Colic

I was late to do chores yesterday, enjoying sleeping in and a nice breakfast. I should know better. Every time I'm late to do chores, something goes wrong with the horses. Yesterday, it was Queen.

When I went out to feed them, she was laying down. Not unusual but not the norm since she has arthirits pretty bad. I threw the hay and she got up but didn't take a bite. Red Flag!

I decided I'd stick around and groom her down. Maybe she'd been rolling around to get rid of some of her winter hair. She put on such a good coat that its' taking awhile for her to shed out. While in the middle of grooming she went back down. Red Flag.

I pulled her out of the pen and started walking her around. Unfortunately since she'd been going down and getting back up, who knows how many times, her legs were stiff and soar. It took a lot of energy out of both of us to get her to walk. I finally got her to the barn and she took a few bits of grass. A good sign, but then she went down. Red Flag.

I went in and got some banamine and gave her a dose. Come to find out I've been underdosing for years. So what little I gave her didn't really do much. After giving her banamine, she just stood there. She definately didn't feel good.

I decided to get her into a smaller pen that had a bit more cushion (rather than the grass or hard pen). Just before walking into the pen she pooped. I'm always so happy to see poop when they colic. She went down right away. After getting up, she moved to a different part of the pen and cast herself, or at least I think she cast herself. but every ten minutes (if that, she'd drop and roll). There was no getting her to walk, let alone stand.

She kept going down but had gut sounds. I started to panic. If she's pooping and passing gas, but still rolling, what the heck is wrong. Every time she'd go down, she'd start breathing harder. But Queen would take a dozen fast breaths and then stop breathing (or at least it seemed that way). She'd do that every time she'd go down.

At one point, she tried to get up but her back legs gave out on her. That's when I thought she was a gonner. Maybe she's not colicing, maybe she's simply dying and this is the slow progression of her death. We really thought she was dying. She'd stretch out and just lay there, prostrate on the ground. There was no getting her up at that point.

During all the dropping, rolling, heavy breathing, and laying there, we decided to call the vet. Unfortunatley my vet was out of town. I'd done everything they told me to do and I couldn't get her up and walking. So I sucked it up and had mike call the other vet (the one where they killed Blondie). It's a story I'll have to tell another time.

I was a bit distraught at having to deal with this other vet, knowing that the outcome might not be that great.And knowing that Queen could be on the verge of dying I was a little hystarical.

About five minutes before the vet arrived, Queen hefted herself up and walked out of the pen (I'd left the gate open so I could come and go quickly). She continued to walk out into the lawn and began eating grass. She was slow but feeling much better.

Then the vet arrived. The vet was only a half hour out so it wasn't like we had to wait hours and hours. I think Queen knew the vet was coming and wanted to look her best. Luckily the vet that came wasn't the one who actually killed Blondie. I don't mind this vet. She took Queen's heart rate and temp. And then gave her a dose of banamine in the vein.

No tubing, no walking, no stress. Queen decided she felt better. We put her back in the small pen and kept a close eye on her the rest of the day. I threw some hay into her last night but she didn't really eat all that much by this morning. I am guessing that she gets most of her food/energy from the grain and alfalfa. I'm going to cut her down on alfalfa though at least for a little while.

The vet figured she might have gotten in to some mold. That round bale of alfalfa had some. I'm going to burn the damn thing and not use any more. Nothing else in Queen's diet had changed. And come to think of it, I think Queen had been colicy for a while before that. There's three patches of white hair on the ground where she'd been rolling. So I'm guessing the day before when I fed them their alfalfa from the bale, she got into some mold and I didn't notice she was colicying because I was late doing chores.

I decided to stay home for a little while this morning to keep an eye on her. I put her back in the pen with Babe and gave her an hour. I just got in from giving her a dose of Banamine. I checked to see if she'd pooped and saw four mushy piles of poo. I think the alfalfa is giving her problems, that or it was the little bit of grass she ate. Either way, she's pooping. Sad to be happy to see piles of poop.

I'm going to head back out and check on her now and then go to work. I'm guessing she's ok. She was happily eating her hay when i ruined it by giving her banamine. But I'd rather be safe than sorry.

The only part I'm sorry about is the actual vet bill. But I was almost out of banamine (and would have been out had I given the proper dosage). So I guess I'll be happy that Queen is feeling better. That's all that matters!