Cherry has never choked before, so suffice it to say that I wasn’t terribly familiar with the condition. I got to the barn around 10:30 in the morning. The horses had been fed late, so they were still munching on hay when I arrived.
Except Cherry.
She was standing off by herself in the shade of the shelter in her paddock. That’s not right. Her pasture-mate was happily chowing down on a large quantity of hay, and Cherry should have been right there with her, stuffing her face with equal gusto.
I was a trifle concerned, but felt that there might be an innocent explanation. I brought Cherry up to the barn, and tied her on the tie rail out in the sun. She lipped at her grain, and appeared to eat it. Then she sort of gave up on eating and stood there licking and chewing as if there was something in her mouth that she couldn’t swallow.
And there was.
Now fully alarmed and knowing that all was not right with Cherry, I looked in her mouth. Perhaps she got hold of something she shouldn’t have and it was stuck in her mouth. I didn’t find a foreign object, but I did find a giant wad of hay and the grain she’d appeared to eat stuffed up in her cheeks. She seemed slightly lethargic, and her breathing was shallow and rather rapid.
It was clear she wanted to eat, she was hungry, but for some reason she couldn’t swallow. So she had stuffed as much food in her face as possible and the just rolled it around her mouth. She was also having trouble reaching her head all the way to the ground. She’d lower her head to about 6” off the ground, stop, then lurch down the rest of the way, as if she had to make an effort to overcome either pain or a physical obstruction.
Not really knowing what to do, I decided to take her temperature. 99 degrees, perfectly normal for Cherry. Pulse normal, but the rapid breathing was alarming, as was her depressed demeanor. Gut sounds were normal too, so whatever was going on wasn’t colic. At least, not yet.
I got the barn manager, K, to take a look at Cherry. Like I said, I knew of the existence of choke but never had any first hand experience with it. It was clear to me that Cherry was having trouble swallowing, but what was causing the problem and where exactly the problem was remained a mystery to me.
K looked at Cherry, palpated her throat area, and said it looked a lot like choke. One of her horses choked several months back, and Cherry was showing similar symptoms. There was a hard lump on the right side of her throat, possibly a swollen glad or whatever was choking her.
The first thing to do was get all of the food out of Cherry’s mouth. I pulled out the wadded up hay, and we rinsed her mouth thoroughly with the hose. She actually drank a small amount of water, and perked up enormously. Her breathing returned to normal. She was still having trouble getting her head all the way to the ground, though, and she was still rolling her tongue around her mouth like something was bothering her.
We decided to put her in a stall to better monitor her. K removed the hay from the stall since Cherry was still clearly having issues, and we debated taking her to the vet.
I decided that since it appeared that Cherry was in no immediate danger of dropping dead, the vet could wait until tomorrow. I prepared her some Equine Senior soup, which she slurped down with some difficulty. Good, at least she was getting some water in her, even if she was still plenty hungry.
On Monday, we got a 3 o’clock appointment with the vet. Around here, you bring your horse to the vet. A farm call is at least another $50-$60. Until then, the vet said no food for Cherry but to continue offering her water.
The wind howled and the rain beat down that afternoon. Of course it did! The trailer shook when a particularly strong gust of wind hit as K and I drove to the clinic. Cherry was quite alert as I unloaded her and walked her to the vet’s barn. We put her in the stocks (which are articulated and come completely apart, very cool!) and waited for the vet.
After I described the events of the previous day and Cherry’s symptoms, the vet said it was likely choke. Cherry was sedated and her mouth opened with a speculum. The vet pulled out another wad of hay, and proceeded to feel around for possible tooth issues or foreign objects.
Cherry’s teeth were perfectly fine, but there was a cut at the veeeery back of her mouth. She required more drugs before she let the vet touch it. There was some bloody hay stuck in it, but the cut wasn’t infected and wasn’t very deep. Likely it had made chewing rather painful, which possibly contributed to the choke.
The vet didn’t find anything else, so she recommended a nasogastric tube. A tube was duly inserted in Cherry’s nose. As the vet fed the tube in, there appeared to be some resistance fairly far down the esophagus. A lovely rotting feed smell also emanated from the tube.
Ah, so there it is.
Apparently, Cherry had managed to swallow the bolus lodged in her throat when we stuck the hose in her mouth, but had not managed to get it all the way down. That’s why she perked up, the thing was out of her throat and she thought she was fine again.
The vet pumped about a gallon of water down the tube to flush the bolus into Cherry’s stomach. This was successful. The tube was removed (with barely a bloody nose!), and Cherry was prescribed Banamine to help ease the discomfort of the cut in her mouth and her likely very sore throat.
I was also instructed to feed her only moist feed for the next week. The seven day window following a choke episode is the “danger zone” where it’s likely that the horse will choke again unless fed carefully. Hopefully we caught the choke early enough that no permanent damage was done to her throat.
We waited (forever) for Cherry to wake up enough for the trailer ride home. The drive home was just as windy and unpleasant, but I felt so much better now that Cherry had been treated.
Now fully awake and ravenously hungry, Cherry paced her stall and shrieked for food as soon as we got home. I made her a very mushy bucket of Equine Senior and hay pellets, making sure they were fully soaked and soft. I gave them to her in little bits, as I was afraid she might inhale a giant glob if I put the whole bucket in front of her.
That night and the next morning she got more pellet mush, along with a dose of Banamine, per vet’s instructions. Next night, we added soaked hay to her ration of mush. Now, three days later, she’s eating mostly soaked hay. She’ll be getting that for another day or two, then we’re going to try dry hay.
In Cherry’s mind, she’s fully back to normal and is likely wondering why she’s stuck in a pokey little stall and why all her food is wet. At least I'm able to let her out in a turnout paddock during the day. That saves her sanity a bit.
As for the future, I sincerely hope that this was our first and last experience with choke, but you never know. There's an increased likelihood of choking after the first episode, so it may happen again. I hope not.
If it does become a recurring problem, I may have to find a barn where she can be out on fresh grass or a place where she can come in at night and eat soaked hay but go out during the day. We’ll have to see.
What’s boggling my mind is exactly how this happened. She’s old, but her teeth are still in working order and she can chew just fine. She eats fast, but not that fast. The only thing I can think of is that cut caused her enough pain that she didn’t chew properly. Another thing I noticed was that for the past few days she hadn’t been drinking much. We need to move the water trough, it’s sitting in a puddle and Cherry doesn’t want to get her little hoofies wet. Perhaps the combination of being slightly dehydrated and the pain from the cut caused the choke. Kind of like trying to eat a bunch of Ritz crackers without being able to take a drink of water.
Anyhoo, that’s how we celebrated Easter!
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