Article written by BEWARE BOWEL IMPACTION FOR NEWBORNS! A beautiful black pinto colt was born on October 3 2005 to our National Reserve Grand Champion / multi Champion mare Crystal Park Blu Moonlite Mist by our imported stallion Scott Creek Windy Knight. This was Windy’s first baby and he was spectacular! Born 14.5” tall he was all leg and drop dead gorgeous. This little guy was going places…or so we thought. ‘Spike’ as we lovingly called him, was born prematurely by 4 weeks and was weak standing, so we milked the mare and bottle-fed him round the clock until he grew stronger. Since he was only 14.5” tall, he couldn’t reach the udder until he had more strength in his legs, so we pampered him for a week. He seemed to get the gist of drinking but only after he made his way around the mare from front to back sucking on all and sundry until he hit pay dirt! He was the most determined tiny bundle that we had ever had, such fight and such spirit! He got used to us cuddling him and picking him up and carrying him everywhere he needed to go until he was strong enough to get there on his own. When he was just over a week old, I noticed that he was off his tucker, checked the mare’s udder and it hadn’t been drained. I took his temperature and it was up a bit. I monitored him closely over the next hour or so. When he started to lie down and roll, I knew there was something sinister developing, so I called the vet. He was given an enema and produced some hard little lumps but nothing else. He didn’t seem distressed in any way, so we weren’t overly worried at this stage. We continued to monitor in our stables under camera surveillance overnight. He slept well and suckled normally quite regularly. The next morning, he started to roll again and hunched like he was trying to poo but nothing happened, so again I gave him a little enema and it produced some poo, but not enough for my liking and it just didn’t seem ‘right’. His temperature was back up again, and his tummy was a little tight. But he still wasn’t distressed, he was quite happy to just walk around and sleep but when the urge to drink came, he made the right moves but didn’t want to go ahead with it, and again he began to roll. He just wanted to rest now and spent less time on his feet. We were now at the 18-hour mark and I wasn’t prepared for it to go on any longer. Off we went to the vet. On examination and discussion with the vet, it seemed that there was a blockage in the upper bowel. They tried a gentle laxative – no result. They tried gentle massage of the tummy – no result. They tried another small enema – no result. Surgery was the only answer now as his temp was getting higher and he was getting lethargic. So Spike was carried to the operating table and sedated between two pillows. He didn’t put up a fuss because his Mum was handy and he had been handled so much in the past 11 days that he was quite happy to be carried anywhere. The vets were so gentle with him, all the time saying that he was the smallest little equine they had ever had on their operating table – they took photos for later discussion at a vet’s forum. Spike slipped sleepily into horsey dreamland and the vets got started. The surgery went very well and the vet reported to me the results. He said that Spike would not have lived if he hadn’t had the surgery as criss-crossed hairs – from nuzzling his dam, had blocked the passage through from the upper bowel into the lower bowel! They had been acting like a sink drainer and catching anything as it was trying to pass. He would never have been able to pass this on his own, and it was too high up in the bowel for an enema to reach or have any effect. The vet had seen other cases where the foals had chewed Mum’s tail and had hairs caught up in their manure, and most of the time they had been passed safely, but for some, this wasn’t the case. He explained to me - the hairs from a big horse are the same as the hairs from a miniature, and the bowel is much smaller in a mini foal that it is too easy for these hairs to get caught in the junction between the upper and lower bowel as the passage is restricted to roughly the thickness of your little finger. This risk is even greater in a premature foal. The newborn foal makes his way along Mum in his endeavour to find the teat, suckling and chewing as he goes, taking in quite a few soft hairs from the underbelly of his dam, as in Spike’s case. I am sure you have all seen little hairs on the baby’s lips from time to time. If enough of these are ingested, and if enough of them get stuck – you have a potentially fatal situation on your hands if you don’t act quickly. Spike was lucky that we monitored him closely, and realised that even though there was an output with the enema, it wasn’t what we would call ‘normal’ and the vet was called. People have made this mistake thinking that there is poo being produced, but by the time all the little bits have been expelled, the blockage above in the upper bowel is such that it is too late for the foal to be rescued. Rupturing of the bowel has been known to happen in these cases. We consider our horse management to be above average and have been complimented by our vets for our attention to detail – this is why we were particularly concerned that this had happened and we needed to put something into place so it wouldn’t happen again. We have adopted the practice now of clipping out the lower section of our broodmares from mid belly down to knees 4 weeks before their due date, and as we monitor our mares by testing milk and having them under camera surveillance, we can re-clip a few days before they are ready to give birth. Her whole under section is clipped close, to cover all the areas that the baby will be exploring – it was these tiny soft hairs that had put Spike’s life at risk. As for the tail, we used to wrap this before birth and then take it down within a few days after she had been washed and made comfortable again, but now we wrap and leave it for anything up to 4 weeks (obviously taking it down, washing, brushing and rewrapping with clean bandage as needed). It is these practices, that, although time consuming, we believe to be essential in safeguarding a newborn from any potential harm. Our experience could have been fatal, luckily for Spike we acted quickly, and now our precautionary measures are in place so hopefully this will not happen again. As they say…an ounce of prevention… It was touch and go for Spike in his convalescence after his surgery, as this was major surgery for such a young foal, but our quick action gave him more chance for recovery.
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