choke

What are you feeding?
If the choke is bad enough then the horse should be put on anti-biotics after as the mucous can filter into the oesophagus and cause the horse to get pneumonia.
Some people add large stones to the feed to stop the horse from grabbing too much in each mouthful and therefore have to pick up the feed around the stones.Have you tried this?
 
It sounds like your horse could do with a dental appointment being made for him. Check your feed also as nuts are often the cause of choke.
 
my veteran horse used to whenever he was fed for about 3mths. It used to be awful as it would be coming out of his nose & he was very distressed. After some fiddling with his diet we found what was best for him. We found that large amounts of chaff in his feed made choke more likely, & pellets/nuts cound not be fed at all so he is on mixes. He is also at a disadvantage of having very few teeth left,but touch wood he hasnt had choke for about 6yrs now!
 
he is due the dentist who sees him every 6-12 months , i will try with the stones . He had quite a bad episode at xmas and we had called the vet but he managed to expel what was stuck . He seems ok but does a lot of nose blowing when i ride him do you think this could be an aftereffect
 
Choke is very serious and should never be taken lightly. I almost lost a good horse this way. It is without doubt the most awful thing to see in a horse and leaves them very seriously debilitated afterwards. Before it gets to a bad stage you must do everything you can to eliminate these episodes.

In my case we switched to a different (well-known) brand of coarse mix and it also caused a mild attack of choke in another horse. The feed was analysed by the manufacturer but they did not find anything wrong with it but I have never touched that brand again. It has also put me off mixes and I use nuts or pellets now and always always damp any feedstuffs well sometimes to the point of sloppy.

If your horse is greedy then as previous poster suggests, slow him down.

Our boy was sedated to relax the muscles pumped with antibiotic and went onto B12 shots and vitamin boosters - that is how ill he was. It can be a killer so check your feed, check how he eats and do not take any chances with this awful thing. We are lucky we still have him.
 
i thought i was going to lose him as he was on the ground and really struggling , i have now become very cautious fortunatley he does not need much feed and a make it very sloppy
 
My mare has had that before and it was horrible to watch. Vet said make her feed (well all she has was chaff/apples) very sloppy for the next few days.

However, I have heard recently that's it's better to not make it so wet as they will be inclined to eat it faster! You can't win!

Definitely agree with the rocks.

Do you feed apples/carrots? As I think it was a bit of apple she got caught, so I used to grate them afterwards in her feed rather than cutting them up.

xx
 
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