Colic - your advice plz.

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FriskyFilly22

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Ive just returned home from the yard, freezing after babysitting my horse for the past hour & a half with suspected colic. This is the third time she has had a turn similar to tonight, the others were back in November.
Basically tonight I brought her in from the field (she was fine before hand as had been up in the field poo picking) & she ate her tea & had a drink, whilst I was rugging up the others I noticed her pawing so tied her up, next min she is lying down, so get her up & hold her on lead rope & walk her around the field. She is not really distressed just occasionally looks to go down, is breathing slightly heavily & basically looks sorry for herself. Approx an hour or so later she comes to & begins eating her hay, have left her now but goin to check on her in a hour.
She is 20yrs old & was wormed beginning of December.

I have heard that some people give their horses something when they have colic, does any one have any suggestions that I could try if she has it again as in all three cases she comes through in her own time & is not really distressed enough to warrant a vet. Also any ideas wat could be causing this?

Thanks
 
what breed is she?
my 5yo TBx had 4 episodes of mild colic within 2 weeks, and we think it was his diet, too high in starch and sugar, since we have changed the feed (2 weeks and 3 days ago) he hasnt coliced, TOUCH WOOD, had a very helpful vet out to see us who also did homeopathy who was amazing, PM me if you like as i dont want to ramble on, on here,
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My horse has bouts of colic and my vet prescribed quadrisol for me to give if he has an attack. I always speak to the vet before I give him a dose and if there is no improvement after 30 minutes then the vet will come out. It's a painkiller but more effective for colic than bute. Personally I would get the vet out just to make sure nothing serious is going on ans imo any degree of colic is worth speaking to the vet about.
 
My horse had a couple of bouts of gas colic last winter/spring. I think it was linked to worming as both times it was a few days afterwards. She was treated with buscopan and it passed overnight, but it has made me very nervous of her colicking again more seriously.

For this reason I have put her on Coligone. I use the powder formulation that you feed daily. There is also a syringe you can keep for emergencies, and a liquid version. She hasn't had any signs of colic since being on the supplement.

http://www.hbradshaws.co.uk/

I would get your vet's advice though as colic can be caused by so many things, and the appropriate strategy adopted accordingly.
 
Glad to here your horse has been colic free for a while. I also feed coligone folk who sell coligone are soooo helpful. They told me to stop feeding my horse carrots and belive it or not it has made a huge difference to my boy. I have to watch him in the summer as the sugars in the grass are very high so he is inside most of the day in summer. Also carrots are full of sugar so if you feed carrots I'd STOP.
 
10cc of banamine is what I give and that usually does the trick. Obviously depends on type of colic, symptoms etc.

I generally give a small feed of soaked pellets with a probiotic a few hours after the colic has subsided.

Not sure why your mare keeps colicing though, I would certainly have further investigations on this front. Colic is very rare at my place; I feed small natural feeds and ad lib hay to my own horses and I've only had 2 colic cases in my own horses in all the years I've had horses and I have often wondered whether all these new scientific diets could be the cause for a lot of horses to develop colic?
 
After much deliberation, this year for the first year ever, I used the long acting wormers. I am not happy with them though, so will be going back to my regular 3 year schedule again, using short acting wormers in future. This is the only time I have ever lost a horse to colic, which I did a couple of months ago; the only other horse I owned who had (very mild) colic was about 18 years ago when the little sod munched all the windfall apples which had blown over from the apple trees in the garden.
 
I was told by my vet to give my horse 3/4 bute (he is 17.1hh WB so quite big) and put him on the walker for 20 mins. If when I put him back in his stable he still shows colic signs then if I am still worried call for the vet. This has saved me a fortunue in vets bills. Only twice in approx 2 dozen colicky episodes have I had to call the vet out, once at a show when he was grunting and eating soil like it was going out of fashion, and once when it was his first spasmodic colic and I was very naive. Its the grass and haylage which starts my horse off, but his is the mild gassy kind of colic which responds very well to this particular treatment. My vet knows the horse inside out and trusts my judgement. If my horse didn't respond after a walk on walker and bute/danillon I would call the vet out immediately. If you are in any doubt always contact your vet.
 
My horse had mild colic the other night along with another at the yard (both are prone to it). He is now back on restricted turn out at his is gassy colic caused by scoffing too much grass. I'd suggest keeping a close eye on your mare. The weather this year has been very changeable but also mild leading to far more cases of colic than usual. I'd monitor her turn out, make sure she isn't over or under rugged and keep her feed simple.
 
I tend to always have the vet out with colic just as a precaution.
My lad is prone to gassy colic & whilst sometimes symptoms cool off I know without buscopan that they will return when I have wandered off for a cuppa.

To be honest even if I could I probably wouldn't self medicate! What if you miss some kind of impaction or serious problem which a vet might be able to pick up on? giving them pain killers might just cover this up & valuable time in solving a problem could be wasted. Just my personal view on it.
 
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