Colicing horse

I got my first experience with a colicing horse last night.

Colic in a horse is any kind of abdominal pain, frequently caused by either a blockage or a twist in the horse's gastrointestinal tract. Literally, horses can get their bowels in a twist. In mild cases it can go away on its own. Severe cases require surgery and can be fatal.

Yesterday afternoon Chocolate started showing the signs: laying down, rolling - really, thrashing around on the ground - getting up but laying back down or rolling again right away. The "usual" treatment is to walk the horse, not let them lie down, and get oil (vegetable or mineral oil) into the gut. Elaine started both of those and called the vet.

A shot of muscle relaxer and a mineral oil "flush" later and we hoped he was on his way back. But later in evening he started rolling again, still in discomfort. So, we started walking him. Because we didn't want to walk him anywhere there was grass for him to get at, we had to walk him on the pavement. Since it was late by then and dark, we couldn't safely use the road. The solution was walking up and down our neighbor's long driveway. Back and forth, up and down. We logged several miles (literally!) walking the 1/8 mile driveway.

Finally, about 4:00 am Elaine felt confident enough to come to bed. By this morning Chocolate was still feeling the effects of the colic, the muscle relaxers and the anesthetic (for the mineral oil flush) but was much much better.

Colic can be caused by many things. We think his was caused but eating sand, which is fairly common among horses how eat where the ground is dry and sandy. Basically, they ingest sand while they are grazing. The sand doesn't pass through their systems easily and settles to the bottom. It can actually weigh down their stomach and intestines until a blockage is formed. The solution - aside from not letting them eat where there is sand - is a monthly "sandblast" with psylium seed husk. There are commercial products, one of which is called "Sandblaster," but psylium is the active ingredient in Metamucil.

Choco is doing fine now, back to his old cantankerous self. It was a scary night though.