Choke advice (Long sorry)

Lexie81

Lexie81

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My horse choked on her hay today. In all my years with horses i have never seen it before. she was muching her haylege off the floor while i was grooming her, next thing she was sort of retching making a strange noise. She was still trying to eat her haylege and so i took her away from it straight away, but then she lay down. Her eyes went all glassy and she looked terrified.there was nothing coming from her nose though. Luckily my friend was with me as we had been about to go hacking together...so she rang emergency vets while i got her up and started rubbing her gullet downwards as i could vaguely remember hearing you should do this with choke....emergency vet was fab and rang back in minutes, advised me to walk her round and attempt to use a hose to trickle some water into the corner of her mouth. Did get the hose out but TBH Milly hates me even touching her mouth so sticking a hose in was never going to happen it just seemed to stress her more. Anyway she stopped retching and her gullet became softer and she seemed to be ok so vet advised to let her out onto grass and see how she went. touch wood she has been ok since, this happened about 1.15 this after noon and she has just had grass and her usual eveing feed but well watered down. I've just come home as had to collect my daughter from her grandparents, and going to giver her her tea then go back up and check her over. such a scary experience. I have been advised by the vet not to give her hay tonight but i think i am going to ring them tomorrow and ask if i should hold her hay back for a couple more days...worried to give it to her now! does anyone have any experience of choke?
 
This happened to Nadia a while back on her un-wet feed with carrots. I ALWAYS wet her feed but didn't do on this particular day. Anyway, she was happily eating when all of a sudden she was choking, food being choked out everywhere and her neck was so tight, I was desperately trying to rub her neck down to ease what ever was stuck down, seemed to take forever but then it went soft and she seemed ok and then it went all tight again. After a bit she was fine but I was so frightened.
The vet told me if it happens again to walk her round and if it goes on for more than 10 minutes to call the vet out.
 
yep mine does this every time she eats dry hay from the floor. Shes just gets too greedy and shoves it down and chokes every time without fail. I have to feed her from haynet or feed her haylage. I just rub her gullet if she does choke and it passes after a few minutes.
 
Hi,

When I first got my new horse I would feed him his hard feed and within minutes he'd go glass eyed, freeze and literally just drop to the floor. It was SO scary. The vet came and said he had choke. He advised giving hard feed with plenty of water so its like a sloppy soup. I feed hay in haynet and hose it down if its very dusty.
He's not choked since.
Hope that helps.

MMOT
 
Hi there,
So sorry to read about your experience my boy has had choke and it was horrible, he had to be tubed by the vet and I thought he might not pull through but thankfully he recovered. He then went on to have an infection from the tubing he needed antibiotics but recovered.

Now I never ever feed him food without water and always slice any apples and carrots, I couldn't risk that ever happening again.
 
Thanks guys. She had her teeth done not long ago so pretty sure it's not that. I don't usually soak her hay as she has always been fine but may have to start now....problem is that from now - Sept she is out 24/7 with 4 other mares and they all get haylege in the field together so not quite sure how to get round them eating hers and her eating theirs! Will definately be wetting her feed form now on. J

Just got back from checking her, she seems fine, i am going to ring the vets for more advice as to when she can have hay again in the morning. Scary stuff though!
 
Its so frightening when a horse chokes. It happened to a pony in the yard a few years ago - luckily the vet was there about one of the other horses so was on hand to deal with it. He showed us that the best thing you can do is to massage the windpipe on the left-hand side, which will hopefully shift the obstruction, which it did on this occasion.
 
we have been through this at some point or another with several of ours but in particular our little mare and her son, although only with feed rather than hay. As well as the advice you have already been given, if you can, try to raise her head as high as you can to stretch her neck up as you massage the gullet, we have found this helps it clear much more quickly. (Having said that our pones are only 13.2, maybe difficult with a biggy!)
 
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