Horse ate plastic bag!!!

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Littleconniexcob

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On Thursday our very greedy cob managed to reach round his stable door and steal a carrot off his next door neighbor; issue is he consumed the bag the carrots come in as well! I know a few others who have had horses do this with no issues but want to hear some more stories of ponies being okay! Vets have said to wait it out and hopefully will pass through him with no problems but the longer this goes the more stressed and worried we are getting!
 
Greedy cob 😂 Fingers crossed is passes out the other end ok 🤞

I found a paper receipt in the horses barn today skipping it out and for a split second wondered if they’d eaten it, but realised it was fairly clean looking so probably blew in there somehow during the recent blustery storm we’ve had!
 
ycbm said:
A horse belonging to a friend of mine ate a bag of carrots she left in his stable, plastic bag and all. It came through a couple of days later.
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Same here with a riding school NF pony - exactly the same thing happened. Fingers crossed but try not to panic too much OP. I can't remember exactly how long it took to come through but it was a few days.
 
Yes, I have found a ball of bale string in poo before, goodness only knows where it came from! Horse was fine.

My old dog also passed half a squashed small tin can! The bin had blown over and we thought we'd collected everything. Happily, we had no idea until the half can was passed, the vet said that by then we should just be watchful and the dog was fine.
 
I've had several surprises emerge, shall we say; don't worry yourself just yet. Horses manage to chomp down on unsuitable stuff quite often with no ill effects. It's probably too late now, but an old fashioned sloppy bran mash with liquid paraffin would help things along.

I had one horse in particular that liked to experiment gastronomically: silage wrap, the lash from a lunge whip, handbag strap, incredibly long piece of baling twine, sandwich wrap, polystyrene cup, all made an appearance. In the case of the baling twine I noticed it erm, poking out and started to pull; it went on FOREVER......Horse never had the slightest ill effects and eventually grew out of it, or else we learned never to leave anything within reach, I'm not sure which.

ETA it could take as long as three days, horses are slow-transit digesters unfortunately.
 
I was poo picking once and found a poo with an entire sainsbury's carrier bag in it!! Greedy bugger must have pinched the carrots by leaning under the fence! I just assumed sharer had fed the carrots to the horses and binned the bag until I found it in a pile of poo!!
 
Widgeon said:
Same here with a riding school NF pony - exactly the same thing happened. Fingers crossed but try not to panic too much OP. I can't remember exactly how long it took to come through but it was a few days.
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My New Foreat pony has done the same thing too.

He was absolutely fine & clearly didn't feel any ill effects as he tried it again a few years later when my Dad didn't entirely believe me when I said 'Yes, he can have a carrot but you'll need to move the rest of the bag off that bucket he can almost reach' 🤣

Hope your pony is OK too @Littleconniexcob
 
One of mine ate an elastic band that was around some carrots- we never found it in the droppings (looked for a few days) but it's been years with no ill effects, so presume it just went through un-noticed.
 
Thanks all helps put my mind to rest a bit although still slightly concerned for the worst (not helped it being Christmas!), although the greedy king himself is up to usual tricks so doesn’t seem bothered!
 
Cortez said:
It's probably too late now, but an old fashioned sloppy bran mash with liquid paraffin would help things along.
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bran was my problem. In the very olden days I poulticed with bran, wrapped it all in foil to keep the heat in and wrapped in sacking.

Horse ate it. All the foil had gone. Rang vet, get liquid paraffin. As I was too mean to pay for the vet to open the surgery on a Saturday I went to Boots, explained the problem and asked for a large quantity of LP.

A mistake not to be repeated.:D. The lecture that I got of the damage I could do to myself with LP. They refused to sell me any, in fact the pharmacist was totally horrified at my request.

ETA the horse lived for many years afterwards.
 
paddy555 said:
bran was my problem. In the very olden days I poulticed with bran, wrapped it all in foil to keep the heat in and wrapped in sacking.

Horse ate it. All the foil had gone. Rang vet, get liquid paraffin. As I was too mean to pay for the vet to open the surgery on a Saturday I went to Boots, explained the problem and asked for a large quantity of LP.

A mistake not to be repeated.:D. The lecture that I got of the damage I could do to myself with LP. They refused to sell me any, in fact the pharmacist was totally horrified at my request.

ETA the horse lived for many years afterwards.
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I tried to get some LP from the chemist once. You would have thought I was planning multiple messy murders.
 
Mum and Dad were sent off, one Sunday morning to get copious amounts of liquid paraffin for colicky horse. They were first in the queue at the emergency pharmacy and were treated with a great deal of suspicion, however mother put on her best infant teacher voice and face and came away with enough for the job.
 
Cortez said:
On the subject of horses eating things, a friend of mine that had a stud farm had her entire finger bitten off and swallowed:eek: by her extremely mild mannered stallion; she was feeding him a carrot and he just chomped down on the whole thing, including finger. He was OK though....
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Glad the horse was ok..!

I’ve mentioned it before but my childhood pony sometimes (often) accidentally bit my finger when I gave her a treat.
So why I thought it was a good idea to give her pieces of carrot from my mouth, I don’t know! This became our party trick yet my nose is still in tact.

ETA I’m morbidly curious as to whether the stallion’s owners checked the poo for the finger. Also which finger was it @Cortez ?
 
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Update for anyone wondering… Happened Thursday and still no sign of anything today (Tuesday)! Wondering wether it could have broken down (is this possible!?!) as he is his normal cheeky self and everything is normal with 0 signs of any problems. Vet reckons it may have come out in small fragments and been missed but I am still worried!
 
I'm sure all will get well if there has been no sign of a problem in the interim.

N.B. *never* tell a pharmacist that you want abc to treat an animal, they are not legally allowed to sell it to.you without a vet prescription, despite the fact that our vet has frequently recommended that we buy something because it is cheaper that way.
 
Reacher said:
If you are trying to buy liquid paraffin at a chemist, what excuse do you give?
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My usual line is it’s for my mum, she’s had it before, but her carer usually picks it up for her. That’s never actually been true, but it stops them asking questions 😀

Our local chemists don’t stock liquid paraffin at all, so I always have a bottle, bought online in my first aid box.
 
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