Horse has lost his voice.

[Natalie_H]

Hi All.

Any advice on this one would be much appreciated. My horse was on box rest last week for a splint. On Tuesday night, he was quite stressed, and appeared to be choking - although no discharge or food being spat out. This developed after he whinnied at his field mate with a mouthful of food. Called the vet, and they advised to leave him in without food & monitor for an hour. He had quietened down after an hour, so I left him.

Next morning, Mum was on duty and said he was coughing & grunting again. Vet came out within 15 minutes, and said despite the lack of discharge, she was treating it as choke. Sedated him. Didn't work. Gave him another shot, tried to get a tube down, but he just kept fighting. So she administered Buscopan & told us to leave him in without food until 4pm in the afternoon. She also agreed that if he was okay at 4pm, to turn him out as being so stressed in the box was doing him no favours.

At 4pm, Mum said he was still coughing occasionally, but not grunting / whistling. So we decided to turn him out. After 2 hours, he was no longer stressed & he was chilled out in the field. Gave him a sloppy feed, and he had a little cough on the first mouthful, but ate the rest quietly.

Since then, he has been out, is relaxed, but perky & bright. He is drinking water & eating his sloppy feeds. However, he is still coughing once or twice when eating them. I have also noticed that he has neither whinnied or whickered since Thursday. He is normally quite vocal when his dinner is brought out. He is not even attempting to whinny.

Does anyone have any experience of this? I assume that there is a likelihood of inflammation / soreness from the choke, but am also nervous that they may be something more sinister - in which case I will be back on the phone to the vets.

Any advice or experiences much appreciated!

 

[alsiola]

I would say it is normal to be a little irritated and coughing after anything but the mildest of chokes. This can be helped with NSAIDs such as bute, and feeding soft feeds as you already are.
Inhaling food particles and pneumonia can be a complication of choke, and the likelihood of it occuring is related to how long the horse was choking for. From your post it sounds like your horse was probably affected for around 12-24 hours, and antibiotics may be probably indicated for treatment/prevention of inhalation pneumonia.

 

[Natalie_H]

Thanks for your advice! I have found loads of info on choke itself (this is the first time one of my horses has suffered with it) but not much about the potential after effects. His course of danilon for the splint finished on Thursday, but I wonder if he may benefit from more danilon or bute to help settle any inflammation caused by the choke.

Might call the vets to ask tomorrow anyway.

Thanks again!

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

As alsiola says, if he whinnied through a mouthful of food he's almost certainly inhaled some feed. It can't be treated as a bog standard choke because with most chokes, the food remains stuck in the oesophagus but if he's inhaled feed the probability is that it's gone straight down his trachea and into his lungs. There's a real danger of pneumonia so vets might like to give a hefty dose of antibx to stop any problem in its tracks. Fingers crossed.