Suggestions for laxatives for impaction colic first aid?

[Scribbler]

What the title says.

I’ve never had to deal with colic before, and this horse has never colicked before, so we are both new to the routine!

Maresy had a slight bout of colic in December that we walked off. She had a couple of small volume, hard poops in quick succession, wanted to lie down, distended, uncomfortable, not eating, but we walked it off and she was fine in an hour.

This past weekend, same thing but more severe. Straining to poop, nothing coming out, Did the walk, didn’t resolve, got banamine at about hour two, got vet out to do nose/stomach tube of laxative salts at about hour five, started pooping at hour ten, and was pretty much resolved at hour 13 (which was also 1 am, when I finally left the barn). Fine the next day.

Vet said it was impaction/constipation in the small colon. I think for this second round, the tubing with laxatives was crucial. Nothing was moving until the wet, laxative-induced poop started coming after five hours.

Both times, it was obviously brought on by a drop in the outdoor temperature, and maresy not drinking enough. After the first bout in December, I was busy with alfalfa water and monitoring things generally, but I let that slide when spring came and the snow went.

We’re on schedule for all the obvious things, teeth, worming, salt, exercise, general health is very good. I will start up with flavored waters again and do her sloppy beet pulp mash twice a day instead of once.

And I now have my own tube of Banamine.

My thinking for the next time is, get a laxative mash into her right at the first sign of trouble, then walk and monitor.

What I was wondering was, what do people use for laxatives? Mineral oil? Laxative salts?

I did feed her mineral oil in her mash after the first episode in December, but she was already resolved by then. We fed her a bit of this around hour two in the second bout this weekend, but any effect was obliterated by the vet’s intervention.

Of course the by-the-book advice is not to feed anything until the problem is resolved. The attending vet this weekend (young, well trained) from the large animal emergency clinic was of that opinion. But my primary vet, who is older, more experienced, and thoughtful, says to let them eat a bit if they will, as that gets the saliva and gastric juices moving again. I followed his advice both times, and it seemed to help.

I realize you’d be compounding the problem if the horse had a rupture or twist in the intestine, but I’m assuming if and when maresy colics again, it will be this same trouble area, so I am OK with feeding a small mash to carry a laxative. If it could mean skipping the sedative and the nose tube, that would be overall less stress for the horse, and could be started faster rather than waiting for the vet. Cheaper, too, though that’s not the primary concern.

[Cataluna]

I’ve been doing a TON of research on feeding chia seeds recently (for allergies/skin irritation for my sensitive mare) and you may want to look into it too for gastrointestinal health/preventative measures. It’s pretty powerful stuff.

[Cataluna]

“Chia seeds are hydrophilic (water absorbing) meaning when exposed to moisture, chia seeds form a mucilage-type gel that supports digestive motility. The gel helps to pass sand and food through the gut, preventing impactions down the road.”

https://uschia.com/pages/benefits-of-chia-seeds-gastrointestinal-function

[Scribbler]

Sounds like chia seeds behave pretty much like flax, then?

[cloudyandcallie]

To prevent this, give the Equi-Aid psyllium fiber often. You don’t have to wait to do it 7 days a month. I buy the 50 pound container.
Mine get either equi-aid psyllium or Metamucil often. I soak the Metamucil in water and add it to their Seminole pelleted feed for a snack.
And chia seeds. I get mine from get chia. Especially good in cold weather. I buy 12 or 24 pounds of chia seeds at the time to save $$$.
Flax makes my horses gain weight. Chia seeds, well read how Indians used to eat them, a great story. Chia seeds have the omega3s and less of the not so great omegas.

[Groom_amp_Taxi]

@Scribbler

I realize you’d be compounding the problem if the horse had a rupture or twist in the intestine, but I’m assuming if and when maresy colics again, it will be this same trouble area, so I am OK with feeding a small mash to carry a laxative. If it could mean skipping the sedative and the nose tube, that would be overall less stress for the horse, and could be started faster rather than waiting for the vet. Cheaper, too, though that’s not the primary concern.

I’ve bolded the two words that struck me in the last paragraph. I am of the opinion that you never assume with horses, and particularly horses showing colicky symptoms. Should this happen again (hope not!), I would at least have a phone consult with the on-call vet before doing feeding the horse anything. Same with banamine - great to always have a tube available, but only give on vet’s direction.

And as far as cheaper, in my experience, almost any time I make any horse care related decision using that as a criteria, it seems to find a way to come back and make me regret it.

[fanfayre]

The best choice is prevention- get more liquid into their gut before it has a chance to impact. Try psyllium, soaked soy hulls, chia as above (haven’t tried that one yet, but will see how the price compares with psyllium) any kind of a grain but preferably hay based mash, feed only soaked hay. There’s a really good thread on impactions from December that has some great ideas in it- try searching for it and see if anything helps. Don’t actually feed anything while an impaction is occurring- it just exacerbates the situation.
Impactions are scary- glad yours was able to sort itself out with minimal intervention!

[khall]

I focus on keeping the horse well hydrated. I use warm water with a bit of Sr (TC) feed in the bottom to make a “tea” that all but one of my horses will drink like a beer guzzling contest! I do this DAILY while the grass is dormant and even twice daily when it gets really cold here. I lost a mare last October to impaction colic (had other issues so did not want to put her through surgery) I had not started the “tea” daily at that point yet because we were still having very warm if not even hot temps, but because we had been in a severe drought I should have. Our grass had gone dormant from the drought which caused the impaction (vet had been seeing many colics due to drought) and I lost a great mare. I kick myself for this. The “tea” is easy and most horses love it. I do have one that will not drink it usually, I try occasionally especially when the temps drop.

[Scribbler]

Yes, great suggestions here on keeping her hydrated, some of which I already do. She gets a big wet mash daily,(beet pulp, flax seeds) and alfalfa tea if she will bother with it. Yesterday I started her on molasses water.

I totally agree that prevention is the best step.

I am however wondering what suggestions people have for when prevention doesn’t work, and there is a clear problem. I am thinking a mash with a cup of mineral oil in it.

The whole tubing and tranq thing cannot be good for the horse’s overall recovery, since the meds depress body functions overall. There has to be a less dramatic way to get emergency laxatives into a horse.

[goodhors]

I am also in the more hydration camp. I give everyone extra feed salt daily. This is a heaping tablespoon all during warm water and 2 tablespoons of salt in cold weather or when storms with high and low pressure systems are predicted to be going thru. The salt aids in more water consumption all the time.

If a horse starts acting colicy, we give them DSS, a stool softener. It is delivered by nose tube into the horse. Husband has the skill to nose tube, otherwise I call the Vet to do it. We keep the DSS on hand, purchased from our Vet. She no longer does mineral oil treatments, her information says the fecal ball will stick together more with the mineral oil, not breaking apart for passing them. DSS is said to be a bit harsh on stomachs, but does break the fecal balls for passing. We have used DSS twice in the last 6 years with good results. Horses were noticed VERY early, just not right. They were treated with the DSS within an hour, plus banamine. They had explosive poop within about 12 hours, problem resolved. They got walked a bit, couple pain shots over that time. No food, but had water if they wanted it during the waiting time.

Since adding the daily salt to everyone, we have not had any hydration issues, or colic issues, thank God! Certainly salt is not a cure-all for colic, but I am not worrying about it now. Horses are visibly better drinkers, always pass the skin pinch test when I check them. Not acting off in winter cold, before or after stormy weather,. I think this is because they drink well year around. One horse we treated was always bad drinker. Giving her the extra salt got such good results with improved water consumption, I decided to “salt everyone” to make them also drink more water. They do have salt blocks free choice, do use the blocks up, so no one is being over salted.

Check with your Vet about what they gave horse by nose tube. Might have been DSS. With our second horse acting poorly, Vet had to use our DSS because he didn’t have it on his truck. I did not want horse getting mineral oiled, so I got our DSS out for him to use, with good results on the horse. Worth keeping our own DSS supply, should this ever happen again!. Our horses have no stomach issues, did not act any different once colic was resolved. I would certainly use the DSS again in a colic situation.

[ndirish07]

I give my horse corn oil. Per my vet it helps gut motility and in general just keeps things moving. Also it puts a great shine on him. I put it in the “even if it doesn’t work, it’s not hurting him” category.

[Scribbler]

I upped horse to two tablespoons of salt in her mash after the December colic, and she is still powering through her salt block (typically goes through a seven pound block in eight weeks). She gets wet mashes, but of course the wetter her mash, the less she feels she needs to drink of plain water.

I will check with the vet what she actually gave. I asked if it was epsom salts (magnesium sulfate), and she said no, something similar, it was XXXXX and my mind goes blank but it could have been sodium sulfate which makes sense from this online resource, which also says it is heavy duty and possibly risky:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.576.1627&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Interesting that mineral oil might not be the best choice anymore. This article from 2005 still suggests mineral oil as a starting point, then DSS, epsom salts, and sodium sulfate. Apparently mineral oil should not be followed up with DSS.

I don’t have the skill to tube, so I’m looking for a feed through. Also part of wanting a home remedy as a first step is to avoid the disruption of sedating and tubing, which must slow the body down a bit. Could DSS be fed without a tube?

My thought on feeding vegetable oil is that it is going to get digested in the small intestine, as a source of calories, whereas mineral oil is inert and will go right through. I certainly wouldn’t want to feed mineral oil regularly, but I’m looking for emergency remedies. Maresy is getting flax in her mash and certainly doesn’t need extra calories!

[JB]

With any suspected colic, you really should not be adding any more food. Not hay, not grass, not anything. You just can’t know if there’s an impaction already there (or if it’s gas, or a twist, or strangulation or whatever), and you can’t know how bad things are. Adding food could potentially make a salvageable situation, not.

In the original situation, I would have used banamine much earlier, and had the vet out much earlier.

So no, I wouldn’t feed anything. When mineral oil is tubed to help an impaction, it’s quite a lot of oil, and you’d have to feed a good bit of food to get that much oil in. I wouldn’t do it. And you shouldn’t syringe MO into them, as it elicits no swallow reflex, and they could easily aspirate it.

IMHO the first step is banamine much earlier in the process - no later than 30 minutes in, as you are on the phone with the vet. That’s the “home remedy” IMHO.

I really don’t think there’s any good home remedy for anything like this where you just don’t know whether it’s a barometer-caused gas colic, or an impaction from not drinking enough.

[fanfayre]

Not to my knowledge. The BEST way is to get LOTS of liquid DIRECTLY into the gut stream, and that unfortunately means tubing it into the stomach unless you can get the horse to drink enough salty/electrolytes/mineral oil on command (which brings us to the- you can lead a horse to water… scenario)
You need to use much more than a cup of mineral oil, more like a quart to a gallon, depending on the impaction, which is how much I’ve seen vets administer through the tube.

[fanfayre]

I had posted something almost word-for-word as JB right after your last question about tubing (post #9), but I dunno where it went?! So I liked JB’s answer.
Oh, there it is, but now totally out of context…:ambivalence::sigh:

[keysfins]

Best bet is to consult with your own vet, OP, to create a reasonable prevention AND treatment plan for your particular horse. I would not administer anything to the horse until I had reached the vet. Then first option, at vet’s direction, would be to give Banamine.

I would not assume that a future colic episode will be identical to a previous one. Each is different, and you have no way of knowing if an obstruction is due to gas, a torsion/displacement, or a strangulating lipoma. Each may have a different treatment, and vastly different outcomes.

Although my senior horse has had a history of colics, the vet gets called each and every time the horse exhibits signs of discomfort. Horse had one surgical colic, and has had two medical colics (in clinic treatment). In each case it was a feed obstruction. With the vets, we created a feeding and management plan that has been successful thus far. Feel free to search my posts, or PM me, for details on our plan. It includes specific supplements, electrolytes year round, magnesium, and mineral oil.

Edited to add: posted at the same time as JB, and I agree with her post.

[JB]

@Scribbler

I am however wondering what suggestions people have for when prevention doesn’t work, and there is a clear problem. I am thinking a mash with a cup of mineral oil in it.

Tubing MO into them uses 1/2-1 gallon of MO, so 1c is nothing

The whole tubing and tranq thing cannot be good for the horse’s overall recovery, since the meds depress body functions overall. There has to be a less dramatic way to get emergency laxatives into a horse.

Risks vs benefits. For the potentially fatal impaction blockage, or the cost of getting a horse onto a table and through surgery, the risks of tubing and sedation are trivial.

It’s not always a bad thing to sedate a horse, as tension and anxiety can be a cause of or contribute to, a colic case. The whole (or almost) point of using banamine is to relax the digestive muscles to hopefully allow a gas bubble to resolve, or a mild impaction to pass. Sedation does tend to slow down gut mobility, but again, the risk is worth it in many cases.

[goodhors]

Nice comments JB.

[StormyDay]

For prevention only I feed mineral oil in bran mash. I really wet the bran down and use molassess and apple juice to make sure he slurps up the soup. He always does. I also add a lot of mineral oil, I aim for 1/4 of a gallon.
I had to do this when my horse had mild sand colic for about a week. It gave him to runs.

[atr]

I think the problem with trying to get laxatives orally into the horse is that the blockage is usually quite a long way from the mouth, and with who knows what in between, so the chances of it working are pretty slim.