chronic choke - experience anyone please?

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Kaycee

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My 18 yr old boy appears to have choke, but only when fed hay/haylage. This has just suddenly started to happen but he's absolutely fine grazing & has not lost any weight.He starts to eat some hay but then coughs and seems to struggle to swallow, then mucus comes down his nose. I can't see/feel any lump on the left hand side of his neck. His teeth are checked every six months.

I've fed him a small amount of AlfaAlfa today with very sloppy sugar beet and this has caused him no problems at all to eat.

I'll call my vet tomorrow as he's not at all distressed and I've stopped giving him any hay/haylage. But just wondered if chronic choke is a possibility and how do I manage it, particularly with winter approaching when he would normally be fed ad lib hay/haylge 24/7.
 
My old horse has suffered with choke for the last 10 years, I get his teeth checked regularily and have learnt to remain calm and help him when it happens, I talk gently to him to calm him and rub downwards along the windpipe on the near side to feel for stuck food and gently dislodge it, he suffers so bad that he has been on his knees before and looking like he was about to expire, I always take hay away after it has happened and I always stay until he has finished his dinner to check he's okay, I now only feed hay as haylage was far harder for him to chew up.
 
Thanks for that Snopuma, it's great to know that your horse has coped for so long with his condition. This is happening to my chap within a minute or two of eating hay so I will certainly try to massage along his windpipe to see if that helps him. I'm just worried that I won't be able to feed him hay again, although he seems very sensible and just walks away from the hay and is ok again after a few minutes. But when I've given him a handful of hay a few hours later the same thing happens.
 
The other thing that you could try is soak the hay, drain it well then feed off the floor as its a more normal eating position for them which may help while yours learns to slow it down and chew his/her food, remember as someone once told me, they will do their best to survive a choke its nature to fight, the other thing you could try is to double net the hay so its really hard to get a great gobful in at one time, just a thought, its sort of trial and error really, mine has a tendancy to choke because he has a raised benine thyroid gland in his throat it was about the size of a golf ball when he was ten but now he is 31 its more like the size of an apple, there is nothing they can do about it in inoperable but he has coped well all his life, so it might be worth getting the vet to scope yours just to check you don't have the start of a growth which is closing the throat or indeed maybe an allergy that would do the same. x
 
Sounds exactly the same as mine was. I was dreading having to feed her this winter, as she developed the bad choking this summer (anything long, hay, haylage, long grass, would set her off - she was fine last winter). Vet found a lump at the back of her throat, it went down with steroids but she kept choking. We never had her 'scoped as she died of colic last week anyway (if it's not one thing, it's another!) but she had been eating hay at vet's fine for a week, on and off between her colic. We were set to feed her a sloppy mix of Simple System Lucie Cobs with Simple System RuffStuff - it looked like sloppy wet short-chopped hay, and she loved it! Obviously I can't comment on if it worked :rolleyes: but there are ways. Soaking would be my first step, and 'scoping would be on my list of things to do.

In the meantime, don't feed anything dry!!
 
my old pony a few years back started to choke --tried soaking hay and sloppy feeds instead of hay

vet was out every other night to tube him it was getting more serious each time

we had him scoped no tumours but the vet gave him a lung wash as he had a load of mucus and from that day we had no more episodes of choke and he was fine with his hay afterwards
 
Thanks everyone, your comments/advice are much appreciated. I just wanted a bit of info beforehand in case I needed to prepare myself for the worst. But it sounds like it can hopefully be managed, depending on the cause of course.
I will certainly try him with a bit of soaked hay tomorrow morning (btw he's always fed from the ground)

I'm sure the vet will advise a 'scope but if not I shall certainly ask. Can it be done at home or would he need to go to the vets?

Silmarillion - thanks for your post, especially after the recent loss of your mare, I'm so sorry. I've used Simple System feeds in the past so that sounds like a possible plan for him.
 
My horse does this too. Its been ongoing for around 3 months now. She fine out in grass but chokes when fed haylage. Somtimes she doesnt fully choke but she can just gag on it. She only occasionally done this on hardfeed but everytime on haylage.
I always phone my vet to let him know she chokes and watch her closely for the night. She has been scoped and nothing was found. So she is now fed soaked haylage only. And so far has been fine. so the extra moisture helps it go down.
 
My boy has had repeated choke this year, once so bad that he burst a blood vessel. The only thing that I can do with him is turn him out and observe quietly.

I do feed from nets, but am wondering if this is a contributing factor. How are others feeding? Floor or net?
 
Vetwrap said:
I do feed from nets, but am wondering if this is a contributing factor. How are others feeding? Floor or net?
Click to expand...

My horse chokes from nets and from the floor. My vet advised me to keep feeding from nets so we have less chance of her choking by taking smaller mouthfuls but the only thing that has made any difference is soaking the hay before feeding.
 
This is an excerpt from the Newsletter I do for the yard every month. This is from last months magazine an article of which just happened to be on choke. This last paragraph explains some of the reasons choke may occur.

Causes of Choke can be varied. It can be because the horse is not chewing the feed completely, due to dental problems, such as missing or painful teeth, sharp points, etc. Rectify this by ensuring your horses teeth are checked annually by an EDT (Equine Dental Technician). Another common cause is that the horse is not producing enough saliva to wet the food when eating. Always ensure food is well dampened prior to giving it to the horse. Some horses will bolt their food down which can cause choke so a good way to prevent this is to put some large stones in the horses feed bucket which has the effect of slowing the horse’s eating down. Finally choke can be caused by partial obstruction of the esophagus due to a tumour or from scarring from old injuries. Your vet will advise on this.
 
My horse suffers from choke every now and then, I just walk him round quietly and let him keep his head down. This gets rid of it every time for him.
 
You say that teeth are checked every six months, but have they been checked since he started to choke? As he only chokes on long fibre, it may be because he can't chew it properly, and this could be caused by dental issues that may have arisen since last dentist's visit. Personally, I would get teeth checked as a priority and perhaps feed soaked grass nuts as a hay replacer until you find the cause of the problem.
 
My boy started choking this summer, only on haylage was fine on hard feed and grass. He did this on and off for about 4 weeks. His lymph nodes were up and he was scoped and all was fine. His teeth were checked and nothing wrong with them. I have had him 7 years and before this year has never choked. He went on danalon (4 day for 4 days) and antibiotics to see if it was a pain related problem and this did seem to work. He hadn't choke since July but did very mildy last night. It seems as if it is the first few mouthfuls and then he is fine. He has been eating haylage fine for months now and my vet has no idea what it is. He doesn't bolt his food and is eating in the same way as he has done for the last 7 years. My vet suspects that he is eating something in the field but again he has been in there for years and I am not aware of anything different this year. The only thing I had used that was new was hoof oil with Laurel in it and I stopped using it and then put some on this week. This would be a very unlikely cause but who knows. He fine in himself. He is back on Danalon just in case it is a sore spot. Nothing was found on the scope but apparently you don't always find sore spots! Let me know how yours is. There does seem to be a lot of horses choking this year so maybe an allergy!
 
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