Wifes horse has her puzzled (ragwort / collic ?)

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samoyedman

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Did not quite know what to search for on previous postings with this one. But thought a quick question might be better to get to bottom of some strange goings on in the stomach area. Any pointers would be much appreciated.

My wife has a 12 year old Dutch warmblood school master horse. Had him since Jan 2010 and from what we were lead to believe from dealer had spent all his life on a working yard in Belgium.

Might sound crazy but first time he was turned out by my wife he just stood in the field and looked extremely confused at the sight of grass. All last year we had not one bit of bother with him. He was moved from the isolation field with his new best buddy to their new field around May time last year. No issues and enjoying his new found freedom.

Due to access problems with the field the two horse were moved to a field directly opposite around November / December time last year. Were kept in for about 6-8weeks during the very bad weather and gradually allowed out as the weather improved. Then 6 weeks ago the problem started. Stamping the front legs, stretching, kicking stomach, turning around staring at his sides...vet diagnosed Colic and attributed it to the young grass being frosted full of fructose and horsey munching as much as he could of it and gave have some pain killers and anti inflamatories which made him a lot more comfortable. Gradually he was allowed to build up his time at grass again over the next few weeks once symptoms passed. All was going well till 3 weeks ago when he had MAJOR episode of colic. Emergency vet twice and walking around the exercise yard for 9 hrs it finally passed....never realised how much gas a horse could generate!!!

All was well till last night when he had another small dose again...no vet required! It's only him and his best buddy who share the field and he's never had any issues.

Problem appears to be when he gets taken out the field into his stable and given his dinner ( not changed for 15 months) within 20 mins the signs of colic start again. Wife is demented with worry.

So far the vet has hinted at possible stomach ulcers but would require to be scoped at the vet school to confirm and other yard views ranging from not getting enough grass to possible ragwort poising (despite our best efforts to keep it at bay ) at know point foes he show any signs of colic when he's in the field munching...only when taken out and his stomach sounds like there is a war taking place inside it.

Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble but trying to convey the scenario. Wife is very clued up on horses but is getting more concerned that she might not be there through the night and lose him.

Any help and advice would be gratefully received
 
Has he been wormed for tapeworm? It's a major cause of recurrent colic.

I have heard great things about activated charcoal for gassy tummies if she wants to try that.

Stomach ulcers can be tested for by buying ranitidine from Tesco at £1.38 for 12. Give him 6 twice a day. If he has ulcers, the ranitidine will usually calm them down. Typically there are changes within 48 hours in behaviour. If you get a positive on ranitidine, it is too expenisve to use it to treat ulcers, the dose rate is 40 tablets a day. You can buy omeprazole (Gastrogard) online to treat it which is extremely effective, but it is illegal to import it.
 
Thanks for your posting. Yes he gets wormed regularly. Vet was in the yard yesterday and agreed the 3 episodes of colic in quick sucession needed further investigation. He took some blood samples but convinced it isn't ragwort poisining and he is in "perfect" condition otherwise. No signs of liver probs or anything else for that matter. Will know more when results are back from blood tests. Thanks again for taking time to reply.
 
samoyedman said:
Problem appears to be when he gets taken out the field into his stable and given his dinner ( not changed for 15 months) within 20 mins the signs of colic start again. Wife is demented with worry.

So far the vet has hinted at possible stomach ulcers but would require to be scoped at the vet school to confirm
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Get him endoscoped now! Any decent equine referral practice can do it - and depending on where you are, there is probably one closer than the vet school.

In the meantime, I would suggest NOT giving him a hard feed when he comes in (what are you feeding him??) Just a big haynet! The pattern of his 'colic' screams ulcers to me!
 
While you may have been worming him regularly have you wormed him for Tapes with Praziquontal?

Is it at all possible that the paddock he is now in has been heavily grazed and could possibly be ladened with worms?

Maybe he could do with a bomb drench - worm weekly for three weeks with a wormer that also includes praziquontal.

Another thing to consider is to add more chaff to his feed so he eats slower, also a brick in his feed bin to slow him down. Reduce the size of the feed and feed the balance at a later time in the evening.
 
Could it have picked up some wire? We have a neighbour who's cows have eaten wire fragments from the silage, really doesn't do them any good!
 
If you say it only starts after having his dinner, could it be that he is eating too much too quickly, and his stomach is already full of grass, so it's a case of too much too soon?

Can you cut down the feed? Or try giving him just a handful, wait for half an hour, then give him the rest if he needs to have it? Out of interest, what is she feeding him?

I had a horse that just couldn't tolerate dry feed, even dry hay, so every feed had to be sloppy wet with speedibeet etc otherwise he would get colic, usually within an hour after eating hay or just cubes.

Their stomachs are only small, so perhaps he is gorging a little on the grass and can't stomach any more (sorry for the pun!).

If he has been in all his life, I can't imagine it is ragwort, as they have to be pretty desperate to eat that, and the damage accumulates over years, so the timescale is all wrong for that, IMO.
 
just to add another thought into the frame - "typically" horses coming in from Belgium don't tend to have the turn out that we have over here and can take a while to get used to the idea of being out anyway. Another one who says not to feed as soon as he gets in from the field. I would stick up a haynet or if he looks to be gorging on that too quickly, a haylage net, then feed him later. I would also get him scoped and then review his feed (the feed helplines are good). Good luck
 
I agree with everybody else who has raised the possibility of ulcers, but to prevent the incidents of colic I would change the way this horse is managed..possibly by giving sloppy feeds in the field twice a day that take a while to eat and only allowing access to hay or haylage in the stable..
 
My friends horse gets gassy colic, the minute he has a sniff of haylage. It is more like an intolerance than anything. It makes me wonder whether your horse is intolerant to something he is being fed. What is he being fed, and does he really need it?
 
Seen this is horses with tapeworm and ulcers - so *as above*--- personally would not be offering any hard feed at all while waiting for the blood test results (get them to do an ELISA for tapeworm as well as the liver function, though it does not sound like Ragwort to me). Hay, a high quality un-molassed chaff and more hay ...
 
Hello, its the wife here. Thank you to all of you for your feedback, its very much appreciated.

Rae is fed two feds per day 7am ish and 7pm ish and has been on this same diet for 15 months. He gets approx 1 stubbs scoop of Hi Fi Lite and his daily ration (600grams) of Blue Chip Balancer split between the feeds. He is also on Equine America glucosamine powder as a preventative rather than curative supplement. I wet his feeds with about two mugs of water so they are between damp and wet, so to speak and he does not gorge of bolt his feeds. He is fully wormed to date for all types of worms including tapeworm. In fact the second episode began twenty minutes after I wormed him with Equest Pramox - that was the BIG episode which made me think of an ulcer being aggravated with the chemical action of the wormer. He is on hay only, not haylage which is further from the ph of grass but was sticking with that as I was well aware of the fact that he had not really been at grass for most of his life and was worried that haylage might make him colic - ha! Only other thing that I have done since the second episode is introduce peppermint cordial (table spoon or so) to his feed to reduce gas.

As my husband said, the first episode the vet and I put down to to much spring grass just after a forst and so too much sucrose - his droppings were very green. Incidentally he has continued poo-ing throughout all three colic episodes. The second was two weeks later, twenty minutes after worming, which I did on bringing him in from the field.

On all three occasions he has been perfectly normal in the field, brought in, poo-ed almost immediately. Moved bottom jaw from left to right a couple of times, looked a bit lethargic and then began usual colic behaviour (pawing, striking, flank watching, attempting to lie down, way over-active gut sounds, stretching out as though to urinate etc). On this latest occasion he was not as agitated so followed the usual drill, pulse temperature, respiration rate, mucus membrane colours and all perfectly normal) Notably on each occasion I took his temperature, the action led him to release loads of gas so did it every ten minutes so this may have helped. Walking and trotting on lunge also released more gas.

He has no loss of body condition, a perfect shiny coat, eyes etc so no outward signs of liver problems. The only other significant and notable thing is that he has begun to urinate little and often, which he also did last year for a couple of months, at which time I suspected a UTI but this passed so not a problem.

Thanks for the info about not feeding straight away and whilst it is not new for me to do that I will certainly wait a while from now on.

I am stumped to be honest.
 
Hi, sorry to hear of your problems! My mare suffers from gassy colic, she has had it 3 times in the year i have had her! She gets it from stuffing her face full or grass and the she gets a massive gas build up in her gut! i feed her on global herbs fennel and she is not aloud out onto lush grass without a muzzle and she is strip grazed to stop her stuffing her face. i also have global herbs gut buster which is syringed into her mouth if she is having a mild episode. We suspect that my mare has ulcers which is why she is so sensitive to change. I would get your horse scoped to check for ulcers, any good practice can do this at your yard! I know of a horse where i worked that coliced all the time, she moved him to another field and he hasnt coliced since..
 
I would get him booked in for an endoscopic examination, it's done standing, under sedation. Ask to be referred to a good equine practice.
 
Samoyed Lady said:
The only other significant and notable thing is that he has begun to urinate little and often, which he also did last year for a couple of months, at which time I suspected a UTI but this passed so not a problem.

I am stumped to be honest.
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Has he been checked for a 'bean' in his urethra? a couple of horses at my yard had one, coincidently within days of eachother... showed colicy symptoms..

Another thing... is there a lot of grass in his field? horses, as I'm sure you're aware aren't designed for rich pasture.... maybe strip graze so that grazing is managed a bit more strictly...
 
Last year he was in a smaller field, about two acres with his mate. That field was really lush with no adverse effects on his health. This year he is in the field opposite, still with his mate, but about four acres. However this new field is considerably poorer due to over grazing in the past. It is beginning to recover but is nowehere near as good as the pasture last year - just more of it.
 
Given your weeing symptoms I googled this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renal_colic

Happens when he comes in because that's when he tries to have a pee??????? Loads of other references to colic induced by kidney or bladder stones in a horse. The gut noises might be secondary, caused by his stressed reaction to the pain??
 
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I've had horses react with collicky symptoms just after worming for Tapes - in fact quite a few - I was worming the school horses and ponies and several lay down and started rolling agresively about 20mins after worming. Vet wasn't phased said they would be OK in an hour or so. He did also say that it could be that there could be a large burden of tapes in the ones who had reacted and suggested that these horses were wormed bomb drenched, weekly for three weeks.

The following two wormings there was no problem with these horses. I've also had a horse that had been wormed regularly lose condition no matter what he was fed - following a blood test we bomb drenched him - with a couple of weeks the condition was back on him again.

As you have moved him ont grazing that he'd not been on before I really wonder if he has picked up a large burden from this paddock.
 
I notice that you seem from your user name to be a dog person. A vet once told me that horse tapeworm lifecycle passes through dogs, and horses which graze land used frequently by dogs will get tapeworm. The rehab horse I took on last year was with someone who grazed land which was previously used to exercise dogs, and she still has terrible tapeworm problems with her horses when she uses that field. Worth the bloodtest for tapeworm, maybe, if that newer field has been used by dogs.
 
cptrayes said:
I notice that you seem from your user name to be a dog person. A vet once told me that horse tapeworm lifecycle passes through dogs, and horses which graze land used frequently by dogs will get tapeworm. The rehab horse I took on last year was with someone who grazed land which was previously used to exercise dogs, and she still has terrible tapeworm problems with her horses when she uses that field. Worth the bloodtest for tapeworm, maybe, if that newer field has been used by dogs.
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The horse is in a yard and only "Met" the dog about twice, when I had him out for a walk and went to meet my better half at the yard. There is plenty of fox's about though as you'd expect on open land.

The General public would not use the fields for exercising their Mutts.

Thanks for the thought though........and everyone else who has replied.
Very much appreciated
 
cptrayes said:
Given your weeing symptoms I googled this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renal_colic

Happens when he comes in because that's when he tries to have a pee??????? Loads of other references to colic induced by kidney or bladder stones in a horse. The gut noises might be secondary, caused by his stressed reaction to the pain??
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Following my original post, I definately think this route should be explored. I've known a couple of horses to be quite distressed with large stones in their manhood! bless them!
 
I think that I'd also be inclined to get his sheath area checked - one of mine had colic symptoms the other day, and it turned out to be his sheath.

Other than that, I can recommend NAF Pink Powder in his feed - my old boy is very prone to gassy colic, and since he has been on the PP he's been much much better.
 
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