Day 9: Colic

Colic is a gastrointestinal condition that causes a horse a lot of pain. There are a few different types which are caused by different things (eating sand, not drinking enough, eating too much or too fast). Time is always of the essence so noticing the symptoms in a horse is crucial to their survival. In the last three days, we've had two horses get colic very bad.

The first horse, Blaze, wasn't actually one of ours but a horse for the Allenspark location that we were holding until she could be picked up. Early Thursday morning she was laying down and getting up and then laying down again. While the rest of us were tacking up the horses for the day, Kristyn and Kansas worked to get her better. She was so bad, though, that Kansas drove her down to The Farm, the home base down in Longmont where all the vets are. She was there all Thursday night and Friday and died sometime Friday.

Today, another horse named Reba, one of our big draft horses which we use everyday, got colic very badly right at the end of the day. She was laying down and we couldn't keep her up. Keeping a horse on their feet is also very important for their survival--a lot of times if they lay down, they never get up. I don't know all the reasons why this is--I just know it is. Anyway, we had to put Reba inside the barn between two chains so we could lean her against the chains and keep her up. She would try to lay down and we had to beat on her as hard as we could so she would keep standing while Kansas and Kristyn pumped her stomach full of mineral oil which apparently does something (again, I don't know the technicalities). Eventually they finished and put her on the trailer to go down to The Farm. We're all hopeful but Jeff told me she had already tried to lay down in the trailer and was hanging herself by her halter when they pulled out of the parking lot. Not sure what will happen but I guess we'll see.

It's a sad day so us girls are trying to cheer ourselves up by making cookies for ourselves and the horses (separate recipes, obviously).


Update: Reba died last night. She came home from The Farm but came off her meds badly. She threw herself on the ground and couldn't get up so we had to put her to sleep.