I know Legs is feeling colicky when she curls her lip up repeatedly. Never fails, that’s her sign. Oh sure, she’ll swish her tail, maybe kick at the belly, but she might just be going after a fly…once she curls that lip, I’m on it. Sometimes I can stave off a full-blown attack with a shot of Banamine, some electrolytes to help encourage her to drink (fresh water is a  [ Read More ]

I was Raised with Quarter Horses and Paints my entire life, so I was never a huge fan of Arabians. Twenty years later I met Concert – an Arabian who took my breath away. The woman who owned him said, “this horse will change your mind about Arabians, he loves people back.” At this point I wasn’t really sure what she was talking about until she said, “watch.” The owner  [ Read More ]

  Two weeks before Christmas, on December 9th, I received a call from my (at the time) barn owner. They had said my newly-adopted 6 year old Appendix QH mare, SoCo hadn’t eaten her dinner or breakfast and was acting funny. My mom and I jumped in the truck, Banamine in hand, and rushed to the barn. Twenty agonizing minutes later I arrived to find my mare in the pasture,  [ Read More ]

On January 31, 2013, my trainer found my horse Tippy colicking. Tippy was trailed to Virginia Tech Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center and had to go into surgery. He had displacement colic where the last 10 feet of his small intestine had gone through a hole in his abdominal wall and died, causing the rest of the intestine to back up. The surgeons had to go in and resect  [ Read More ]

Everybody has a colic story. Whether it’s a story about your own horse, a story about a friend’s horse, or a story about another horse in your barn, just about every horse person understands what it’s like to endure a colic episode. If you’ve personally experienced colic, you know how scary it is. That late night phone call to the vet, the decision to go through with surgery, the constant  [ Read More ]