A Hard Lesson

Homesteading is not always easy. It is not always fun. Sometimes we make mistakes and others suffer due to our ignorance. That is one of the reasons we started this blog: to help others learn from our mistakes...so you, your family and your animals, don't have to suffer due to ignorance.

We knew the temperatures were going to be low for several nights in a row. Normally we hay our animals twice a day; however, with the temperatures dipping into the teens and twenties for this week, we put a round bale of hay in the big pasture for all of the animals. As we have horses in the pasture, the hay quality is high. Unfortunately, I did not realize that a horse can over eat on hay.

Yep, when my son brought my horse up Tuesday night to feed, he came and got me. My son informed me that Max was not his normal self and that he had diarrhea. Sure enough, my son was correct. I made a quick call to the vet as it was almost 5:00 pm. That is when I learned that horses will eat and eat and eat hay when it is cold out. They often don't drink enough water and they get an impacted colon, which then leads to colic. NOT GOOD.

Tuesday night I gave Max a bran mash and two quarts of mineral oil, plus an injection of vitamin C. He was given Banamine, orally, also. Wednesday morning, he was still dragging his feet, but there was fresh manure in the pen. I gave him an injection of Banamine at this point and headed to town.

The vet reached me as I was almost home and told me I had to get a blanket on him. Since I did not have one, that meant another drive to town. When I left in the afternoon, Max was visibly shaking. I did not arrive back home until 8:00 pm with the new blanket. His head is low, he did not eat all of his meal and he is not drinking. I'm very discouraged. To be honest, I'm concerned I will lose him. How did we get here with a healthy four year old gelding? I let him eat freely of hay when it was cold outside. Please heed my warning: Don't free feed your horse hay, especially if he is not used to it and it is cold outside.