Good grief indeed–what on earth makes you think they were driving unsafely?
Do you feel the same way about somebody trailering to a show?
Would it be acceptable if they drove to a referral hospital?
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She said she blew every red light and stop sign. Did you miss that part?
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Sadly, I had the same experience as @Laurierace with a bad gas impaction.
Surcingle on the anti-sweat put on the horse at the barn was so tight when we arrived at the vet hospital it had to be cut off.
My poor gelding looked like a very pregnant mare.
He came out of surgery fine & was back in work & showing a month later {knockwood}
FWIW:
I think the motion of the trailer - meaning horse has to be constantly rebalancing - might help a minor colic as it takes some of the focus off the pain.
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Well you know what? Equkelly could have given some context around disregarding traffic laws - did they slow and go? Did they just zoom on by without a second thought? She could have mentioned it was 1am and there was nobody on the roads and they approached with caution but simply didn’t stop for 2 minutes for every red light.
But endlessclimb could have actually read the post that she was headed to the vet hospital (so no, they weren’t going to drive circles in a parking lot or take a longer route), and perhaps asked some questions before assuming equkelly was going 60mph through red lights at 5pm rush hour.
Good grief - more discussion, more respect, less assuming and pointing fingers would do everyone a lot of good.
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Yea but you don’t know how many that is. I live in a rural and flat area. If there was another car, you could see it a mile away. There’s not that many stop lights to begin with. Seriously this is recreational outrage on your part.
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As for the OP situation - given what the vet had already done, the trailer ride was likely just “for good measure” and had nothing to do with the pooping.
Other times? Absolutely - horses who get the wet cow plops at the idea of getting on a trailer are preparing for “flight”, so the body sends in some extra water to help get the load out quickly. If that’s what was needed to resolve that colic issue, you’re good to go.
But that’s not what’s needed for all of them, not by far.
So CAN it help? Absolutely. Just don’t assume it will and don’t trailer a horse for an hour instead of calling a vet.
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I think it depends, as others have said and won’t work in every situation. I know that in the event of colic symptoms, if I even show the horse the back end of the trailer, the adrenaline kicks in and the elicit response is a visit from the poop fairy. If this is a suspected impaction or twist, nothing but surgery will help.
As far as the lying down with no thrashing, this can go two ways too, and I don’t know that you want to gamble with it going the wrong way. I had one that had a suspected lymphoma twist that actually was able to undo it with a slight roll. We were prepared to have him to be euthanized but he ended up living another three years after this. The other one ended up with a rupture minutes prior to being PTS so there is no guarantee with colic.
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One of those depends things- if it’s not going to make things worse and you’ve already talked about with your vet, I say go for it.
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Ehhh I think it depends on a lot of different variables.
- Does the horse load easily and travel well?
- Is the weather even, not too hot not to cold?
- Are you prepared to pull a dead/downed horse out of the trailer?
If you answered no to any of those, I would NOT put that horse on a trailer. There is no reason to cause extra stress or sweating. You’ll just dehydrate the horse more. If the horse goes down in the trailer are you prepared for the worst? For the most part it’s not worth the risk to me. I’ve only done it with one horse who was impacted for 6 days. It was a last resort. He survived the bout, but the trailer rides had nothing to do with it.
