How many colics is too many?

[doodle]

I think it is very sensible to be asking the question. To be asking it when there is no emotional upset going on. I think some people have been quick to jump to conclusions that you are wanting to pts. I didn't read it at that. I had a similar conversation with my vet with my last horse. My question was "how much danilon is too much?" after an arthritis diagnosis. I wanted to know where to draw the line while things were not complicated and didn't want to get in to the situation of upping and upping over a level I was comfortable with. So we discussed and we drew that line. It actually didn't come to that but there was a certain "calmness" that went knowing what to do.

I don't know the answer tho but a chat with your vet might be useful.

 

[Chianti]

Thank you all for all the helpful suggestions. Just to clarify - and save me responding to multiple replies.
- Pony is 17
- Pony is out 24/7 on a track livery so is moving a lot
- He has a very good life, is happy and is very well looked after
-There is a very small amount of grass for him to nibble but that's all
- He does nibble hedges so probably does eat the odd twig- but he's happy doing so
- Pony has ad lib soaked hay
- Water containers are washed daily
- Pony has sloppy feeds - twice daily in the summer and three times over the winter
- Feed includes speedibeet and linseed as vet said these are good for the gut
- Ponies teeth are done very nine months - for various reasons this has been by three different dentists who all say they are fine. Vet has checked teeth
- Pony has regular worm counts and a saliva test for tapeworm. He's wormed in the winter
- Pony has prebiotics - amongst a vast range of other supplements for various health issues
- There isn't a horse walker or a school on the yard. He's now basically retired.
- Pony has had other health issues so a couple of years ago, over a five month period, we did ulcers, colic, ulcers and laminitis- including four endoscopies. Laminitis the day after the third endoscopy at the vet.
- This has made me completely paranoid about his health!
- It has also made the pony very anxious about vets and any veterinary treatment so I have to very carefully consider what I put him through- he's not going into hospital.
- If a colic episode can't be resolved on the yard then he'll be PTS. Vet and yard owner, knowing the pony, are in complete agreement with this.
- My vet can't understand why he had the episodes in November and January as his lifestyle shouldn't predispose him to colic. There is probably something still going on with his gut but I really don't want to put him through more veterinary investigations to identify what it is.

Perhaps I should have put more detail in the OP - which I did do in a rush. I am NOT considering putting him to sleep as a result of his present colic history. My attitude with any of my animals is that all the while they are happy and healthy, they keep going. As soon as I think they are not, then we stop. However, I am aware that for him the colic episodes are stressful ( ulcers anyone?) - he has to be in, and starved for several hours and have salt water syringed down his throat at regular intervals. That can't be fun on a regular and frequent basis.

I was simply hoping that someone who'd had a pony/ horse with a recurring history of mild colic episodes could share what had made them decide that they thought their animal had been through enough. That was all.

I did deliberate about putting up another 'help' post on the forum. A few years ago I posted, what I thought was a completely innocent question, and got some rather extreme replies. A few accusing me of trying to besmirch the subject of my post when I was just asking for feedback.

I'm not sure I'll bother again.

 

[Chianti]

I think it is very sensible to be asking the question. To be asking it when there is no emotional upset going on. I think some people have been quick to jump to conclusions that you are wanting to pts. I didn't read it at that. I had a similar conversation with my vet with my last horse. My question was "how much danilon is too much?" after an arthritis diagnosis. I wanted to know where to draw the line while things were not complicated and didn't want to get in to the situation of upping and upping over a level I was comfortable with. So we discussed and we drew that line. It actually didn't come to that but there was a certain "calmness" that went knowing what to do.

I don't know the answer tho but a chat with your vet might be useful.

Thanks. The vet is out in a couple of weeks so it's on the long list of questions! I had the same danilon dilemma with my last horse. I've made the decision that he'd never have a colic op and vet agrees with this.

 

[Chianti]

The first one was treated with coke to dissolve the mass. The second one I let her go and she'd had more frequent episodes leading up to that.

I'd been told that about coke. Seems so strange it can work. Sorry about your horse. It's the worst thing we ever have to do I think. Make that decision.

 

[Snow Falcon]

Yeah, if it does that to a ball of food, what does it do to us internally?

Yes, it was heartbreaking as she was only 12 and homebred. She couldn't carry on as she was though. I still miss her greatly.

Knowing beforehand what you would/wouldn't do and what's in the horses best interests helps you make that decision when the time comes.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

No, and i appreciate your decision too, BB survived the colic operation @Birker2020 that was not the problem, the problem was afterwards when his blood stopped clotting, BB was a very special case they removed two masses from his colon, it was not just a simple ‘colon surgery’ he had, if it was he would be bounding about in a field right now

But OP isn’t exactly having regular colic episodes are they?

They are few and far between they have not even been in the same year!


Im out too annoyed now

Same here my boy went through 2 surgerys last year, sadly it did not work, but I would always try to save them, and always guided by the vets.

 

[Barton Bounty]

My horse would be dead now if I had decided many colic episodes were too many.

Many highly experienced and respected vets treated her, a top hospital for which she had a day pass and a fan club with the staff as they saw her so frequently. Her details were never taken when she arrived at the hospital (normally in the middle of the night of course), she was greeted by her name as she came off the lorry, they all knew her so well. The cost - well lets not go there, well into 5 figures. The value of the horse in £ ?, very little, the value to me, priceless.

Same here my boy went through 2 surgerys last year, sadly it did nolt work, but I would always try to save them, and always guided by the vets.

Adorable alice got it in a nutshell actually, may not be worth the world to them but they are to us

 

[SO1]

I lost my 20 year NF last year to the same problem as PF.

Colic can be caused by a multitude of different things. So even if you have had 3 colics since 2021 they might not have been all caused by the same problem.

If he there is very little grass could he be getting sand colic by trying to graze what little there is which is causing impaction during the winter months.

You need to be guided by your vet. Homey's gastric impaction was cleared using coke for a week in the clinic. He was starved for the week and tubed twice a day and scoped every morning. Not pleasant for him but he had most gentle sweet nature. The impaction was found as part of scoping for uclers after I nearly lost him from a very bad bout of colic where I walked him through the night and had the vet out 3 times. YO suggested scoping for uclers in case that was causing the colics. Once they had cleared the impaction they found a glandular ulcer.

He returned home and was put on a special diet of no long fibre so just short grass grazing for 7 hours then 3 feeds of chaff. He coliced again a couple of days after he returned home which was stabilised by Buscapan thought to be caused by wet grass as we had a lot of rain that day. When he went back in for his review 5 weeks later he was starved over night and scoped the next morning and the vet could see food in his oesophagus and his stomach was blocked again. Throughout this time he had been pooing.

Vet said that the kindest thing was to PTS as it was a ticking time bomb and he would colic again or even worse his stomach might rupture which would cause him great pain and it would be just awful if that happened in the night and he was alone and in pain for hours. So I bought him home on the Tues and we had a final few days together and he was PTS on the Friday. The vet though it was nerve damage and his food was not being pushed through his stomach properly.

I think if the colics are more than once or twice a year and the management is optimum then there may be something going on in gut that is malignant rather than just bad luck. What everyone wants to avoid is prolonged frequent bouts of suffering.

I think you need to be guided by your vet. I still struggle to write about Homey. Colic is such an awful thing it comes so quickly and is so painful for them and often hard to ascertain the exact cause. Colic and laminitis are two things I think are really tough on horses.

The only other thing I can think of is at 17 have you had him tested for Cushings and could that be something that is causing an issue.

Another thing you can do is ultrasound to scan the stomach for abnormalities I think that can sometimes pick up tumours or other issues. That didn't involve going to hospital and we did that before Homey was hospitalised.

 

[Squeak]

At the risk of sounding a bit cliché, I think you'll know when enough is enough.

I had to make that call with a horse getting reccurrent colic but it had unfortunately become obvious that the episodes were becoming more frequent and worse each time. We had a good idea what the problem was and so knew that it was only going to get worse.

With horses that have sensitive stomachs and are prone to colic, unless it became weekly/ every other week or the episodes got worse, I wouldn't be thinking of calling it a day. Can you talk to your vet about other ways of managing the colic once it starts if you're worried it's unpleasant for your horse? For mine I was advised to give two bute early and that normally knocks it on the head and the horse then doesn't need any syringing and he's able to have small amounts of hay within a couple of hours.

 

[Birker2020]

With horses that have sensitive stomachs and are prone to colic, unless it became weekly/ every other week or the episodes got worse, I wouldn't be thinking of calling it a day.

But even if it was weekly or fortnightly as in Bailey's case, it was only ever spasmodic gassy colic, which was treated so easily and remedied so quickly I wouldn't have even thought about having her pts. I think you have to try management first, like the strip grazing, muzzles, reduced time out, etc, etc before thinking of pts and this can take months if not years to establish a pattern.

 

[Squeak]

But even if it was weekly or fortnightly as in Bailey's case, it was only ever spasmodic gassy colic, which was treated so easily and remedied so quickly I wouldn't have even thought about having her pts. I think you have to try management first, like the strip grazing, muzzles, reduced time out, etc, etc before thinking of pts and this can take months if not years to establish a pattern.

Yes, completely agree. There's definitely no hard and fast rule with it and I wouldn't be quick to pts a horse that is prone to colic if the colic is easily managed.

 

[Goldenstar]

I owned a horse who has multiple bouts of colic I mean multiple sometimes several in day followed by nothing for a months they varied in severity and length .
I spent a fortune and I mean a fortune on him more than we spend on our first cottage .
I knew things that made it worse and better worse was hay in any form better was feeding haylege and Epsom salts mixed into bran .
Short of him being opened up for a look we had every diagnostic done most several times .
In the end he was pts because we were all exhausted he had two tumours on his bowels that constrained it at times .

 

[honetpot]

I lost my mare in foal to colic, the vet said it was probabaely lipoma colic. There is just so much bowel, and its not a static structure, it can get adhesions, which cause narrowing, which leads to more bunging up. If we worried about every human who had impaction constipation, which can lead to a bowel obstruction or even the bowel tearing we would all all be in the funny farm. I would do your management, perhaps keep a diary to remember diet and good days, and live for today.

 

[Fransurrey]

I'm very worried that he'll have an episode and it won't be spotted.

That's exactly what happened to me. He was very old and as I mentioned above, I had the vet booked to get a professional opinion on whether it was time, but that was more because he wasn't gaining weight in the spring (and had never lost weight over winter before). His mild colic had resolved by itself twice, (I only knew he'd colicked by the sweat - he was behaving normally when I got there each time and it was the vet who said he'd colicked but was fine). I for one completely understand where your post is coming from.

 

[santas_spotty_pony]

It completely depends on the individual situation. My elderly mare has what the Vet thought was colic (no gut sounds) but I am not 100% sure she hadn’t had a seizure - she had cushings and was 29. The Vet wanted to put her in the stable and give her some medicine and see if she was any better after a few hours. I knew in my heart of hearts that her time had come and so I said no I think I need to make the decision to end the pain. Vet did say I could be making the same decision in another few hours anyway. She had never colicked before since I’d known her (over 18 years) but I didn’t think it was fair to let her suffer. To me it’s not the amount of times something happens… you can’t put a number on these things, you just have to treat each case as an individual.

In your situation OP as your horse is younger and hasn’t had any repeated bouts of colic I just would be doing everything I physically could in management terms to make sure the horse was looked after in the best possible way to prevent future episodes. Of course, not everything can be prevented - but you will know when the time is right and enough is enough.

 

[Chianti]

I lost my 20 year NF last year to the same problem as PF.

Colic can be caused by a multitude of different things. So even if you have had 3 colics since 2021 they might not have been all caused by the same problem.

If he there is very little grass could he be getting sand colic by trying to graze what little there is which is causing impaction during the winter months.

You need to be guided by your vet. Homey's gastric impaction was cleared using coke for a week in the clinic. He was starved for the week and tubed twice a day and scoped every morning. Not pleasant for him but he had most gentle sweet nature. The impaction was found as part of scoping for uclers after I nearly lost him from a very bad bout of colic where I walked him through the night and had the vet out 3 times. YO suggested scoping for uclers in case that was causing the colics. Once they had cleared the impaction they found a glandular ulcer.

He returned home and was put on a special diet of no long fibre so just short grass grazing for 7 hours then 3 feeds of chaff. He coliced again a couple of days after he returned home which was stabilised by Buscapan thought to be caused by wet grass as we had a lot of rain that day. When he went back in for his review 5 weeks later he was starved over night and scoped the next morning and the vet could see food in his oesophagus and his stomach was blocked again. Throughout this time he had been pooing.

Vet said that the kindest thing was to PTS as it was a ticking time bomb and he would colic again or even worse his stomach might rupture which would cause him great pain and it would be just awful if that happened in the night and he was alone and in pain for hours. So I bought him home on the Tues and we had a final few days together and he was PTS on the Friday. The vet though it was nerve damage and his food was not being pushed through his stomach properly.

I think if the colics are more than once or twice a year and the management is optimum then there may be something going on in gut that is malignant rather than just bad luck. What everyone wants to avoid is prolonged frequent bouts of suffering.

I think you need to be guided by your vet. I still struggle to write about Homey. Colic is such an awful thing it comes so quickly and is so painful for them and often hard to ascertain the exact cause. Colic and laminitis are two things I think are really tough on horses.

The only other thing I can think of is at 17 have you had him tested for Cushings and could that be something that is causing an issue.

Another thing you can do is ultrasound to scan the stomach for abnormalities I think that can sometimes pick up tumours or other issues. That didn't involve going to hospital and we did that before Homey was hospitalised.

Thanks - yes - I think an ultrasound is the next step

 

[suestowford]

I was simply hoping that someone who'd had a pony/ horse with a recurring history of mild colic episodes could share what had made them decide that they thought their animal had been through enough. That was all.

I had a pony with recurring mild colic, he maybe had five or six episodes of it over 7 or 8 years. Each resolved with Buscopan and Bute. After two of these he passed what I can only describe as a giant hairball. He had a very long mane and would take in hairs here & there while grazing. I shortened his mane once I'd worked that one out but the damage was done, as it never all came out.
Then last year he got such bad colic that he was wild with pain. Not a mild attack at all. Got the vet out and she tried her best, he had enough drugs to put an elephant on the floor but the colic got worse. We were offered the chance of surgery but due to his previous history and what was probably knotting his guts up, I said no. He was 22 years old with no other health issues, but I still thought his chances were too slim. He was pts there & then. When I got the chance to talk it over with our usual vet she also thought that his chances of surviving the op & the aftermath would have been minimal.

So I suppose for me there isn't a number of colics that I would say was enough, it's more the circumstances of each episode. If it resolves with meds then not an issue, if it doesn't then that's it.

 

[Lexi 123]

Op i know people don’t like to be asked this question but can you financially afford the vet bills. Unfortunately horses are expensive I spent €1000 on my horse lameness this year. So if you’re struggling might be better to rehome. I mean this in kind way you can very easily get in trouble with vet bills unless you have insurance .

 

[SO1]

Op i know people don’t like to be asked this question but can you financially afford the vet bills. Unfortunately horses are expensive I spent €1000 on my horse lameness this year. So if you’re struggling might be better to rehome. I mean this in kind way you can very easily get in trouble with vet bills unless you have insurance .

I think that is a difficult question for anyone to answer if you look at what Michen has spent on Boggle in her thread vet fees can go over £50,000 and that would be a struggle for many people as insurance would normally only cover up to 5k. How many people can afford those sums of money in a short period of time not many?

 

[Jim bob]

My boy ate part of a Bush and got impaction colic.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Recurring spasmodic colics, even if each episode is medically resolvable with one or two vet visits, are utterly draining to deal with. You are always on pins waiting for the next episode.

In the end, it was the recurring colics that pushed me into getting the late maxicob pts age 8. He had had to be retired from ridden work the year before to ringbone, and had simultaneously become ridiculously sensitive to flushing grass even in an apparently bare paddock.

Each colic was very painful for him, and he would get the squirts afterwards for a week and would be ill with that. Vet’s best guess was that he might have a lipoma somewhere in his gut.

Crunch day came when we were fence judging at an autumn BE event, and I realised that it was the third year running that we had been there with him on box rest at home - once after a joint medication and twice after colic. I got the deed done the next working day. The vet was initially a bit shocked, but then as she said he might get it next time in the middle of the night and be left in agony for hours. We had done everything management wise to reduce his colic risk that we could think of with a retired arthritic young horse who had to be kept out to keep moving.

 

[hellybelly6]

My horse has had a lot of colic episodes unfortunately. The last one resulted in a displaced colon requiring emergency visit to the hospital. Luckily, he sorted himself out on lots of drips and very small mash feeds. Now I’m very careful with his diet and management. At 16, I would do everything humane for him. He’s on ulcer soothe, Colicare and feeds specifically for ulcer prone horses. He’s had ulcers too

 

[Barton Bounty]

My horse has had a lot of colic episodes unfortunately. The last one resulted in a displaced colon requiring emergency visit to the hospital. Luckily, he sorted himself out on lots of drips and very small mash feeds. Now I’m very careful with his diet and management. At 16, I would do everything humane for him. He’s on ulcer soothe, Colicare and feeds specifically for ulcer prone horses. He’s had ulcers too

This…. What you are going through sounds exactly what I went through with BB but no ulcers.