Colic is simply another word for abdominal pain, but in horses, this can be a sign that something is seriously wrong with a horses digestive system. Horse’s digestive systems are fragile with many areas that can cause the horses pain and can even turn fatal for the horses.
There are many different types of colic in horses as well as many different causes. The major types include impaction, displacement, and torsion. Impaction involves food or sand getting stuck and packed into the intestines. This can cause severe pain and inability to pass fecal matter. Displacement involves part of the intestines get trapped around other internal organs which can cut off blood supply to the intestine or the other organs as well as trapping food or fecal matter and stopping the function of the other organs. Torsion is when the intestines wrap around themselves and can end up cutting off blood supply as well as the ability to pass food through. Many of these require surgery to fix and may be fatal to the horse without immediate intervention.
Causes of colic can be wide ranging from things as innocuous as weather change, to changing diet, stress, worms, injury, or even drinking too much water. As the weather starts to cool, several issues can arise to make colic far more likely. First, just the weather change can cause horses to stress enough to cause colic. If your horse is prone to this, establish a routine and if possible, bring the horse into a stall at night to keep his temperature more even. As the weather gets cooler, horses tend to want to eat more and feel the need to drink less. This is the perfect storm of changes in diet to cause an impaction colic. The extra forage, especially in the short period of time, will collect in the gut and the lack of water will slow digestion down so that the food will become stuck.
Another major cause is diet change. If you need to change your horse’s diet, there are several things to keep in mind. As the diet changes, the horse’s digestive tract needs time to get used to the new food and digesting a different volume of food. Especially when increasing grain, the tract needs time to adjust to the larger amount of simple carbohydrates. When changing a diet, its is important to make sure the horse has plenty of water and that the diet changes slowly.
Other important ways to prevent colic include:
- Keeping your horse on a regular worming schedule
- Regular feeding schedule with more feedings rather than fewer
- Making sure horses cannot eat too quickly
- Regular dental care and veterinary care
- High fiber in the diet especially in places where sand colic is an issue
If you see your horse behaving outside of his normal behaviors, it may be a sign of colic.
Signs of Colic include:
- Pawing and/or scraping
- Stretching
- Frequent attempts to urinate
- Flank watching: turning of the head to watch the stomach and/or hind quarters
- Biting/nipping the stomach
- Pacing
- Repeated flehmen response
- Repeated lying down and rising
- Rolling
- Groaning
- Excess salivation
- Loss of appetite
- Decreased fecal output
- Increased pulse rate
- Dark mucous membranes
If you think your horse is colicing, he needs to be watched carefully. Horses should not be allowed to roll if at all possible. Rolling can be the cause of the torsion and displacement types of colics which can lead to major surgery. Depending on the severity of pain, banamine should be administered orally or intravenously, never intramuscularly. If after given banamine, the horse does not improve, your vet should be called. Walking the horse may help get the digestive tract moving, but you should never force a horse to walk. Too much walking may cause a horse to further injure himself from stretching at the wrong time or from exhaustion. Water can be provided to the horse, but food should not be offered as more forage can exacerbate the problem. Other treatment methods should only be done by experienced personnel and preferably by a vet or with vet supervision.
The best way to treat colic is through prevention. Prevention is best achieved by knowing your horse, his personality, his eating habits, and keeping up with his general heath care. The better you know your horse, the more likely you are to see the signs of colic before it becomes life threatening. If you see any behavior from you horse that is not normal, you can always call your vet and ask for their opinion before having them come out to your barn or bringing your horse to them.
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