the_jersey_lilly_2000
Well-known member
Well ya'll yesterday was an extremely long day. Lil Lilly went out to feed her barrel horse before school. 7:45am said "mom, he's actin funny, and I had to make him git up, and he's not eatin" I ran her on to school, got back at 8am, went directly out to see what was up. He's down and has been rollin. I get him up, walk him for a few minutes, and tied him to the trailer so he couldn't lay down and roll. Come inside and got on the phone, tryin to call a friend that has medicine I know, for treatin colic. She's not home.......called vets office........he's outta town.....put a couple more calls in and left messages with people that I know that I thought might would have banemine. Around 9:30 the first person I called finally called me back. Told her what was goin on, and she came right out, gave him a shot, and he calmed down and acted like he was feelin better. We kept him tied most of the day, walkin him for short times off and on. About 4:45 he went back to bitin at his sides, kickin at his belly and wantin to roll. I'd given mineral oil about 4 pm. I wasn't sure if this was signs somethin was movin, or not, watched him a few more minutes and decided to go ahead and call the Big Equine Hospital. They said bring him in. We get there, and they listened for intestinal noise, which I'd done off n on all day, and could hear noise. They palpated him and immediately said he needed to have surgery. Wasn't your normal colic. Doc said he had an Entroliths. Somethin I'd see in a display case at A&M back in April when we went up there. Basically it's an intestinal Stone. For whatever reason they form, similar to a pearl in an oyster, but bigger. Not always uniformly round and smooth like the one's I seen. Now we know. The base for this stone, wasn't a piece of wood, or a rock, it was a ball of what looks to be feed sack string. These things take a long period of time to form, sometimes never causing a problem, sometimes major problems, just depends on if it shifts and they try to pass it. Well good ole Toilet Paper was out and on the surgery table by 6pm with all his goodies laid out for the world to see. Lil Lilly was great thru the whole thing, she asked the vet if she could watch. And when he removed the stone she said, "I'm takin that with me" LOL
I'm posting this, because it's not somethin that's heard of by most horse owners, but don't seem to be all that rare of an occurance. The reading I've done since findin out what it was says, only 10% of colic horses die, out of that 10%, 15.7% are known to have Entroliths. What about all the others that aren't tested and die at home, or at the vets and aren't posted. If you have a horse that's acting like he's colicin, if he doesn't improve with treatment quickly, get him in to the vet.
The vet said most horses that have this surgery recover 100% and go back to doin what they were doin before in about 6 to 9 weeks.
We're takin her over this after noon to see him, he came thru surgery fine, recovery went good, and he's pooped once today....Yeah!!!! LOL now that's somethin to get excited over aint it...horse poop. He's on IV fluids, and very little pain killers because he's bein so calm in his stall they don't think he's in a great deal of pain.
Anyway, here's a picture for those of you that wanna know what this thing they removed from his gut looks like. Quarter and a ruler beside it so you can see how big it is.
I'm posting this, because it's not somethin that's heard of by most horse owners, but don't seem to be all that rare of an occurance. The reading I've done since findin out what it was says, only 10% of colic horses die, out of that 10%, 15.7% are known to have Entroliths. What about all the others that aren't tested and die at home, or at the vets and aren't posted. If you have a horse that's acting like he's colicin, if he doesn't improve with treatment quickly, get him in to the vet.
The vet said most horses that have this surgery recover 100% and go back to doin what they were doin before in about 6 to 9 weeks.
We're takin her over this after noon to see him, he came thru surgery fine, recovery went good, and he's pooped once today....Yeah!!!! LOL now that's somethin to get excited over aint it...horse poop. He's on IV fluids, and very little pain killers because he's bein so calm in his stall they don't think he's in a great deal of pain.
Anyway, here's a picture for those of you that wanna know what this thing they removed from his gut looks like. Quarter and a ruler beside it so you can see how big it is.
I have never seen one of those. That dark cloud had a silver lining and also, what an educational oportunity for your daughter. 
