Horse emergency!

This time it's Lizzie.  

Lizzie was fine on Friday morning.  She ate her breakfast, then she and Duke got turned out and ran around together for a while and then were grazing.  But by noon, she had laid down out in the pasture and was staying down.  Thank goodness Lisa was out there spreading winter rye seed and cleaning up.  She saw her laying down and went over and spent time with her, finally managing to get her up.  And then they walked and walked and walked.  Mark DID call me early in the afternoon at work and told me Lizzie was laying down, but he said she was laying in an upright position, not on her side so I didn't think it was a danger sign.  I didn't find out until their next call that while Lisa was walking her, the minute they stopped she would immediately lay down again!  Uh oh.  

So at that point, I asked them to get out the stethoscope and see if they could hear bowel sounds on both sides.  Buddy said she was loud on one side but that the other side sounded more like that quiet sound you hear when you listen to a seashell!  Oh no!  

So I asked him to go ahead and give her that equine colic medicine I just bought, and I left work and headed home.  On the way I gave LSU a call.  They weren't able to reach Ann, Lizzie’s vet - she was up in Folsom, I think.  But they said I should just bring Lizzie in to the vet school and get her examined there, even if the meds were working (just in case - since it WAS a Friday afternoon).  So I called home again and told them to hook up the horse trailer.  Lizzie was already in the trailer and we were getting ready to head out when Ann called and said she was back and would come to the house, so that's what we did.  We unloaded Lizzie and waited for Ann to come.  

At that point Lizzie HAD stopped trying to lay down continually, so I thought maybe that colic medicine had done some good.  But by then her legs seemed to be hurting her.  As she stood there, she would hold up one back leg for a minute or two, then the other.  THAT made me wonder if she was trying to lay down because her legs hurt.  There’s always been a possibility that she has DSLD/ESPA, but since Ann put her on Pergolide medication for Cushings she has seemed quite normal so this is something we haven’t seen for a long time.

But when Ann got here and examined her, she said she did indeed have colic. When she examined her stools, there were lots of completely intact leaves as well as pieces of hay that were still more than an inch long in there (over half an inch is an indication that they aren't able to chew efficiently).  


I had been keeping both Duke and Lizzie inside at night over the last week or so, giving them hay instead of letting them out in the pasture because of all those leaves.  I had seen them both eating them and I thought it would be better to keep them in and give them hay half the day and only let them out into the pasture the other half so they wouldn’t be eating leaves constantly.  But Ann said that Lizzie, unlike Duke, apparently isn't able to chew sufficiently to manage leaves, let alone large amounts of hay.  She recommended that once we get through this (oh Lord, I hope we DO get through this!), I should switch her over to senior feed and gradually increase the amount of chopped alfalfa she gets instead of giving her as much hay as she wants.  I might look into hay cubes, as well.  I’ll have to see what Marston’s has available.  

And I think we will be renting a lawn vacuum to clear out as many of those leaves as we can.  

Anyway, time to go back to the barn.  I’ve been going out to check on Lizzie every hour or so tonight.  She seems to feel pretty much normal again, but I haven’t seen any poop yet, and she’s not going to be allowed to eat anything at all until she does.  So . . . although things are not nearly as frightening as they were with Bug at this point, they’re not back to normal by any means.

Wow.  Horses seem to be waaaaay more fragile than dogs!  Who woulda thought . . .  (I wonder who the heck came up with that “healthy as a horse” saying!!!)