She was fine this morning after a night with no dinner, she ate a small breakfast of hay and then had pasture all day. In fact, a friend came over and took a walk with me and Mara and Bellis. Oddly, Mara was more relaxed on the trails than I've ever seen her. In fact, we stopped halfway up this hill and just talked for 10 minutes straight, and Mara just stood there resigned, waiting on us humans. The donkey showed more impatience!
Tonight I fed as normal and as I was almost to the house, I heard Mara cough. I almost ignored it but thought, "oh no.."
I ran over to her and she was choking again. I removed the hay and ran into the house cuz I wanted my man to see and help me call the vet.
The symptoms were mostly the same, sticking out her neck, muscle spasms, holding her tail oddly, looking like she's colicking, but this time she was also pawing the ground in frustration and circling. Almost as if it wasn't as bad, but she was pissed off and hungry. That groaning sound they make, I would like to live the rest of my life without hearing that again. You're lucky if you've never heard that.
The same vet came back to us very quickly and this time gave her a nasogastric tube and tried to find an obstruction. Well, first she checked her rectally but found nothing wrong there. The tubing was done after a muscle relaxant but no sedation, so we twitched Mara.
With my man's help - him holding Mara's head, the vet inserting/withdrawing the tube, and me holding the twitch, it went fine until we started on the other nostril. Mara had had enough and suddenly reared up and flung my husband up in the air and into the wall. He fell down below her feet and I was terrified he was seriously hurt.
He got up and he was dazed and bruised but OK. I did not like seeing him on the ground under her feet.
Oddly, Bellis started braying her loudest most horrible, long bray at the moment Mara went up into the air, and the horse started neighing too.
The vet wasn't too upset, saying she's seen horses react worse, and said "Well now we know the twitch doesn't help much." *sigh*
She gave her a shot of penicillin just in case, and Mara was very bad about the needles today. She snapped but didn't actually bite, and jumped around, unlike Baasha, who never moved away from a needle in his life. It crossed my mind that if she wasn't having a choke incident, it might have helped to give her some treats when being stuck. Oh well.
I requested that the vet check her teeth - the vet hesitated but then agreed. I can see why she hesitated. Mara is really bad about her mouth and Mara had had enough of her poking around, so she only was able to open the speculum a little bit. I was scared Mara was gonna go up again and hit me with the metal speculum in the face, but the vet was able to check all her teeth and said, "You just had them done, I can tell, they're totally fine, all of them." OK, at least we know that chewing is not the issue.
That leaves us sort of in the dark, wondering what the issue could be. It's not a fun place, the dark.
The vet was so nice, and I'm especially glad that she is going to call my vet in the morning, first thing, and explain what occured over the weekend. She doesn't even work for him - she works for another vet, but I guess they collaborate cases.
Poor Mara is not even allowed on the pasture tonight, and has to skip dinner again. She cannot even go into her stall, because of the risk of her trying to eat bedding.
I've got a big bucket of beet pulp here in the kitchen that I can give her in the morning, and the vet wants her to only have soaked hay pellets for a few days.
***UPDATE
There are no vets who can do endoscopies for us at our place - we called around - we'd have to take her to a clinic. So I've decided to feed her mash and pasture only for at least a week and then see what happens. So far so good, she's adapted to eating only wet stuff and she loves browsing the pasture. If she has trouble again, we will take her to the clinic (horrible memory there). She is insured so if she needs an operation that would be covered, but it sure sucks not having a horse trailer and having to hire someone.
I have so many questions - for example, since she's choking on the soft, fine 2nd cutting, that she had all Winter no problem, would it be best to feed her coarser 1st cutting? Of course it's in a net so she can't get huge mouthfulls, but is the soft stuff tempting her to not chew? I always choke on watermelon, my favorite food, because I take huge bites and don't bother to chew it properly.
What would the endoscopy show us? She'll either have an injury that will heal, or won't and requires an operation. The operation could make her susceptible to choke her entire life, I've heard, from scar tissue.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.JPG)
12 comments:
She may just have an irritation/inflammation going on that would improve with anti-inflammatories - did your vet suggest this? The antibiotics were also a good idea since the esophagus is probably irritated and scratched. Good luck to you both.
Oh dear what a horrid time Mara and you are having. Hope all gets sorted soon. xx
Howdy, another option might be the origin of that hay. Here in the states there was an outbreak of blister beetles in CO for the hot summer 2nd and third cuttings.The UK has them as well. The ground up beetles burn the horse throat. Another option is perhaps your horse has ulcers? Sorry to be a downer, I have had to deal with both of these problems. Good Luck.
Kate, thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. I hate to give bute to a horse who is eating sporadically and not moving around as normal.
Zoe, thanks for that: )
Ruthlynn, I need to look into ulcers too, you're right. The fact that she's so incredibly stressed and tense, it would be odd if she didn't have ulcers.
I have had a similar issue with my thoroughbred mare. She choked badly about a month ago, vet came out sedated her, tubed her, and could NOT get the impaction down. My mare got a nosebleed in both nostrils and we finally had to stop for the night. The vet came back the next morning and the FINALLY stopped the choke. It was the worst night ever!
Exactly a week later she choked again, though she stopped before the vet arrived. The next day I had her teeth done (I get them done every 6 months) even though her teeth had been done in October she really did need it. So I was sure that I would have fixed the problem, but yesterday she choked again! She is not bolting feed, she doesn't get much grain, and I had it soaked. I don't know what to do about it!
So I guess I am also trying to find the answer. I am sure that means I will need to have some other tests done, and that will be worth it if we can find the answer.
I think there is nothing worse than the sound a horse makes when they are choking... My mare acts colicky, and tries to roll, and throws herself on the ground. I hate it!
I'm no expert, but I would definitely switch to the coarser hay when she's allowed to have it again. You can soak the hay too. The short, fine stuff is easy for them to choke on because they don't chew it as well and just like you said with the watermelon they love it so they eat it too fast.
Faran had another minor choke episode just the day before yesterday, but he cleared it on his own. It happened because he got alfalfa pellets that weren't soaked (Chrome eats those fine), so he will NEVER get pellets ever again!! And I'm making all of his feed soupy. Very soupy, like with standing water in it.
He hasn't had a problem with hay so far, but it's very long stem coarse hay, so he has to chew it. Also his hay is available 24/7 so he doesn't feel the need to bolt it like I'm sure he would bolt sweeter, greener, fine hay. Slowing them down is important. I've also started feeding him in a pen away from the others because chasing the donkey away from his food stresses him out and causes him not to chew everything well.
Sadly I do believe that once a horse chokes they will always be prone to it... This is actually the third time Faran has choked just since February 2013.. I just didn't recognize the symptoms the first time. He cleared the first one and the third one by himself. Every single time has been because of dry alfalfa pellets though so it should be easy to manage now that I know his trigger.
I'm so sorry you had to go through such an awful weekend with Mara. Don't blame her for the way she reacted to the tubing. Faran was sedated and he still put up a bit of a fight when he was done. It just is not pleasant for them at all. I'm so glad your husband is okay. If you need anything feel free to email me any time.
Regarding her relaxed walk with Bellis. The best, most relaxing ride I had with my crazy Otto horse was about a week before he had strangles. Well, hindsight, he already had strangles in his system, it just wasn't visible. Anyway, if she's feeling poorly, she's probably too dopey to spook. That's how Otto was that day.
Choke is such a hard thing to isolate. I think you're on the right track with your feeding differently this week to see what happens. Good luck!
The older of my two has always been prone to choking on hay. As a result, he is fed alone (so he's not worried about other horses) and only fed soaked hay out of two haynets (one inside the other) to slow him down.
Choke is terrifying, but if it is on hay, my experience has been that it usually resolves itself. It's a lot more pleasant for the horse to have the vet help it though. If we call the vet out for choke he always gives anti-inflammatories to reduce the swelling. Some horses do act colicky when they choke, but it seems to depend on the individual.
Egad, scary, just catching up here. Definitely check for ulcers! And keep us posted!
It is common for a horse to choke again soon after they have choked. There is still inflammation in the esophagus from the initial incident which makes them more prone to choking for a few days until that goes down. I would ask the vet about giving her bute or banamine for a couple of days for this reason. I'm glad she is also on antibiotics since she probably aspirated at least some food particles. Choke is scary to see but USUALLY can be dealt with pretty easily, it just takes some special management for a week or so.
I helped a neighbor once who's horse was choking. Awful, just awful. I remember we had to be careful of the throat irritation afterwards. And thanks for your understanding comments about Jackson.
argh! well I hope it's nothing serious and it never comes back! keep us posted.
- The Equestrian Vagabond
Post a Comment