Colic - caused by bad management?

I agree that some colics can be caused by lack of knowledge, but if people are aware of the situations that can lead to a higher risk of colic and choose to ignore them, then this could be deemed bad management.

I have a gelding that has regularly coliced since I have had him. All different types e,g, gassy, impaction, entrapment, displacement, surgical (for multiple twists) etc. Apart from the odd occassion both my vet and I have not been able to give/know the cause. For those that we did identify the cause it was down to other people i.e. someone letting him roll in a sand school so he ingested sand and the surgical case was caused by someone giving him a sack of parsnips, yes a whole sack!, without asking me and knowing that he was a colic prone horse.

To minimise the frequency of him getting colic he is on a high fibre diet, good quality hay, pink powder, gets Clearout in the winter to minimise risk of impaction, also use Coligone or Colease and Fennel in the summer to try and minimise gassy colics. He is regularly exercised, and even when there is snow, still gets turned out for a couple of hours to help keep the guts moving. In the spring and after rainfall (causing growth spurt of grass) he only goes out for a few hours, then has a rest from the grass before being allowed back out.

Every time I get to the yard, the routine is check how he looks, check the amounts of poo's he has done, check how much water he has drunk, does he look tucked up/bloated etc.

I wish that all colic was due to bad management, then those of us that have been so unfortunate to have horses prone to colic or unusual type colics, could just 'change' and then we would never have any more problems. I for one would love not having so many vet bills and I am sure others would feel the same!!
 
Only had one with colic.

One of my shetlands came down with it probably during early hours of the morning, he lives out, had hay still in field from the previous evening.

Vet thought likely cause was that this particular winter had been very mild until that night when it turned very cold, so either sudden temperature change, or drinking very cold water.
Vet said the practice had a high number of call outs that morning for colic.

Don't know how I could have prevented it.
 
I am very sensitive about this topic. I lost my horse two months ago through colic,
he had several colics over the years I had him, he was always wormed, teeth done,
plenty of hay and water, in the spring and when on lots of grass I restricted him so he couldnt pig out. I feel very badly about his loss and as far as I am aware I have done everything possible to prevent him colicking, even when other people at the yard have thought me too paranoid about it. The vet was of the opinion there was some underlying cause but as I have not had a pm done I will never know.
 
My horse got colic, an impactation in the ilium which couldn't have been prevented. Spotted the signs immediately and he was operated on within 12 hours...I don't think colic itself is a result of bad management in most cases and I think it is harsh of people to even insinuate such a thing. Especially since colic can be triggered by minor things like changes in climate - particularly after prolonged snowy periods. Some cases are probably caused my bad management yes, but one would hope the minority.

The weekend in which my horse was admitted the vets responded to 28 separate colic cases. A record to date... It was mostly due to snowy weekend / dramatic temperature change
 
in his latter year my old boy was extreamly colicy with gas colic, but I actually lost him to a second episode of entrapment. I don't think I could have prevented the entrapments, and I am not sure about the gas colic, as nothing had changed with his diet or routine.... what external factors were going on I couldn't guess at. However in his last year he was becoming more of a sickly horse, so again who knows. I also blame, rightly or wrongly, the yard hay, as the quality was inconsitant...however how this could have caused the entrapment is beyond me.

Since loosing him however, I moved my remaining horse over to a consistant haylage supply to enable an adlib supply that I know she will eat as I am terrified that she will colic too.

I think it is just one of those unfortunate things that happens.... and can happen to any of us, no matter what level of care we give.
 
Not always caused by bad management though:

I knew a mare who had colic every time she came in season and required Regumate to prevent this happening.

Also experienced a horse with terrible colic which the vet realised later, on his second visit that day, was due to stress as the horse was in terrible pain from a joint infection. Vet originally thought the lameness was due to the horse injuring itself whilst thrashing around with colic and pretty much ignored this leg. Horse was rushed to vet hospital for surgery on hock and nearly didn't survive.

Also seen horses with colic in the winter when owners do not want to or can't turn them out or ride due to snow. Horses need to move around to keep the digestive system working hence why I was always told to walk a horse with colic as the walking gets the digestive system moving. This one is down to bad management though.
 
I do believe that bad management can cause colic in some instances. I have a horse that had colic to the extent the owner sent him for surgery. His routine was to be in a stable for 23.5 hrs a day with no turn out and no exercise, just a leg stretch loose in the yard. I believe this caused him to colic. I have had no problem with him now he is out in the day and in at night. I bed him on straw and he eats dry hay.

I also think from personal experience that cribbing can cause colic, i had a mare that was a bad cribber and she would colic almost daily. We had her scoped to check for ulcers and it was clear. It got so frequent that I relented and bought a miracle collar, she never had colic again.

There are however, other issues such as tumors and lipoma- none of which are a managment reason for colic.
 
I think it can be both.
I do the usual things, waiting an hour before riding them after a feed, letting their stomachs settle before you ride them off grass, not feeding them when they are sweaty. Not turing out on frozen grass etc.
I've known 4 horses die of colic. Not one of those cases could have been preventable.
 
a good experienced vet told me that he had 1 mare on his rounds who was guaranteed to colic (badly enough to need veterinary attention) every time the air pressure dropped significantly (e.g. before a thunderstorm i think, hope i've got that the right way round.) no way of avoiding that. i've heard similar things from other vets too.
as for personal culpability: many years ago i had a big homebred youngster in the stable for worming, tapeworm iirc. he'd been very regularly wormed. the weather was FOUL, blowing a gale, peeing down, for the whole weekend, and tbh he was such a toad that i kept him in for 48 hours until the weather improved, rather than risk my life trying to lead him out, as he was a bit of a big excitable git and was likely to jump all over me. he colicked badly and i had to rush him to the vet's for surgery. he pulled through but then got it again a year or so later and i lost him (in retrospect, that time i think he was lying down and reaching under the fencing to nibble the edge of the barley crop in the next field, in spite of having loads of grass in his field. i didn't realise he could reach it, nothing else ever had.)
i've always blamed myself for the first episode, for not walking him out, BUT i've had horses on box rest for months after operations (incl him after his colic op) who didn't colic... the second bout, if he did reach the barley, under the telegraph pole and electric fencing, was definitely my fault. :( :( :(
other than that:
i avoid box rest like the plague, do my best to lead them out at least 2 x daily if at all possible.
i feed warm feeds all winter, never cold.
i take the chill off water containers wherever possible.
always fresh clean water available.
won't work within an hour of feeding.
keep feeds small (no more than rugby ball sized)
all feeds very wet. (1 of mine is v prone to choke otherwise)
gradually mixing in of new forage.
as little cereal as possible.
genuinely paranoid, basically...
the only other one i've lost to colic was my super old boy Orville, who at about 24 had his first ever bout, while living out. straight to vets', and the muscles in his back end that push the poo out wouldn't work any more. they cleared him out manually but a few hours later he had the same problem again, nothing they could do, so, pts. obv nothing i could have done about that, he was fit and well up to the last day.
 
Wagtail said:
It can be, but most often it is not. I have only had two cases of colic in thirty years. Both cases were in the same horse. The first time I thought it was because I had moved him into a field with oak trees (although he had been in it all summer before without a problem). He got over it within 12 hours. The second time he had it was two years later. I wasn't that worried as he had got over it no problem the last time. This time he didn't though and we ended up going to Rossdales at Newmarket. He was operated on and found to have 7 feet of intestine that had fallen through a membrane next to his diaphagm. So nothing to do with management. Sadly, although the operation went well, he was unable to use his back legs afterwards and had to be PTS.
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Wasn't that a bit negligent, since acorns are poisonous to horses?
 
Shilasdair said:
Hi all
I wonder how many of you believe that colic is a consequence of bad management?
If so, how do you manage your horses to protect them?
S :D
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I think bad management CAN cause colic, but it would not be accurate, at all, to say that colic is caused by bad management, full stop. Goodness knows it can be caused by a vast range of factors and bad luck.

I've lost one to colic - strangulated lipoma - he was mid 20s and had always been fit and healthy. It was completely unavoidable :( Man, I miss that little horse :(

Re. my current mares - one used to be prone to colic in the past and yes management is certainly an issue for her. She's a cribber. She's a stresshead. She's a poor doer. She is very hormonal. She's hard to keep weight on, etc etc. I'm sure some of the bouts were indeed due to my mismanagement of her :( (over a decade ago now) as she was my first horse and like I say is a very tricky one to keep happy which I wasn't experienced or mature enough to cope with back then as I hope/try to be now. I now have her at a quiet yard, where she can live out 24/7, with fencing that she cannot crib on, and a VERY carefully tweaked diet. She has only colicked(sp?) once in the last 10 years (a fairly modest episode) and I would say that was a direct result of stress because it happened in the days after I lost one of my other horses (only the three of them at the yard). That said I am always wary with her as I do still consider her a colic prone horse.

My other girl has only had colic the once *touch wood* this time last year when coming near the end of a spate of boxrest. My vet said there was a vast number in the area at the time, funnily enough. I do wonder though if that too was slightly stress related. That evening I was rearranging the electric fencing in the field (some distance away, just popping in and out of sight to her) in anticipation of her going out the next day and when I came back to the stables a couple of hours later I could tell something wasn't quite right (I'm pleased to say that it was quite a minor bout). She is a very affectionate horse, who I'm very close to, and with hindsight I do wonder if that bout was brought on by her getting in a tizz because she was watching me and wanted to be up the field with me - she is quite the excitable type at times :rolleyes:
 
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