Anyone had re-occuring colic? With no obvious cause?

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I'm after your experiences because we are at our wits end and need any ideas that might be causing our problem.

The patient is a 17 year old brood mare with a foal at foot and is in foal (only few months gone. She is producing milk and foal at foot is feeding and looking fine.

About 3 1/2 weeks ago in the morning I went out to find her collapsed in her stable, vet called, injected with buscapan, mare got up all fine (this was a friday). All ok over weekend, following monday evening same happens but then she drops again approx 1 hour after the jab. The colic is gaseous so it causes her great discomfort and if we can get her gut moving when she clears the gas she perks up again.

Mare taken to Rossdales who cannot find reason for colic - no twist, no ulcers, no unusual bloods, no infection, only a few worms- but mare has been regulary wormed, last with equest and they sent her home with a course of wormer to make sure.

Mare comes home few days later, large bill, now looking like when we got her the early part of last year - we don't have huge amounts of history only know that she has had several foals and that she was in a state when we got her - as in very ribby and poor condition (we have built her up slowly)

The following week, another bout of colic, call vet, again inject, exercise, all is ok.

So now we've gone a whole 7 days and yes she's gone down again. Having spoken to Rossdales and my vets again, they really can't come up with anything new.

We have changed paddocks, she is out during the day and the colic occurs at all times of day/night. She has access to a salt lick, is fed wet stud mix, wet hay and wet Hifi lite. She is on probiotics and some garlic. Drinking ok, has clean water and scrubbed buckets every day, we are exercising her more to try and increase her mobility - but not overly so (she is a broodmare not a competition horse) stress is walking from field to stable and thats it.

Any constructive idea's please???

And thank you to anyone who managed to read my long ramblings.....
 
Hi. Sorry to hear about your mare. Not sure if this will be of any help but my old boy (31yrs) gets re-occurring colic and nodody knows why. It started about years ago, very painful, then fine. Poos OK. Went to Rossdales for scans couldnt find anything. It was asumed due to his age he probably had bits of gut that didnt work very well, gets a blockage. Over the years and moitoring when these bouts occur - usually spring and autumn, I have put it down to dehydration. Obviously he alwyas has access to water, so I think he eats the juicy new grass shoots, doesnt feel thirsty so doesnt drink, then we get gut ache! Once he drinks he's fine. My vets think its the weirdest colic they've seen. Touch wood it has never got Very sever and he's never gone down and rolled, but it does last a couple of days. As I say, dont know if its anything similar thats happening to your girl...? Hope you solve it, we HATE colic!
 
smiffyimp said:
My vets think its the weirdest colic they've seen. Touch wood it has never got Very sever and he's never gone down and rolled, but it does last a couple of days. As I say, dont know if its anything similar thats happening to your girl...? Hope you solve it, we HATE colic!
Click to expand...

I'm sorry to hear we aren't alone. :( We have weird too, no one seems to have an answer and dehydration has been a concern, so everything has been fed as wet, wet hay, wet coarse mix, wet chaff.

Its been suggested that a certain wormer that we have used may have left toxins in the gut but there is also nothing to prove this. I honestly don't know how you cope with re-occuring colic, hers is so painful her back legs give out and she lies flat, its terrifying! (She's 16.3hh)

Its interesting that you have it spring and autumn, how do you keep him hydrated? Apart from keeping clean water available and we've also tried apple juice, she isn't drinking any more or any less?
 
I dont for one minute think its the cause but garlic can irritate the gut in sensitive horses - it can kill the microflora and cause the squits etc.
 
Thanks, but Garlic has only been re-introduced - very slowly over the last week and in a small quantity, it was removed from her diet when she first had a bout of colic.

We've had only diarrhea once, that was last week, nothing today?

Garlic won't be added again until she's gone a good few weeks without, we only use it as it seems to keep flies down.
 
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A friend's gelding had unexplained recurrrent colic and he had a benign tumour in the gut that was causing intermittent blocks of the gut. I would assume they have seen nothing like that given the extensive investigations that you have had done. Sorry this is not much help - I feel for you, there is nothing worse than something unexplained which is causing so much distress to the horse and to you.

Fingers crossed it disappears as mysteriously as it came and soon.
 
My YO had a young mare who has recurrent colic and nothing found - went on for 6 months, every few weeks she'd collapse and groan and it was absolutely terrible. She was pts in the end :( and PM revealed scarring from old worm damage on her gut lining. Every now and then the scarring would flare up and cause unbearable pain - she'd contort into such dreadful position, but always bright as a button after the painkillers and then fine for weeks :(. Unfortunately some things that go wrong are so deep inside that they can't tell without going in. I hope you mare gets better and that's it's a transient rather than a long term thing.
 
My welsh mare went through a bad stage from about 2yrs to 4yrs

We found anything set her off she couldnt be fed herbs or anything different food wise she eventually grew out of it which obivously isnt the same for your older horse.
 
Every horse ids different and some are very sensitive

My lad had recurrent colic - ewvery few weeks for a year. As a last resort he came off all grains (no stud mix!) adn onto beet, linseed etc...no more colic - not a single attack. He can take some oats now, but mixes are definitely out.

May be worth a go. Loads of people rubbished the idea that mixes were bad for them -including the vet - but the horse was telling me something else very clearly
 
I'd ditch the garlic immediately - as another poster has noted, recent research indicates that it can cause irritation and ulceration in the stomach. Then start her on Coligone - it's an amazing product and I can vouch for its success on my veteran who had a nasty bout of gasy colic after going straight to lush ex-dairy pasture from bare winter nibbles (my fault entirely) and is equally as good on stressy TBs or any horse or pony struggling with stressors that have led to gastric problems. PM H's_Mum on this Forum and she can give you further info. It's a little like Gaviscon for humans and is equally as effective. The peppermint powder is great as a maintenance dose and it works out at just a few pence per day. Fingers crossed xxx
 
My horse and I moved six years ago to a yard that used to be a dairy farm for a hundred or so years prior to being turned into a livery yard. The grazing was very rich. My horse who I'd only had for six weeks then got one attack of colic after another - its always been the same gaseous spasmodic colic. After about the sixth or seventh time in so many weeks it was decided to try him with grazing muzzle and it worked for a while and we went for a few weeks without colic symptoms. But then he would either pull the muzzle off or his 'friends' would resulting in a horse gorging itself on grass and then getting colic as a result. I removed the muzzle so he could regulate his intake again, put him on pink powder and kept my fingers crossed. He still got the occasional bout but on vets advice I gave him 3 or 4 bute (he weighed 650KG then) and put him straight on the walker followed by a period to assess him in his stable. If the symptoms hadn't dissappeared after doing this then I was told to ring the vet. I have followed this bench mark successfully over the six yeas of owning him an dI have been very happy that the horse has come right every time. Of course the vet only told me to do this as I knew what was wrong with the horse, and it was the same colic he suffered from every time. I also know that if the horse has a dangerous colic, i.e one needed veterinary/hospital care then the pain would over ride the bute and the vet would be summoned immediately by myself. I feel I am experienced enough with Bailey to trust my gut instincts on this one.

If I didn't follow this course of action with the bute/walker/stable analysis then I would have probably paid out a couple of thousand pounds in totally unnecessary vets bills over the years. I suppose in some respects you could say its a gamble I'm taking but experience tells me this is the right thing to do with this particular horse.

Its been approx 12 months since the last colicy episode although there have been a couple of instances when I think he's been uncomfortable and have just ridden/lunged or put him on the walker and he's been fine without the need for bute.

He probably has stomach ulcers and god knows what else but I do not want to go down the road of getting him analysed and finding out god knows what and using up all my insurance claim only to find if he ever needs that colic operation as an emergency in the future I won't be covered on my insurance.

I'd try the pink powder, Bails is on it daily and its been a totaly life saver.
 
My old girl colics if she eats grass with high sugar content - she's more prone in the spring and autumn, gets gassy spasmodic colic.
I have taken to restricting her grazing, and feeding her hay/haylage and probiotics, which generally works.
We do still get a couple of episodes each year though.
S :D
 
Thank you all for your replies

Unfortunatley Izzy was put to sleep leaving her 3 1/2 month old foal behind her at about 4am this morning. We made the difficult decision based on her condition deteriorating so badly and that she wasn't a spring chicken. Its probably been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Surgery wasn't the right thing for her.

Foal is now back at home and we are lucky so far as she is incredibly independent and even at this age very into solid food. She is stressing so we have tried to get her to bond with her new but very old companion (the only one we have that won't hurt her)

We are devistated and we currently don't have a cause and are missing Izzy terribly.
 
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