Showing posts with label colic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colic. Show all posts

January 20, 2023

Baby's First Colic

I came to the barn Wednesday night to find Disco standing quietly in his stall at feeding time like an old, broke horse.

He is, um, not an old broke horse.

When he just nosed his dinner, I went in there to check his gut sounds and capillary refill, but before I could do that, his knees buckled and he leaned into the wall.

THAT freaked me out.

"I don't feeeeel good"

Got him out of his stall and took him into the indoor, and he kept trying to roll every few steps. Got a 750lb dose of banamine on board, and within about 15 minutes he had passed some poop, but was still trying to roll for another 10 minutes after that.

When he was willing to stand still without trying to go down and was reacting to stimuli around him again, I put him back in his stall, put a BoT sheet on him, gave him a half tube of electrolytes, took his temp (no fever, 99.8F) and just watched him.

For about 45 minutes he just stood there quietly staring straight ahead. Far, far too quietly for a 20 month old. But slowly he started to perk up again, and by the time I left the barn, he was looking for hay and drinking.

I was texting Mary throughout, and she was cracking me up around the time he started to perk up. #stallionlife


 

So what are my takeaways from this?

Disco is MUCH less stoic about colic than Connor is. He was telling me the world was ending when it was really very minor.

He's such a good boy. Even when he desperately wanted to roll, he kept on walking with me.

I'm getting a lot better at handling minor colics without the vet. I didn't even send him a heads up text this time. Just handled it.

What caused it? Who knows, but he was out in a cold rain for a half hour before one of us was able to get free from work and bring them in at 2pm, and he was normal (and apparently running around and playing) then, but was colicking a few hours later. So maybe he caught a chill? 

Either way, he was back to his normal annoying baby self the next morning, thankfully.

My BoT JUST fits right now. And won't in probably six months. I'm going to have to re-buy everything I own, ugh

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July 17, 2020

Colic

When I walked into the barn at feeding time last night, Connor didn't fling his head up and nicker at me when he heard my voice. "That's weird," I said out loud, "He never doesn't nicker at me." The barn staff said "Oh it's just because he's eating dinner." But even dinner doesn't usually keep him from greeting me. Stranger still, when I went to my tack locker (where his peppermints are kept) he didn't even look up.


When I walked in his stall a couple minutes later it was very clear that he was colicking. His normally pristine stall was trashed from rolling, and he had abrasions on his face from rubbing his head into the floor. He was sweaty all over even though the high was only in the 70s yesterday, standing with his head low, nostrils flared, his ears out to the sides, knees forward like they would buckle at any moment, and he would pick at his grain and then roll.


I got him out into the indoor, told my trainer, called the vet and started walking him, which was not easy because he tried to roll every time I even thought about stopping.

Ten minutes after my trainer dosed him with oral banamine, he passed a tiny amount of very soft poop. 20 minutes after banamine, I put him back in his stall to chill. He rolled once, laid flat out for a few minutes, and then quietly laid sternally for a long time while I sat on a stool next to him.


Slowly, maybe 30 minutes after banamine, his expression started to perk up and he started to notice the barn activity around him a little more. The next time I went to my tack locker for something, he stood up and nickered, and then went over to try to eat what was left of his dinner, which I pulled.


I stayed with him for a long time after he seemed to recover, during which he fell asleep on my head. He didn't even wake up when his face slid off my head and I ducked under to get back under his chin.


He was totally normal when I came back out late at night and again first thing in the morning (living 7 minutes from the barn is still SO amazing), although he still hasn't had a good poop. Gut sounds are super loud though, and he passed gas a couple times last night, so I'm not too concerned yet, it's likely just a side effect of not having eaten very much in 22 hours.

Fingers crossed that he has some nice big poops later today and we can totally put my first colic experience as a horse owner behind us!
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