HELP/ADVICE please!

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nicoleb68

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I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice. A couple of days ago I went to the farm to find my colt very sluggish. He's usually always nipping, biting and generally just very coltish. He's not eating any of his feed or drinking much but I'm persuming this is because he's not eating. The only thing he will eat is haylage or grass or straw. At first I thought he could be teething as a 2 year old ? He also keeps yawning a lot and sometimes lying down. He has no obvious symptoms of Colic i.e. nipping at his sides, rolling, sweating or kicking his belly. He seems happier in him self today but is tucked up. If he's no better by tomorrow I will be taking him to the vets.
 
Have you taken his temperature ? Is he drinking etc ? Try tempting him to eat with something a bit tasty i.e apple/carrot and see what his reaction is. I would personally call the vet sooner rather than later. Young horses can take a turn for the worse fairly quickly
 
I'd also call the vet sooner rather than later. Sometimes you don't get a second chance.

Definitely worth taking:
- temperature (will give an idea of whether he has an infection and/or whether he is ill)
- pulse (can indicate pain levels)

and checking:
- droppings (are they normal size, consistency, volume)

If he's producing droppings ok, then I'd be wanting to ensure he had plenty of fluids. You don't want him dehydrating which can happen fairly quickly if they are not eating/drinking enough.

So I'd be looking at giving a sloppy high fibre feed, like Fast Fibre or unmolassed sugar beet, partly to tempt him into eating and also to be something that will pass through the gut easily.

Colic doesn't necessarily show all the signs that we think of as being associated with colic. One of my girls had an impaction colic recently, and the giveaway was that she stood away from her fresh haynet, and her breathing rate went up. No temperature. Poo was normal, but that was her last poo til 9 hours after being tubed by the vet. Another of the gang had colitis, and again it was the not eating, and the lying down and standing up that were the giveaway. Diarhoea only followed later. It was a couple of days before he started including rolling in his behaviour.

Yawning can also be a sign of discomfort.

If he's still not right now, then personally I'd call the vet straight away, but the more specific you can be about describing how he is, then so much the better for the vets to give them an idea of how urgently they need to come out.

Sarah
 
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