Bloated horse with rock hard tummy

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Foolishthought

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Hi!
Just after some quick advice/similar stories.
A horse I look after has for the past week or so been just a bit down and lethargic, eating, drinking All fine, but she looks miserable.
Today I was feeling her belly and its rock hard she looks bloated also. She is showing small signs of slight discomfort when I touch it but nothing major. She has been on no grass/fees and I'm just wondering if she hasn't got much going through her so that's why she is like this? She has one section of hay per day.

She has been wormed also today. I will of course get the vet if needed but this horse will really be quite dramatic in the past when she has had lami or colic and she hasn't showed any signs like that at all this time!
 
One section of hay, no grass or other feed? What is this, a rocking horse? Seriously, get the vet out immediately.
 
One section of hay a day for a lami pony is soaked and split into 3.
When I say no grass I mean she is in a bare paddock not that she is staved and chained in a concrete pad!

Thanks for the helpful advice.
 
The title of this thread is enough to tell anyone the vet is needed.

Horses have ridiculously delicate digestive systems. It's not something you mess about with waiting to see if a vet is needed. The vet is needed. About a week ago by the sound of it.
 
Ditto that - vet now. There is simply too much possibly wrong. There is no where near enough feed going through her unless she is a mini. For her to bloat on this little feed something nasty is going on insider her. Let us know what they say?
 
What is her temperature, respiration and heart rate?

Bloating and tension in the abdomen is a serious clinical sign.

PS. you should never starve, even an obese laminitic horse/pony. They should get at least 1% of their body weight (if on strict diet, 1.5% otherwise) of soaked and rinsed hay per day. Even if on a "bare" paddock, an average 500kg horse should be getting 5-7.5kg of hay.
 
Foolishthought said:
Hi!
A horse I look after has for the past week or so been just a bit down and lethargic, eating, drinking All fine, but she looks miserable.
Today I was feeling her belly and its rock hard she looks bloated also. She is showing small signs of slight discomfort when I touch it but nothing major.
Click to expand...

You need to get the vet out immediately!!!
 
Please tell us that you have called the vet.

What are the horse's droppings like?

There are ways of getting "empty" fibre into laminitics, such as mixing the hay with straw. If they don't have a constant trickle of fibre then they will colic.
 
Scared to come back!

First of all. I'm not an idiot. I just wanted some advice. The pony was not distressed and was completely normal bar I thought she looked bloated!
Second of all, my hay bales are big bales. So one slice is plenty, as advised from my vet and farrier.
Thirdly, the vet has been, the pony has had a bout of laminitis, hence the sweat patches, very mild but could of been caused by the wormer or the fact we had a very cold night and she was out last night. The vet didn't think her 'bloating' was anything more than a grass belly. We are running bloods for possible cushings and EMS

Thanks to the people who were genuinely helpful. To the others.. Perhaps try to make people not feel like cr4p for asking for help. Perhaps my first post was misleading but I was In a rush to post, was busy starving my horses and messing up the digestive systems of all the animals.
 
I'd second vet for the signs you describe with how tight and bloated you describe.

As an aside re the hay amounts. Given that we know neither the size of the horse nor the size of the hay bale not sure it's entirely fair to be passing judgement. 1 slice of a small bale would be fine for a mini, 1 section of a large square bale would be more than adequate for an average sized horse. (But yes one section of a small bale per day is not enough to sustain a 500kg horse unless there is also grass to nibble)

Ah I see update has now been added, please ignore irrelevant bits of post (ie most of it!)
 
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