Onyx goes to the Doctor

On Wednesday night, I went out to feed the horses as usual. I whistled and the boys came running up to greet me at the gate, two buckets of grain in hand. I endured the usual antics on the way down to the barn between the boys--necks arched, tails swishing, both horses clamoring to be fed first. That night, Onyx won and got his grain pain filled before Jasper. I then stepped through the stall door to throw hay and noticed Onyx had stopped eating his grain and laid down. I thought it was odd and watched him for a minute. He got up and went back to his pan. I thought maybe he'd had a itch and continued bucking bales down from the stack, cutting twine and tossing armfuls of hay into the stalls. Then I noticed Onyx pawing and kicking at his stomach.

Uh, oh.

Convinced he was colicking, I walked up to the house to inform my roommate that I was going to be taking him with to the hospital with me that night, as I'm on overnights right now. I hauled out the first aid kit and took a halter and grabbed little Onyx. He was sticking his neck out at an odd angle and looked as though he was trying to swallow something. That's when he coughed and mushy grain and saliva came squirting out of his nose. Ah, choke. Better than colic, but still not good. Up at the trailer, his heart rate was normal but he was still struggling to work out the grain. I asked my roommate to hold him while I hooked up the truck and trailer and off to school we went.



Once there, I passed a nasogastric tube in order to dislodge any possible feed material even though he was acting much better. He got a shot of Buscopan (a smooth muscle relaxer, which is the type of muscle found in the GI tract) and a shot of Banamine to combat any inflammation. I was glad I'd brought him in--during my 12-hour shift I'd be able to check on him multiple times. He did end up re-choking early in the morning, but it's only because his stupid owner thought he looked starving and fed him a little more than a handful of grain. The on-call doctor came in and rolled his eyes many, many times at me. Ah, well, I learned my lesson.



The next morning he looked much happier, but I was too tired to think about hauling him home and so asked if he could stay for observation while I slept. Since our equine department is never busy, they offered to scope him free of charge as a teaching tool. I agreed, and they found no abnormalities (yay!). Onyx will return home this morning to a stall in the barn and no access to hay. He's not going to be happy for the next few days, but I don't want to risk anything else. Poor Ony.