Umbilical Hernia

JadeWisc

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I am asking for advice for a friend about a yearling filly she has been given that has an Umbilical Hernia. It is far smaller than it was at a young age and is not causing any probelms at the moment for her.

She is wondering if any lifelong problems are common with horses who have healed Umbilical Hernia

When they are older than a year and have had no problems does that mean the problems are over?



Also, would riding be dangerous and can this horse have a foal.
Important to note that is is not genetic but an accident that happened at birth. She has been told the mother stepped on the placenta.

any experience with this or advice will be passed on and appreciated
 

col

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my mare has one ,
shes 9 years old , had one foal before i owned her im led to believe,
doesnt affect her at all, depends on the size of it i suppose
 

JadeWisc

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This one is the size of a small egg. She will be two in March I am now told. I am not sure it was ever treated by prior owner but he told her it has gotten a lot smaller.


Vet this morning has advised a simple surgical procedure to remove hernia .

I think they are mainly dangerous when intestine is in the protrusion and gets strangled causing necropsy of the bowel or they become infected?
 

cidermillcottage1

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hi there,

our foal had one and she had an operation to have it removed when she was six months - it grew to about the size of an apple. The vet advised exactly what you say..the intestine can become trapped this causes stangulation and it can them become infected. 2 years on and you wouldn't know she had a hernia except when you touch it..she's not sore just remembers the whole fiasco!!!
As the filly your speaking of is now two i have no idea what vets would recommend..sorry!
 

dozzie

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One of mine had one when we bought him as a 2 year old. Didnt cause him any problems. He has just turned 30! It did get smaller but never disappeared.
 

ccooxxyy

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I have just had my foal operated on as she too had an umbilical hernia, she's now 7months old. 5 weeks ago i heard some banging at 3am in the morning coming from the yard so went to check, the gut had got strangulated and she was colicing. but i managed to retract it with difficulty and she was fine after that. no damage was done but we got it operated on a few days later. she has been on box rest for a month and tomorrow is crunch day, she's gonna go out again. i think there is going to be mud flying!!!
 

buzzles

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My colt had one and I asked the vet about it, he said he'd probably need to get it operated on when he was older. However then mum injured herself and had to go into vet hospital, the foal was 6 weeks old and had to go with her. While they were there they put a ring (like they use for lambs tails) around the hernia and it fell off a few weeks later. He didn't have a large hole though so there was never any danger of the intestine coming through, it just looked unsightly. He's fine now and there's no sign he'd ever had one.
 

Christinehi

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My mare and filly suffered from an umbilical hernia and was only discovered when we took her to the vets for an unrelated scan. She was operated on a couple days later (at great expense) and turned out okay. We now have her foal (my filly) and she still lives here with her mum. Since then i researched the subject a lot and wrote a guest post for here for Horses Mad (http://www.horsesmad.com/umbilical-hernia-horses/). I hope this will help you with all the information you need, and good luck!
 

conniegirl

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I had a pony with an umbilical hernia, apart from being slightly more prone to minor bouts of colic than my other ponies (though him being a stresshead may have something to do with that too) he never had problems with it.
He lived to the age of 38!
 
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