IME horses that come from that arrangement and then are confined to the stall for half the day NEVER do well or thrive as much as they did when they were on full turn out before.
[QUOTE=beowulf;8408390]
absolutely do not increase the horse’s confinement.
he had no history of colic and now in your hands, is colicking. this is not your fault, but we can infer from the data that the cause is a change in his management.
which means you need to emulate his old management practices, and quick.
first thing i’d do is scope for ulcers. i’ve never heard of ultrasounding the stomach for ulcers… do you mean you scoped? just because you don’t see anything on the scope doesn’t mean the horse doesn’t have ulcers… the stomach is what… like only 8% of the digestion process?
everything you have said about this horse’s change in lifestyle screams ulcers to me: no grass, all hay, confinement, work, stressful herd situation. all precursors to ulcers.
second thing i’d do is change him to a full turn out situation. IME horses that come from that arrangement and then are confined to the stall for half the day NEVER do well or thrive as much as they did when they were on full turn out before.[/QUOTE]
Agree 100%. And I’ll add, at risk of getting piled-on (and not in a good way) that perhaps your farm situation is not what is best for the pony, despite him winning. At what cost, I suppose, a chronic colicky pony.
I have a quite talented, homebred mare who hated my farm situation when I relocated the farm. We went from a hustling, bustling farm to low-key and quiet. She was psychotic. Absolutely no other change in her situation, same horses, same feed, same turn-out, just not busy anymore. I sent her to a well-respected trainer (and friend in this case) who found a perfect lease situation for her.
I hate not having her with me, but I hated what it was doing to her even more.
I’d consider finding another home for this pony. At what cost (to the pony) are you keeping him if he is checking out healthy in all other aspects?
I dont think she is going to find another “home” for a horse that chronic colics… and who know what went on at the other home…
Have you hung buckets of water in his stall? The fact that he gets better after copious amounts of fluids suggest to me he’s not drinking.
[QUOTE=omare;8408485]
I dont think she is going to find another “home” for a horse that chronic colics… and who know what went on at the other home…[/QUOTE]
With the amount of money she has put into this animal, she could send him to a trusted professional with a set up similar from which he came. There are professionals who would be willing, (if the horse if vetting clean and has these records, and has a show record) to board an animal. If the issue resolves, the pony can be sold or leased. If the animal has these issues, there is probably something seriously wrong with it that can’t be found, cancer etc. If the animal if vetting clean, the issue would seem to be his living arrangement. It won’t be long before the pony has a bout of colic from which he will not recover. The situation is clearly not appropriate if the animal has no underlying medical issues.
I am not so certain of how many trusted professionals even if being paid want to have a chronically colicking pony in their care…
So I’m coming back to follow up about this pony who is very much alive and bright and healthy. We got by with a liquid diet (senior feed made into a soup) and the colic care from SmartPak and no hay. He would still get ridiculously thin periodically. But the frequency of colic reduced greatly. And then I got a new hay supplier and the hay was so beautiful that I had to let him try it just to see. He was crazy about it but we started slow. After a few months he’s fat any shiny and off his liquid diet. He looks amazing. He’s only had one mild colic since we started the hay in November. The hay is a very green color 3 string Timothy. The Timothy and the alfalfa I’ve gotten from my local supplier looks nothing like this. The bales are from Washington State and weigh 120-150 pounds and are so beautiful. You folks who live up north probably take this stuff for granted. But I’m still awed by how good it looks every time I walk into my barn.
Anyway, in retrospect I learned it was a grass diet that was most important and I have little grass. Second to that, a top quality hay. The rest of my horses look a little better, too. Especially the old folks.
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Allow me to suggest a ridiculous add on.
First I definitely would go for the full work up at the vet school.
But if you can handle the ‘loopy’ suggestion, I would find and talk to an animal communicator. Horses can make themselves sick with environment and emotional stuff. I know a lot of folks are quacks and there’s surely no reason to use this as your only diagnosis, but… for $40 can it hurt??? Maybe they can find something you’re missing.
Emily
Grass typially has a much higher liquid content that hay. It could be as easy as he is not getting enough liquid in his diet. Can you do the soaked timothy pellets or beet pulp and added electrolytes?
And/or soak the hay?
Or even better steam it!
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Yup, he was wormed, scoped, fed soaked hay - I don’t have a steamer. All baled hay caused problems no matter how it was served. Before the change to excellent hay, his feed was soaked (as in SOUP) every feeding (4x daily) and he didn’t have any hay at all except that packaged hay that you can buy in bricks and soak in water. Water bucket in his stall. Super clean trough outside. He preferred the outside water. But I’d say he’s completely fine now. He looks better than he did when I got him and he isn’t colicking. I definitely was looking for a different home for him until he got better. But it’s scary to let go and wonder if someone else would see it in time to save him if he had trouble. We could tell he was going to colic hours before he actually did - you can see his flank blow up and he takes the shape of a potato. (These are gas colics). And they seem to be a thing of the past >>knock wood<< I wanted to post the ending here, years later, because when I have a question I take it to the old threads of the COTH and very often find it’s been handled already and my question has already been answered by the knowledgeable crew that posts here.
And yes definitely agree with Mellsmom - grass is so great for hydration!
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