Choke with colicy symptoms

yaffsimone1

yaffsimone1

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 October 2011
Messages
331
Location
Herts
Visit site
Tonight, out of the blue my mare seemed to suffer from a choke episode.

She came in from the field, i put her in the stable to have dinner. While i'm in there she took a couple of mouthfulls (very well soaked sugarbeet and chaff), stopped, stared at her food for a moment, frantically pawed the ground, became tied up, did a big poo and went to roll. Fortunately she still had her head collar on so grabbed her, got her out the stable and started to walk round. All this happened within about 5-10 minutes from entering the stable.

before this she came in from the field fine, was still grazing when i went to get her.

Out of her mouth (not nose) came loads of green saliva, so i'm thinking choke but with colic symptoms...is this possible?. She was also coughing and not showing any interest in grass.

While walking i'm on the phone to the vet, by the time vet arrived (about half hour) she had perked up and started to nibble at grass (hadn't done anymore poo's though)

Vet checked her heartrate and it was 28-32 bpm, so he wasnt concerned that she was in a large amount of pain but her guts were gurgling like mad. He gave her a muscle relaxant and pain killer, gave her some hay to see if she could eat. She ate the hay happily without choking, she had a little cough but he said it was ok.

I'm to check on her at 11pm tonight

Has anyone experience a sudden onset of choke with these colic symptoms?

She has no history of choke or colic, vet thinks she probably got a bit greedy and took too much mouthfull of her dinner
 
yes but it wasnt choke, it was atypical myopathy. it started like mild colic but it then affected the breathing with choke like symptoms. three had it. we lost all three. if she is no better get her into the vets asap.
dont mean to panic you .
do you have sycamores in your field?
 
Mollie choked and colicked (Christmas Day 2011. Cheers for that Moll :rolleyes3:).

The vet said a choking episode quite often triggers colic. She gave her buscopan and after me anxiously watching her for a couple of hours, Moll was fine. Unlike my Christmas. ;)

I hope you're mare's okay now.
 
I checked on her at 11pm and she seemed ok, she had done a couple of poo's and had laid down (not rolled), got back up and ate some hay. This morning I gave her a small breakfast and turned out. She seemed back to her normal self.

I will most certainly keep an eye on it, if it happens again we will investigate further. Though I cant help thinking I may have been the cause, I will explain why:-

She must be left alone when having her feed, she doesn't like anyone in the stable or interfering with her. Last night I was fussing around her while she was eating and she got quite annoyed, could it possibly be that while she was eating she was concentrating more on shooing me away and not eating and as such she got food stuck in her oesophagus?
 
charlie76 said:
yes but it wasnt choke, it was atypical myopathy. it started like mild colic but it then affected the breathing with choke like symptoms. three had it. we lost all three. if she is no better get her into the vets asap.
dont mean to panic you .
do you have sycamores in your field?
Click to expand...


I've just read up on this and its awful. A particular website said it is common in autumn with several horses affected on the same pasture. Wet, boggy fields also don't help. Mine has quite long pasterns so I generally keep her off boggy fields. It did say the clinical signs are:-

•Acute onset of dullness, head down, reluctant to walk, stiff legs with hindlimbs>forelimbs.
•Mild sweating especially in the pectoral region, flanks.
•Reduced appetite, water intake, urination/defecation but no overt signs of “colic”.
•Increased respiratory rate, heart rate, gum colour from pale pink to darker pink.
•As the disease progresses the above become exaggerated with eventually recumbancy, dark brown urine (muscle breakdown products) and eventually death.

At this stage her only matching symptom was reduced appetite, which lasted about half an hour before she was nibbling grass again.

Charlie76 i'm glad you posted this because its another condition that can go on the list....I don't know about Sycamores but im going to have a look this afternoon
 
My horse had choke for the first time on Sunday night so its still very fresh in mind :( She was half way through her feed when she did the same as yours and I was querying colic too. She kept buckling her back legs to go down, then changing her mind. I was on the phone to the vet when she started with the green saliva so we knew it was choke then straight away. Mine also then had it coming down her nose and the vet did the same as yours, sedation and buscopan. However Im surprised your vet allowed hay as mine said only water overnight and all feed/hay must be removed.Especially if sedated (was yours actually sedated ?).

I know what caused mine unfortunately, she had grass nuts which werent soaked enough for her :( But it was still just a handful in a VERY wet feed. She's right as rain now though and they are being soaked for 24 hours .
 
NeverSayNever said:
My horse had choke for the first time on Sunday night so its still very fresh in mind :( She was half way through her feed when she did the same as yours and I was querying colic too. She kept buckling her back legs to go down, then changing her mind. I was on the phone to the vet when she started with the green saliva so we knew it was choke then straight away. Mine also then had it coming down her nose and the vet did the same as yours, sedation and buscopan. However Im surprised your vet allowed hay as mine said only water overnight and all feed/hay must be removed.Especially if sedated (was yours actually sedated ?).

I know what caused mine unfortunately, she had grass nuts which werent soaked enough for her :( But it was still just a handful in a VERY wet feed. She's right as rain now though and they are being soaked for 24 hours .
Click to expand...
It all happened very quickly and was over in about 45 minutes
 
NeverSayNever said:
My horse had choke for the first time on Sunday night so its still very fresh in mind :( She was half way through her feed when she did the same as yours and I was querying colic too. She kept buckling her back legs to go down, then changing her mind. I was on the phone to the vet when she started with the green saliva so we knew it was choke then straight away. Mine also then had it coming down her nose and the vet did the same as yours, sedation and buscopan. However Im surprised your vet allowed hay as mine said only water overnight and all feed/hay must be removed.Especially if sedated (was yours actually sedated ?).

I know what caused mine unfortunately, she had grass nuts which werent soaked enough for her :( But it was still just a handful in a VERY wet feed. She's right as rain now though and they are being soaked for 24 hours .
Click to expand...

This computer keeps logging me out!!


It all happened very quickly and was over in about 45 minutes. By the time vet arrived she was pretty much back to normal with the exception of a bit of coughing.

She didn't have saliva coming out of her nose only her mouth, which he thought was strange. He checked her vitals, BP was fine, he was more concerned with the noises her gut was making. He didn't sedate (although she was clearly uncomfortable she wasn't stressing and was very 'relaxed' given she was choking!), just gave a painkiller and a muscle relaxant for her gut.

He tried her on a little hay (about 1 slice) to see if she was able to swallow which she could. But she isn't a big hay eater and had left most of it when I got there this morning. I know this wasn't loss of appetite as she tucked into her breakfast without any problems (was watching her like a hawk!!)

Her stools are fine, normal not runny, she did about 4 last night which is normal for her.

Vet was thinking her history had more to do with it. She is an ex racer and breathing can be quite noisy when ridden, she may (we cant be sure as I cant track her full history) have had the op that many racehorses have to help with breathing (sorry I don't know what the veterinary term is) and may have some scarring which catches the feed
 
Last edited:
I’ve been thinking about this more and more.

When she comes in from her big paddock the first thing she does is have a sleep, the large paddock does have quite a lot of un-nutritional grass and the horses get stuffed quite easily. However I have been putting her dinner in her stable (grass is long but rubbish hence the feed), so she is coming in knackered wanting to sleep but also wanting to eat dinner at the same time, maybe she isn't chewing it properly.

I think for the time being I’m going to give it half hour between bringing in and feeding to allow her time to settle and have a kip. I know I probably sound mad, but I must try and find the reason for this choke episode as it has never happened before
 
Last edited:
Just another possibility to throw out there.

My mare came in from the field last year with what I thought was choke. She was wobbly on her front legs and kept trying to roll. She was fine untill trying to eat hay then she would have the wobbly legs etc again. I phoned the vet in a panic and he was an hour away. I walked her round her paddock and I noticed that quite a few thistles had been eaten!

All I can imagine was she had some thistle spikes in her throat/gullet which were obviously quite painfull. Luckily within about 1/2 hr-hr the symptoms had stopped and she was absolutely fine, and hasn't displayed these symptoms since.

So, maybe see if you have thistles in your field. Long shot I know, but you never know!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top