QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Mare in Distress While Foaling
QUESTION: I'm wondering if anyone has tried this product, Stops Colic. Here is the website address http://www.stopscolic.com (will open in different window).
We've had the misfortune of losing a few of our beloved horses to colic in past years, and I wonder if we might have been able to save any of them while waiting on the vet to arrive for help. Please look at the site and respond with your opinions.
Thank you Kaite for the information and articles. No, we have no idea why the horses coliced as there was no change whatsoever to their feeding routine. Same grass hay grown right on the property, same daily ration of grain as always. Left us heartbroken and wondering why.
Thank you Scott for responding, that's what I asked for, opinions, thoughts, experiences. Anything that will help us help our 4 leggeds when in need. I'll keep the Mylanta information close too. - Tricia
ANSWERS:
This is the first I've heard of this product. It sounds like it would be useful for preventing a minor colic from becoming a major one. It did state on the page that it won't work for "twisted, torsion, knotted, ruptured, blocked by objects, excessive sand, gravel, stones or tumors, are experiencing heavy spasms or infected." But it might be useful in determining if a horse needs surgical intervention. It isn't cheap to sit on a shelf, but if it works once, then it pays for itself. I would be curious to know if it could have helped our gelding who had a minor impaction. We tried fluids first, then had surgery done and he survived, but the vet bill was $7,500. - Barbara
No, I have not heard of this, but it sounds like at least it can't hurt. I don't see any evidence of scientific testing of the product and I dimly remember biology classes - I don't think anything ingested gets absorbed through the stomach lining to the bloodstream. I think absorption doesn't happen until the contents of the stomach enter the intestines. I could be wrong about that tho, of course.
My question to you is have you been able to find out why your horses have colicked? I have had my share of colics in the last 45 years of course; I don't think you can care for horses without experiencing this. But my goal was always to prevent them.
I had a mare who chronically colicked for years every time the seasons changed. Here in Florida sand is a way of life, and we determined that she was packing a pretty good load of sand. Bran mashes, oiling, psyllium products - these really don't do anything for sand.
One of my students, about 15 years ago, did her senior project for her degree in Animal Science on sand colic here at UF. The results were that the best prevention was feeding free-choice medium-to-long-stemmed good quality grass hay. This removes the sand and keeps it moving better than other products, which pretty much just go right over the sand; it's too heavy to be picked up by the bran, oil or psyllium.
Here is a link to an article on the study: http://www.ecmagazine.net/vol15_4/SandColic.htm (with articles published listed at the end of the article - J. Weise, one of the authors of the second and third articles listed, was my riding student and Dr. Lieb was also the faculty advisor to the UF Equestrian Team when I was coach).
Joy's last colic was in 20003; I had started feeding good quality round rolls a year or so earlier and have done it to this day. She died at 35 years of age in March 2012 and had not had a bout of colic in those 9 years.
I am blessed to be able to keep my horses outside 24/7, on good pasture, but with hay year round as well ( I feed Tifton 85, a high-quality coastal Bermuda grass), and the horses have been colic-free, all but one. Munchkin colicked about 7 months ago, but he's 26 and has cushings and things don't work as well as they used to. Benamine and a visit from the vet to make sure he didn't have a blockage of some sort brought him through it just fine. I have had him since birth and that's the only colic he's ever had - he sure didn't understand why he felt so bad, wasn't stoic at all!
Sorry for the long rant - anyway, I don't see anything harmful in this product, and might be worth a try. But addressing the cause and preventing the colic would be beneficial too. - Kaite
Just learned something about horses digestion that I had never heard before. It was about ulcers in horses stomachs. We were curious about what would cause so many problems like this. We learned that horses produced constant stomach acid. No break in the flow, and nothing to chew on to ease the burn, such as being enclosed with no source of hay or grass, except possibly two feedings of inadequate size daily, would cause them to chew on everything possible to ease the burn.
We have always been fortunate to have turn out with grass whenever we have a stalled horse, so we had no idea about the constant acid. It would explain so many things we have seen in the past, with good people, meaning well, not adequately feeding their horses. Never too old to learn good things. - Sally.
Appaloosa are pretty tough and seldom get colic, but I had occasion to view it first hand in the 3 year old that our family Arab had. He was down when I arrived and rolling hard. By the fence line was a bag of rotten plumbs, so we knew what caused it. I really hate people thinking any food is good for a horse and my horses are fat, so no need for anything. I think they wanted him to come to the fence and that was the enticement. In any event, I dashed home and filled two large syringes with Mylanta and that did the trick. He came right in about five minutes and needless to say I was relieved beyond words. My guess is this colic medicine is probably very similar to Mylanta. Just my thoughts - hope you don't mind. - Scott
Did the colics happen at a certain time of year? The fall is the worst here, as it cools off and the horses don't keep up their water intake. I wet their feed when the weather changes and that seems to help. That would be very scary to no know the cause and so not be able to prevent the colic. - Kaite
We have dealt with more than our fair share of colics here in the last few years. I now watch the weather report like crazy and if the temperature is going to be down by more than three or more degrees from the previous day's high, I add electrolytes to the horses feed and wet it slightly. This has helped significantly ( I believe).
Our other problem was the horses began craving dirt. Sand is a big factor in the desert with no pasture, despite feeding psyllium ten days a month or more. We were using the same hay fields as we always had, but apparently the levels of selinium had dropped just enough to make a difference. Adding selinium into their diets until we could find a different hay supplier made a huge positive difference.
We recently had a mild colic for no known reason other than she chose not to drink much, but two doses of Banamine, several hours (intermittently) of trotting mixed with a little cantering in the round pen and lots of electrolytes in small amounts of wet food brought her through.
I don't know if this product would work, but anything is worth a shot. I know Ollicutt's impaction was such that we could not dissolve it in time, but I'd have tried anything and so would our vet. Guess the real test will be to see if this product works over the long haul. Will be interested in what you discover. - Maryeileen
