A Little Story About A Gigantic Stone....

If you have horses you know colic is a scary and bad word, if you don't have horses colic is a scary and bad word :). These animals don't do well with belly aches, in fact when they get them it can be fatal.  Saturday late afternoon I notice Luna was standing stretched out and while walking over to check on her, she laid down. Laying down in itself isn't a big deal but laying down in pain is.

Our girl was colicing. If you were to open a book on the symptoms of a colicky horse you would think they wrote it about her. She had every one of them.  Thankfully I was home and knew what to do for her. After many hours of walking, medicating and trying to hydrate her she was looking better. It was now after midnight and I was exhausted, with her acting more like her normal self I went to bed to catch some sleep.

6 am as I was walking down to check on her I noticed something in her loose stool. As I got close I couldn't believe my eyes, what heck was I looking at.. ?? ..!!

Holy freaking cow.... This thing is huge! Seriously, huge!

Miraculously Luna passed a gigantic stone... Imagine two baseballs glued together at the side, that's how big. This stone has been growing for years and years in her small intestine. Oh my gosh no wonder she had a belly ache...

Typically stones this big are found in an emergency colic surgery or in a postmortem exam. You don't often hear a horse being able to rid something this large on their own. Her will to live amazes me. She is challenging most days but this episode has me viewing her in a different light. After monitoring her for a couple more days and keeping things quiet I'm happy to report that she is healthy once again.

I've been asked how this could happen and the best guesses are that stones take many years to develop and occur from either type of feed, genetics or a foreign body.

Luna is not genetically predisposed as they're not common in her breed. Feed, maybe...  Alfalfa is the hay of choice in California and is high in phosphorus and ammonia. Although, my thought is it may have been the last option.  Being a mouthy horse who was underfed and living in not so good conditions for who knows how long, she may have eaten a piece of wood or string that got stuck and then began to calcify.

Our Vet and all my horsey friends are very impressed with Luna. I'm impressed and so grateful we made it through that.

I celebrated with an ice cold beer. Check out the label, fun huh and the beer was good too.