Colic Care...Make the Call

We find clients may vacillate between calling in their veterinary team and giving an incident some time to resolve itself. Do not hesitate to call if you suspect your horse is suffering even a mild case of colic. Any sign of colic in a horse should trigger an immediate call to your veterinarian.

After your vet has been notified, you should continue to monitor the horse constantly. Although we will attempt to describe the symptoms and their relative severity, please keep two important points in mind: (1) Every horse reacts to pain and displays symptoms differently, (2) Colic can escalate to a dangerous level very quickly, and without obvious changes in the horse’s behavior.

“Colic” is not a diagnosis or disease in itself. It is a term used generally to describe pain in the intestinal tract but can indicate other problems such as ulcers or peritonitis as well.

Severe colic demands aggressive, intensive veterinary care to save the animal’s life.

A mild case of colic may bring warning signs such as lethargy, frequent yawning, and slightly elevated heart rate (45-50 beats per minute). The animal is usually standing or lying quietly. If the symptoms progress, he may look at his flanks, paw or stomp the ground with his hind feet and repeatedly lie down and stand up. As the discomfort increases, so will his heart rate. The next stage of severity may bring an abnormal gum color and biting at flanks or kicking at the belly along with sweating. If the pain increases the horse may thrash about and crash to the ground repeatedly. Remember to keep yourself out of harm’s way while trying to keep the animal safe and comfortable.