On going choke

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Emmak12

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hi, i am new to this forum, so you may need to bare with me!

Basically bit of a long story.
I have a 15 yr old full arab mare, over 18 months ago we discovered she chokes on hay and feed, at this point only had her about 6 months, so we had her teeth checked, vet said they were really bad from previous owner never having them done.

She she now has them electirc drilled, every 6 months, the choking got a lot better only once every 3 months or so. Now the vet messed up my insurance cliam, didnt send it off in time and so, couldnt claim for an endoscope.

However, the last month, it has got a lot worse, to the point its at least 4 times a week, sometimes more than once a night.

The vet reccmended a endoscope, so i did, having to pay or it out of my own pocket. Altough, it didnt show any thing unusual like cancer or mega oesophagus. He then said that he still didnt know what it was, prob something il have to live with. He advised i change her diet to see if it improves.

I have now put her on hifi original, and alfa beet as a partial hay replacement. She was on apple chaff, sugar beet leisure mix. Vet did advice no sugar beet.

However, im still concerned. Im unsure whether to get a second oppinion from another vet, as it will cost a lot, due to no insurance cover now.

Does any one have any ideas as to what this might be or advice as how to get around it or if your horse has had a similar experience, it would help a lot!

Thank you! XxEmmaxX
 
one of mine had choke 3 weeks running (due to being an utter pig) and now i feed her very soupy feeds, as in, literally standing in water so she slurps it up, nothing at all dry... she never choked on hay though.
i would try this, and hay in a small-holed net so that she can't get a big mouthful at a time, she has to have just a little bit at a time.
another thing that can slow them down is to put big pebbles in their feed bucket, so they have to shove them around to get their food.
worth a try.
 
I don't really know what to suggest, but tbh I'm surprised the vet said not to give sugarbeet, because I would have thought the sloppier, wetter the feed, the less likely it is that the horse would choke?

I would just make sure, whatever hard feed you give her, really make it wet, so that it can't really get stuck in her throat.
 
My goodness she is choking nearly every day - that must be a huge worry for you. From what you have said she originaly improved after having her teeth rapsed. Unless you checked her mouth yourself and know what to look for I would reccommend you get a second opinion from a good dentist/vet to do a really thorough exam of her mouth with a dental mirror. I would be a bit concerned if she has been electric rasped that the teeth may have been over done and too smooth to chew properly.
Another suggestion is that she may have temperomandibular joint pain from her mouth being looked up by the bad teeth in the past. Was this checked out?
I think the reason she is choking must be because her food isn't chewed properly so maybe you should try giving her soaked grass nuts as her only extra fibre like we do the oldies and see if this makes a difference. Perhaps a trial of just soaked grass nuts and feed balancer for a week and no other hard feed - I think that is what I would try, at least if it works you know it is the food and you can play around with nutrient content later.
 
Like VandM, I'm stunned the vet said no sugar beet! That's the first thing I'd do with frequent attacks of choke, make every feed wet and sloppy like soup. You could also put a big round pebble in the feed bowl to slow her down so she has to sort of snurfle round it and shove it about to get her feed. Stops them bolting feed - a REALLY big pebble though!!! If she chokes on hay, have you tried haylage or tried feeding it in the tiniest sized hole haynet you can find, get at least 2 of them and put one inside the other so she can only pull teeny bits out at a time. As long as there isn't an underlying health problem, your aim is to try anything just to slow her down. Be as inventive as necessary! It's possible that at some point she's been half starved so she may always be panicky about getting available food down in the shortest time possible. Over time, if you make sure she is never left without something to nibble on, she could get more chilled and less desperate about food. Good luck.
 
I almost lost my youngster to choke, it was with a particular brand of coarse mix. The biggest danger is if she has a serious attack because the side effect can be pneumonia. The things I have noticed with my young horse is he produces excessive saliva and has a Pavlovian response to feed buckets clanging so is foaming and drooling by the time the feed gets there.

He has plenty of soaked sugar beet, his youngstock ration and any other ingredients served very moist. I never give him a deep bucket that he can take greedy chunks out of but I scatter his entire feed over a clean corner of his rubber matted stable or, scatter it over his hay/haylage ration so its all spread out and he really has to forage for it. This keeps the choke under control. If she is choking on hay, I would say she isn't producing enough saliva so make sure she has well soaked hay as well or whatever forage you are feeding her. Make sure she has access to plenty of water at all times.

Sounds also that her teeth have been overdone, they naturally wear teeth by the grinding action of the molars and yes they do need rasping from time to time but her bite could be out now and she can't grind the molars sufficiently because they are not touching together properly therefore she cannot masticate and chew properly.
 
I followed Kerilli's advice, after my (at the time) new horse started choking regularly.

I now soak his feed for a good 20 mins / half hour before feeding it, and also feed it very sloppy. He is fed nuts and alfa. I also find that feeding him before he has any hay lessens the chances of choke.
 
hi, all this really helps, however, her feed is always sloppy to the point its like soup, and she is never given loose hay, the hay she has is spilt into two haynets so its not tight and easier to get it out, its always in a very small mesh haynet, which is doubled up! They are left to soak with water and stand out all day to soak properly! but she still chokes on the tiniest bit of hay that she can pick out if it! i watch her doing it! I have already put a brick in her feed before, but that doesnt work, she still chokes!

In her stable at night she has, 2 haynets, her feed bucket to lick round, a sweede, a lickit occassionally, a rope to play with and a treat ball! So she is never short of things to do!

It seems like i have done everything i can, which is why im still really worried! keep the advice coming though, its great! Xx
 
The only other thing is to check if she is dehydrated, my daughter who is a vet student said they can choke on hay if they are dehydrated it happens to long distance horses, so always make sure she is drinking. Perhaps you could monitor her water intake and try to get her to increase her intake by flavouring the water (apple juice/Ribena) and make sure she drinks before feed time. Remember how cold it has been, horses always drink less in really cold weather. Try her on tepid water and I have not yet known a horse that will not drink the water sugar beet is soaked in. I would think your vet was talking about dried beet pellets not soaked.

To check if she is dehydrated, do a pinch test on the skin of her neck. If the skin goes back to normal in 1 second or less then she is OK. If the skin remains standing or goes back in more than one second then she is dehydrated so get some water into her. She needs to drink a minimum of 5 gallons a day
 
Can I ask whether the vet tried to get the horse to eat while the scope was in situ? My horse started coughing up huge lumps of chewed up food recently and the vet put the scope in and then got the nurse to feed him handfuls of food - turned out his epiglottis was being displaced as he ate which meant he isnt swallowing properly.
 
We have a mare that suffers with choke, it's been on going for over 6 years. She cannot eat hard feed or hay/haylage. She was scoped, and they found she has a partly paralysed flap that doesn't stop the food going down the windpipe, that IMO is a different issue to the choke though. The choke forms in her gullet, a visible lump that she moves during an attack by gulping/coughing/shaking her neck. We also help with massage. Now what causes the choke has never been confirmed, but she's grey and riddled with melonomas so i'm guessing that doesn't help. She doesn't gulp her food, and can pick a couple of mouthfuls of hay, chew it and swallow then struggle. So now we don't allow her any hay or feed, and she lives out 24/7 with no problems. In the thick snow I gave her bowls of sloppy beet which she managed no trouble. She has lost some weight over winter, but as she gets gross once the grass comes i'm not worried!
 
Hi, thanks for all your replies.
To let you know, she choked again last friday, on her new feed! So thinking it cant be that it was her feed that needed changing! Thank you very much Mr. Vet.
Then Yesturday she choked on her alfa beet, which is designed for horses that have dental problems!

I am having a 2nd oppinion from another vet tho, just for peace of mind.

And the flap your talking about is called mega oesophagus, which the vet would have seen on the endoscope, and he mentioned to me that she didnt have that.
Im just getting concerned now, as have changed her diet to a partial hay replacement, only thing is, she finishes her trug of alfa beet quicker than she would her hay, so now she is in her stable not doing anything! poor girl. I giver her plenty of things to do, but bless her 16 hours in a stable is a long time!
And i would love to have her live out, but she is a full arab, and before i brought her she was living out, and she really didnt cope well! so not being able to feed her anything would be auwful.

Il let you know on her progress!
 
I'd be inclined to agree with EPS. If your ned's choking is long standing or has happened very suddenly it's likely to be more than piggishness. There may be an underlying health problem that needs investigating further.
 
My mare is also very susceptible to choke. After extensive investigations it was discovered that she suffers from delayed gastric emptying. She was scoped several times whilst an inpatient at the vets. On two occasions they starved her the night before the scope, but in the morning her stomach still contained food contents even though she’d not eaten for over 12hrs! We’ve never discovered the reason for the delayed emptying, but since changing her management to being out 24/7 and scattering her feed so she trickle feeds we’ve not had a problem.
If you’re getting a 2nd opinion I’d recommend Dr Tim Brazil. He has a mobile gastroscopy service & will travel to your yard. He scoped my horse the 2nd time to confirm my vets diagnosis & suggested the management changes we made.
Good Luck
 
This story reminds me of a mare i had years ago, she was choking really badly on hay, it was the middle of winter and she was losing weight rapidly, she was ok with sloppy hard food.

Vets intially, because of her condition etc thought she may have grass sickness etc.

She went into the surgery, where she was scoped etc, with nothing abnormal going on. While she was there they gave her a course of muscle relaxant drugs, i would imagine acp. After that the transformation was amazing, she could eat hay again! After a few days she came home and i never had another problem.
 
She doesnt choke on her swede! She comes in from the field, and i make sure she doesnt eat anything before she has her dinner! So i know its not due to eating too much.
Her hay is in 2 small mesh haynets and she can only take tiny bits out so she isnt pigging on her food at all!
She doesnt choke out in the field she can eat naturally without a problem, its just her hay and feed!

That gastric emptying is very interesting tho! Did the vet say that was causing the choke then?

Thank everyone!

XxEmmaxX
 
Yes, the conclusion was that the delayed gastric emptying was connected to the choke episodes. When she choked the blockage was very low down and difficult to clear.
My mare is a fussy feeder, and didn't used to carry much weight. I was very nervous about turning her out 24/7, but with a good quality NZ & access to field shelter she's thrived this winter. In fact she's now carrying more weight than I'd ideally like going into Spring.
 
I really agree with loopy loo. Any horse will live out with the right shelter and rugs, and the best chance to give the horse is to feed as it was designed to. The peristalsis involved in eating from the ground, and the collecting of food delivers to the gut at the right measures and speed and trickle feeding allows the gut acids to deal with food at the right speed. Then it can never over load itself. It's really hard to replace nature but she will do well out if you can provide shelter. You'll worry about her being out but it has to be less of a worry than the choke!
 
I would stop feeding hay full stop. We had a horse in that continually chokes, he was OK out at grass (3 - 5 hours a day max), and he was fed slop. When others had their breakfast, lunch, tea and supper hay he had a bucket of hay replacer/grass nuts made into a slop. It stunk, but it worked LOL! I certainly would not be feeding swede either I am afraid. His *feeds* consisted of slop too, well soaked everything and certainly not a strand of chaff in sight.
 
I'd also be having someone out who specialises in massage or physical therapy to make sure she doesn't have residual muscular issues from when her teeth were so bad.

Its quite common for a horse with bad teeth to have a locked or seized jaw and poll from chewing incorrectly.
 
Our old mare could not not tolerate chaff of any sort. She would always choke on it. We resorted to using Dengie / Alfa mixed with either nuts or mix and doused with water so it was absolutely drenched and luckily it worked.
It is a horrible thing to happen to any horse and looks really distressing.
I hope you get everything resolved.

If in any doubt change your vets and do the best you can for your horse, don't dwell oon what has happened with your vet practice in the past - your horses welfare is far too important.
 
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