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One of the problems of beet pulp is it tends to make horses gassy. Just 
one reason I am not a big fan of excessive beet pulp. I'm not sure I buy 
into fresh spring grass theory. We get a big bloom of fresh spring grass 
when when our extreme dry season turns to extreme wet over night. That 
is not presented a colic problem. I've had two colic problems in 15 
years. One was a very cold snap. The horses were not drinking enough. I 
have addressed that with putting salt in their feed during a cold snap.

The other was a strange gas colic. The horse, Avanti, was acting funny 
in the morning. I walked him and we kept him up to watch him after we 
gave him 10 cc's of Bamimine. The drugs knocked the edge off, but I 
suspected gas. His gut sounds were okay. His pulse rate was particularly 
high but he was not comfortable. I called the vet and told him what we 
had done. He called back at about 4 and asked how he was. Not much 
change. He said sounds gas - go get a quart of milk a magnesia and give 
it to him (boy did he like a quart of that stuff syringed down his 
throat :-( I did wear some of it) and give him more Bamimine. I did. By 
8 PM he was fine.

This colic came out of the blue with no detectable stressors.

These are horses - colic happens.

Truman

Dawn Carrie wrote:
> I'm with Kristi...the couple of times we've had gas colics (well, it 
> was actually my husband's horse, not us), it was due to ramping up the 
> horse's amount of beet pulp too quickly. He was gassy, and *very* 
> noisy. And not just excess "normal" sounds...the sounds were very 
> sharp and kind of "pinging" in nature, instead of the usual rumbling 
> and squirting noises. He also seemed very painful. Walking him around 
> seemed to help...it "passed" in an hour or so, and he started "passing 
> gas" rather loudly for another hour or so (ok, so he was farting like 
> a bubba at an all-you-can-eat bean buffet...). Once he started assing 
> the gas, he was fine.
> Dawn in East Texas
>
> On 6/11/07, *Kristi Schaaf* <iluvdez@xxxxxxxxx 
> <mailto:iluvdez@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
>
>     I may be incorrect in my understanding of gassy colic,
>     but here goes, and someone correct me if I'm wrong.
>     Hubby's horse gets gas colic if he gets too much lush
>     grass, and there are no quiet gut moments like your
>     horse had. That sounded more like an impaction (??) To
>     me, gassy colic means that there is so much, well, gas
>     that listening to the guts sounds like listening to
>     balloons hissing out air, and sometimes like balloons
>     popping while poltergeists wail in the background.
>     When this horse gets a strong gas colic, he will
>     almost literally attack anyone who attempts to touch
>     his flank. But, according to the vet, gassy colics are
>     rarely life threatening unless they trigger other
>     issues - the horse just THINKS he's going to die
>     because the gas pains are so sharp and painful.
>
>     Kristi
>
>     Life's a journey, so enjoy the ride (and try not to fall off)


--

“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how 
smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” Richard 
Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics


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