Hi all, Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, Happy New year! Happy DVE ride for those luckiy enough to go!
Anyway got a quick question any of the vets willing to respond.
My horse got a little colicky a few weeks ago. I noticed her right away and called a vet quickly. She was treated within 30 minutes and responded very quickly. (the vet that came was the father of my daughter Lauries friend and had been on his way here anyway...good timing and I was thankful cause it was on a weekend)
Anyway, I spoke with my main vet the following monday and he mentioned that it most likely was due, in his experience to a barimetric pressure change most likely. Which did make sense with the weather we were having at the time and she had been just fine. It hit her quickly and suddenly, cause I had been out there cleaning and observing them all. She'd only colicked one other time since I've had her (ten years now) and that was a slight impaction. She had been off work due to an injury for a year and not much exercise obviously. She came thru that fine too. Otherwise she'd been pretty healthy except for the boo-boos she gives herself time to time.
Anyway and shortly after this, I was cleaning out my barn a few days later after they had been in there and I picked up and noticed a very shinny looking "odd" shaped stone type thing that was mixed in with manure. To describe my barn firstly, I clean it immediately after they use it (usually outside otherwise) and twice a day if we have continual rain. It is a shedrow type but we have an "open stall area" where we have not yet divided three of the six stalls. Spirit uses the open area with two of her buddies that get along well, and there is an open paddock area where they can walk around and be outside, yet sheltered.
Anyway, all three of these gals have different poops so to speak. And I know for certain this particular poop with the stone in it was Spirits. The ground in the open stall area is flat, with a DG base and shavings. No rocks what so ever and no regular dirt. I sweep and rake it to keep it clean.
To this date, I've never seen rocks in there. My question to the vets is this, could this shinny odd shaped smooth stone, be an enterolith that my horse may have passed? I've seen them before in a drawer at my friends vet hospital. She showed them to me while she was doing rounds cause I'd never seen one before and this really looked quite similar.
This looked suspicious to me, especially due to her being a little colicky so recently. It is not very big, maybe an inch thick by a few inches long, sort of oval in shape. It was multicolored, and almost looked like spots of hardened blood inside, with some black, orange, (the color of our dirt actually) and light coloring all mixed together. It was smooth surfaced as such as you'd see with a rock or shell that you'd find had it been in the ocean for a while.
Is it possible for a horse to pass an enterolith if it's not real big?
As far as feed, she's been on grass hay, I don't like alfalfa and rarely give any to her, and she's also getting a little red oat. She had been in the past on alfalfa at the humane society I adopted her from, but I changed that when I got her. She is on dry lot pasture, and I free feed placing piles of hay so they can walk to each pile to sort of simulate a grazing type of pattern. As close as I can make it I usuallly put the hay on mats or pine needles, or sweet away lose dirt by a tree trunk. I also feed them phyllium monthly for a few days. In the barn I feed in hay nets with mats underneath them.
Anyway, just really curious about this because of the timing of it, and because I don't have rocks of anykind in my stall normally and it was in a manure pile. Also, if it possibly was should I continue to watch her or make any adjustments to her feeding in anyway?
As we speak she is fine and active, with excellent appetite and drinking well too.
