Bonita's Colic

by Shirley Sepulveda

It was a crisp October '97 afternoon.  Pat watched her two mares and 7 month old filly snoozing on their sides in the grassy front pasture. As she stood watching through the window the two mares both rolled and got up. As they started walking to the back, the filly didn't get up.

Pat went out and walked down to the filly. She wasn't rolling but she was moaning and groaning. She got the filly up and led her to the back pasture by the barn. She stayed up for a few minutes and then went down again. She put in a call to her vet, who was out of town. Next she called a large animal clinic and soon had a vet on the way. During this time, her son Martin helped her to keep the filly up and walking.

After being subjected to the usual colic treatment by the vet, the filly was still pretty unstable with really no improvement. The vet left and Pat called me. I went up and was surprised how unstable she was with treatment and four hours of being walked. She still had not had a bowel movement nor had she eaten or urinated. The vet had tubed her with liquids so I knew she had been hydrated. She had sounds in her guts but not a lot. We walked her for another hour and a half and soon we were hearing her gas sounds INSIDE of her across the barn. Even though she was burping we still did not have any of the gas coming out the other end. The louder her guts got the worse the cramping became and soon we could not keep her up.

I had a little bit of Banamine left from my premature filly in the spring. I gave Bonita some since the vet had used a different pain medication on her and it had been 6 hours since he had been there. We finally got her to lay still for twenty minutes and then we were able to get her up and walk her again. The poor thing was really tired and so were we. We finally got her to pass some stool and during the course of the next 7 hours she passed a little more and a little more. Finally at 2:45 a.m. her severe cramping began to ease. We began to hear and smell the gas going out of the correct end and she wanted to stand and sleep. Pat and I went into the house and had some hot coffee and tried to get warm. We kept checking on her every ten minutes but she continued to stand and sleep. She would pop her eyes open and give you her ears so we knew she was alert and better. Pat and I were exhausted. At 4 a.m.  I left and came home. When I called Pat at 8 a.m. she said she was eating out in the pasture with the other two mares and acting normal. She had passed another two piles of manure that looked normal.

We both breathed a huge sigh of relief because we knew that alot of colics that severe didn't always come out so good. We were lucky because her gums didn't go pale on us, she never got super sweaty, and her sides didn't get really distended as they will with a twist, blockage, or severe toxicicty.

If any of these would have happened we would have called the vet out immediately. The fact that Pat was right there from the beginning had a lot to do with Bonita's try at getting better. She was found before she had been down in severe pain for a long time.

Bonita is back to normal romping with her mom and her aunt!

Managing Editors Note:
Do not give any medication to your horse without talking to your vet.

REF:  Founder

Back to Happy Trails Directory
Features | Home Page