There is choke, like *cough* *cough* swallowed something wrong, just get a drink of water choke, and then there is CHOKE…
Oh my goodness! If you have not experienced a horse choking, consider yourself lucky. It is one of those experiences with horses that I do not wish upon my worst enemy.
Let me begin with a little background information to warm us up for this not so fun story. Jelle is my mom’s Friesian gelding. We have had him since he was 6 years old, and at the time of this incident, he was 21 years old. He is the ultimate one-eyed (story for another day) puppy dog in a horse body that is even kinder under saddle. I mean the horses that tote around a little kid are the ones that have no price tag. And this little Friesian horse, in a sport horse barn, is just that!
So, slap on that sticky spray because here we go! It was a normal morning at Everell Farm, other than I had the vet out checking my sport horses for routine stuff. How lucky was I that the vet happened to be in the aisle?!?! The guys happened to notice Jelle was not eating his morning grain…weird! We let it go for about a half hour, but over that half hour, he began to become visibly uncomfortable. What would normally be an emergency vet call and wait for some time, was a quick, “Hey! Can you walk across the aisle?” to the vet. This was by far one of the luckiest things to happen to one of the most unlucky people that you could meet…Me! By the time the vet walked into his stall to check him out, he was straining his neck, almost creating a U-neck look. He had white liquid coming out of his nose. He was foaming at the mouth. He had a 102 degree fever. The poor guy was choking! And thank whatever powers that be that a vet (actually come to think of it, I believe there were multiple vets) was right there on site.
What was the immediate response from the vet? Well, a muscle relaxer was administered right away, along with Banamine. The vet tubed him twice to try to suck out anything that was stuck in his esophagus, and he was taken off all food for the time being (no hay, no grain, absolutely no treats). His meal consisted of a nice large syringe of Naxcel and another of Gentamicin in the vein.
Let’s step back a few steps and look at some hints that this choke was about to happen. Jelle’s weight had dropped off, but his teeth had been floated a couple months prior, so we just chalked it up to old age. As many of you may know, weight as horses grow older is quite the challenge…fun discussion for another time! He had started to salivate quite a bit around meal time, waiting for his grain. When I say salivate, I mean solid drool, like full on globs of liquid on the ground. He also was starting to look a little rabid around feed time where the salivation would turn to white foam around his lips. Once again, did not appear to have a problem eating or with choke at the time, so we thought nothing of it. One big change the night before, Jelle had always eaten out of a corner feeder. He had started to get a night-time feed to help with his weight, and on the eve of his choke, he was fed that night-time feed in a bucket on the ground. Why is this telling might you ask? Well, Friesians are prone to mega-esophagus, and those likely to have mega-esophagus need to eat their feeds up high. The other culprit happened to be what was in that night-time feed, beet pulp. Jelle’s night feed gets soaked so the beet pulp was soaked, but he eats slowly and in the morning it looked like he had tried to eat some of the beet pulp dry, which is what he was actually choking on. Alright investigators, I hope this satisfied the over-analytic minds along for this ride. Now, let’s get back to the regular scheduled programming.
Later on day 1, Jelle got the glorious opportunity of 5 minutes of hand-grazing on lush grass. He was restricted from turnout for 3 days, which to my horses is painful because they go out unless it is lightning, a tornado is coming, ice has hit so bad it’s nearly Armageddon, or the temperature has dipped below 0 degrees. So, no turnout does not make for a happy horse. This hand graze was also his meal for the day other than his lovely round of IV antibiotics. No grain, no mash, no hay, no nothing…just 5 minutes of grass. Let me point out that dropping a horse from very consistent feedings to little to no feed means very little poop. This is scary to a horse person when one of our constant concerns is has the horse pooped? Note it was about 1-5 days of very little poop, around 2-3 per day and not much of it.
Man-oh-man, days 2 and 3 were the most stressful “sit and watch and hope it gets better” days. That stress was exacerbated by yours truly administering those large syringes IV of Naxcel and Gentamicin. I put on my big girl panties and I did it because what don’t we do for our horses? But, it literally makes me do one of those nerve shaking dances afterwards because “YUCK!” I hate administering shots IV of that magnitude. Bravo to the vets and really any human that can do it regularly. You all are my heroes because Boy! I could not do it on a regular basis. Off my IV tangent, on day 2, Jelle started a very mushy, very wet senior feed in an elevated feed bin. This was mixed with hay pellets and Tribute K Finish for a bit of aminos. We tried to give this to him at least 4 times per day because he could not eat much at a time, maybe about 2 cups at most per serving. What did this choke episode mean as well? No more hay. Jelle has officially hit the stage in life where he can only get wet down (not soaked) chopped hay in a raised feed bucket. With all the old horses in the barn, excuse me, that was rude, mature horses I should say, I am starting to see it as a right of passage to be taken off of full, stalky hay. Also, how lucky for Mr. Jelle? On day 2 we graduated to multiple (up to 5 times) 5-minute hand grazes.
Day 4 was an exciting day…TURNOUT! Only on the all-weather, dry lots alone, but the boy still got to go outside. Oh Happy Day! I had some hanging feed buckets delivered from Amazon so that Jelle could get his chopped hay elevated outside. The vet returned to give an IV dose of Exceed as well because SAA was still high. Day 5 proved to be the day we could officially say we were out of the choke scaries. Antibiotics had kicked in, Jelle was acting more like himself, albeit very thin, but he was back to his regular routine of turnout and feed (minus the stalky hay on the ground). Even by day 10, Jelle still had an elevated SAA, so he went on Doxycycline (the powder version) for another 7 days. Luckily, after this round of antibiotics, he was done. Note, because of the stress and medicines, it took about 2/3 weeks following antibiotics for us to see any weight gain, so he was skin and bones for a few weeks.
Months later, Jelle put on weight, more than he had prior to the choke. What contributed greatly to this weight gain is the feed schedule that we put him on. I struggled tremendously trying to figure out what would work. I called equine nutritionists, talked with the vets, worked with the guys at the feed stores, did a whole heck of a lot of googling, and ultimately it was trial and error to figure out what was going to taste like a 5-star meal(s) to Jelle. Going to 3 grain meals per day has worked the best. We feed him (and some other seniors to keep weight on) 1 small scoop of hay extender pellets, 1 small scoop of Tribute Senior Sport, 1 large scoop of SafeChoice Special Care, and 1 cup of Tribute K Finish. All of this is soaked, not to a mash, because Jelle is not a fan of mushy baby food, but pretty much submerged in water with grain that still has a bit of a crunch. He also gets 1 large bucket of chopped grass hay. One thing to note, we did start him off on straight Senior feed. However, we found that, because Jelle is a bit metabolic, only feeding the Senior was too much sugar and a little hard on his stomach leading to weight loss. So what did we do? We added back in the SafeChoice, and the boy plumped right up!
So, what did I learn from this horrible episode of choke? Friesians are prone to megaesophagus which can cause choke. Choke is literally no joke. I will always get a vet out right away when I notice it happening. Older horses many times have to graduate to chopped and/or soaked hay. And boy oh boy what I won’t do for my horses!
DISCLAIMER: The content in this blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be professional and/or medical advice. Reach out to your licensed veterinarian or other health professional for assistance with any medical condition. Do not disregard or delay seeking medical advice for your animal based upon anything you have read on this website.