CatStew
Well-Known Member
Hi,
I hope somebody could give me some advice please, my loan horse had a bit of a funny turn last night, I initnially thought that she had choke, but after reading a bit about it on the internet I'm not so sure as she didn't have all the symptoms.
Sorry, this is going to be quite a long winded post, but I'd like to add all the details to make everything as clear as possible incase it was anything I did!
The horse is an 11 year old arab x cob mare in light/medium work, she is ridden in the school most days with the occasional hack and in my opinion is fit. She lives out 24/7 over the summer and is stabled overnight in the winter. In the 5 years that we have had her on loan has never had any health issues. Her teeth are done on a yearly basis so I can't see that being the problem and of course her vaccinations, worming etc are up to date.
I got to the stables last night and brought her in from the field, did the usual grooming etc and tacked up to ride. I rode her in the school for about 40 minutes, she was a little unsettled but I put this down to her being interested in another horse in a paddock next to the school and she is generally quite a spooky horse so I don't think she was doing anything completely out of the norm.
I always warm down for around 10 minutes when I have finished schooling, and she wasn't sweaty or 'puffing' at all. I tied her up outside her stable and took her tack off and gave her a quick brush etc.
About half an hour after I got off her I fed her, she is fed 1/2 a scoop of leisure mix and a handful of chaff, which is then dampened with water. She isn't fed any supplements. As I came towards her with her bucket of food she was quite happy about being fed and whinnied and was keen to eat.
After she had eaten about quater of her food she coughed/spat some of it out and stood stretching her head down so her nose was almost touching the floor - I thought she had some food stuck in her throat so I rubbed her throat in a vain attempt to help her swallow her food - I have no idea if I was doing the right thing or not but felt like I needed to do something, I thought she was going to keel over! Every now and then she would turn round and look at her stomach and paw the ground so I thought perhaps she had colic so led her round the yard and she walked next to me without any reluctance, apart from holding her head low again, she did headshake a couple of times too. I also noticed as I was leading her round the yard that she would stop next to where a puddle of water was by the drain so thought perhaps that she was dehydrated, I offered her a very small bucket of water but she didn't have any. Every time she stopped walking she stood as if she needed to urinate so I led her over to a grassy patch but she didn't do anything. Every now and then she would make a very quiet squeal noise too. After walking her around for about 20 mins/half an hour she seemed to get better, and seemed a lot happier so turned her back out in her field and watched her for a further 20 minutes. At first it seemed like she wanted to come back in as she stood at the gate, although she was alert and looked happy enough but eventually she wandered off and started grazing and seemed her normal self.
I checked on her this morning and she seems fine now.
In hindsight, I know I probably didn't do the right thing by turning her out, but she did improve to her normal self so thought this was ok. After what I have now read about choke I know I shouldn't have offered her any water, but in my panic I wanted to do all I could to help her and in my 15 years around horses have never seen this happen before. As I mentioned before, I'm not sure if this was choke, she wasn't salivating or 'snotty' which I believe to be symptoms of choke?
Thank you for reading this far, I really would appreciate some advice regarding this!
I hope somebody could give me some advice please, my loan horse had a bit of a funny turn last night, I initnially thought that she had choke, but after reading a bit about it on the internet I'm not so sure as she didn't have all the symptoms.
Sorry, this is going to be quite a long winded post, but I'd like to add all the details to make everything as clear as possible incase it was anything I did!
The horse is an 11 year old arab x cob mare in light/medium work, she is ridden in the school most days with the occasional hack and in my opinion is fit. She lives out 24/7 over the summer and is stabled overnight in the winter. In the 5 years that we have had her on loan has never had any health issues. Her teeth are done on a yearly basis so I can't see that being the problem and of course her vaccinations, worming etc are up to date.
I got to the stables last night and brought her in from the field, did the usual grooming etc and tacked up to ride. I rode her in the school for about 40 minutes, she was a little unsettled but I put this down to her being interested in another horse in a paddock next to the school and she is generally quite a spooky horse so I don't think she was doing anything completely out of the norm.
I always warm down for around 10 minutes when I have finished schooling, and she wasn't sweaty or 'puffing' at all. I tied her up outside her stable and took her tack off and gave her a quick brush etc.
About half an hour after I got off her I fed her, she is fed 1/2 a scoop of leisure mix and a handful of chaff, which is then dampened with water. She isn't fed any supplements. As I came towards her with her bucket of food she was quite happy about being fed and whinnied and was keen to eat.
After she had eaten about quater of her food she coughed/spat some of it out and stood stretching her head down so her nose was almost touching the floor - I thought she had some food stuck in her throat so I rubbed her throat in a vain attempt to help her swallow her food - I have no idea if I was doing the right thing or not but felt like I needed to do something, I thought she was going to keel over! Every now and then she would turn round and look at her stomach and paw the ground so I thought perhaps she had colic so led her round the yard and she walked next to me without any reluctance, apart from holding her head low again, she did headshake a couple of times too. I also noticed as I was leading her round the yard that she would stop next to where a puddle of water was by the drain so thought perhaps that she was dehydrated, I offered her a very small bucket of water but she didn't have any. Every time she stopped walking she stood as if she needed to urinate so I led her over to a grassy patch but she didn't do anything. Every now and then she would make a very quiet squeal noise too. After walking her around for about 20 mins/half an hour she seemed to get better, and seemed a lot happier so turned her back out in her field and watched her for a further 20 minutes. At first it seemed like she wanted to come back in as she stood at the gate, although she was alert and looked happy enough but eventually she wandered off and started grazing and seemed her normal self.
I checked on her this morning and she seems fine now.
In hindsight, I know I probably didn't do the right thing by turning her out, but she did improve to her normal self so thought this was ok. After what I have now read about choke I know I shouldn't have offered her any water, but in my panic I wanted to do all I could to help her and in my 15 years around horses have never seen this happen before. As I mentioned before, I'm not sure if this was choke, she wasn't salivating or 'snotty' which I believe to be symptoms of choke?
Thank you for reading this far, I really would appreciate some advice regarding this!
