'I couldn't have asked for better care', a colic case study
I’ve had my 15-year-old Welsh Section D, Poppit, for 10 years. We used to do lots of cross country and now mainly we hack — and she’s my life horse, my one and only.
Poppit lives out full time near where Poole in Dorset, and we insure with Agria because it seemed the best policy that we came across.
On the 1st March I went up to feed and hay her one afternoon, as usual, and I noticed her freeze and stop eating which is very unlike her. Then she began kicking at her tummy with her back legs and I realised something was not right. Soon her nostrils were really flared too and she was evidently in a lot of pain.
A vet was coming in any case to visit another horse and they gave her some sedation, something to relieve her gut, and injected her with some Bute. The vet suggested I walk her around once the sedation had worn off to see anything [any compaction] would start moving. But Poppit was really reluctant to move and didn’t really want to keep standing.
The vet returned and recommended that she go to the equine hospital, a journey of two-and-a-half hours which she did really well to stand up for. But she was really in shock once she arrived, and in a bad way, and collapsed when she was taken into a treatment stall. My two options then were to put her to sleep or send her in for colic surgery, and I chose the latter.
By the time I got home, I had a phone call to say Poppit was out of surgery and that the vets had found a bag and a half of compacted black sand in her gut which had caused her colon to twist 360 degrees.
The whole incident was quite traumatic. I was very emotional at the time because it all happened so quickly. But Poppit was fighting it so hard she really deserved that extra chance of surgery, and it was a relief to know I was insured for this.
Everyone at the yard has been shocked about Poppit’s colic: we are on clay rather than sandy ground, but will now have her on a maintenance programme to avoid sand building in her gut again. Her recovery has started with two months of box rest and she is full of life and doing really well. She is now out doing some hand grazing and will very soon be allowed to go out all day again.
Putting a horse in for major surgery is expensive and a risk — our claim for this treatment has come in at over £6,000 — but seeing the way Poppit has recovered and bounced back, it was definitely the right call for her, and hopefully we can have another 10 years of fun together. Her scar has healed really well and I couldn’t have asked for better care.
It’s been no hassle at all dealing with Agria — it’s been very smooth.. and it’s brilliant to know that Poppit is still covered for colic should anything like this happen in the future.