Over heating & colic

[SVMel]

I heard of a horrid incident today and would like to know what you all think. This is the story as told to me:

Staff arrived and found horse flat out in stable, obviously distressed and in pain. They got him up and stripped him off to find he was wearing six, yes SIX, medium to heavyweights, more than one with full necks. Night time temp low, but doesn't really warrant that? Vet attended, horse was taken to hospital thought to be suffering impaction colic where he died or was PTS shortly after arriving.

Now, I would like to know which of the following is the most likely chain of events leading up to this poor horses demise.

Either:

a) The horse was too hot, got down to roll, got cast for a considerable amount of time, went into shock, developed impaction colic (pos a sign of something much worse) and could not recover.

OR

b) The horse suffered impaction colic (again pos sign of something worse) sweated up in pain (not helped by rugs) etc, could not recover.

As always, I appreciate your thoughts / views on this. Horrible story but I think to learn from mistakes we have to understand them? Thats why I'd like to know how / why this happened.

Also assuming that impaction colic is definately not helped by dehydration whether caused by sweating, not drinking cold winter water but can it be caused by dehydration alone????

And, staff assumed he's been cast due to disturbance of bed etc, but could have been caused by simply a lot of rolling as per colic.

 

[china]

it could be a number of reason, he may of got an impaction, broke out in a sweat from distress and discomfort. if an impaction is severe enough any horse would have to have been put down, i think horses are more at risk from colic in this weather because the water is so cold they arnt wanting to drink as much and if they arnt getting hay they have no forage to eat ( asuming its snowed there) so the guts is moving causing impaction. its a very sad story, we had a horse at work go down with impaction the other week when it got cold, he is an old boy so we wernt sure he would make it but he had his stomach flushed and was rectaled and made a full recovery.

 

[SVMel]

Hmmmm, thats what i thought about cold water, having a prob getting one of mine to drink (boiling kettles on a disturbingly frequent basis lol!!)

But, this horse got his usual amount of hay / haylage (not sure which), watered on a regular basis and probably less turn out I'm guessing. Am trying to decide if I can attribute this one at least in part to ridiculous over rugging thus over heating????

Glad the old boy made it

 

[Mike007]

My understanding is that a lot of impaction colics in cold weather are due to insufficient water intake. I would like to run an additional idea past you all.I have no hard evidence for it but think it is entirely possible. We all know that the hind gut produces a huge amount of heat due to the fermentation processes within.This internal "hot water bottle enables horses to survive quite hapilly at very low temperatures in the wild. Thermoregulation within the fermenting mass is achieved when the mortality of the microbes due to temperature is ballanced by their multiplication rate.If we artificially prevent heat loss from the body does this then cause a die back in the gut flora and possibly result in colic.Thoughts please.

 

[Moggy in Manolos]

[ QUOTE ]
My understanding is that a lot of impaction colics in cold weather are due to insufficient water intake. I would like to run an additional idea past you all.I have no hard evidence for it but think it is entirely possible. We all know that the hind gut produces a huge amount of heat due to the fermentation processes within.This internal "hot water bottle enables horses to survive quite hapilly at very low temperatures in the wild. Thermoregulation within the fermenting mass is achieved when the mortality of the microbes due to temperature is ballanced by their multiplication rate.If we artificially prevent heat loss from the body does this then cause a die back in the gut flora and possibly result in colic.Thoughts please.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an incredibly good point imo, and could well have some weight to it.
I am so sorry to hear about this poor horse, terribly sad.
I absolutely hate over rugging of horses, so many horses are so hot under their rugs its ridiculous, over heating is very bad indeed for them and can cause numerous problems.
As suggested horses produce alot of heat through the digestion of their high fibre diets, hay is central heating to horses which I think alot of people forget.

 

[china]

i just tried to edit my post but it says the maximum edit time has been exceeded. =( anyway, my post was meant to say
"so the gut ISNT moving causing impaction"
typo =D