Colic

What happens when a horse continues to colic? Read about Wyatt and the preventative colic procedure performed at UF.

Coming home to find your horse down and in pain is a worst nightmare for any horse owner. Read Dawn Cucinotta’s story about Grace’s life-saving colic surgery at UF.

A bout with colic took Watse, a 600-kg Fresian, out of the ring for more than nine months. Click to read the story of the emergency surgery that saved Watse’s life.

The UF Large Animal Surgery Service is informing horse owners about the dangers of cribbing, a stable vice that can lead to epiploic foramen entrapment, a type of colic that can cause death if not treated promptly by surgery.

Recently, two horses from the same farm came to the UF Large Animal Hospital about two days apart showing the same clinical signs of colic. Both horses had surgery at the UF Large Animal Hospital and each had an identical hard impaction in the large colon.

Colic can be difficult to prevent, but when Adrienne Hudson’s Arabian, Ruby, began showing clinical signs of colic, Hudson was prepared and knew exactly what to do. Read Ruby’s story of her bout with colic that led to an emergency visit to the UF Large Animal Hospital.

We might not have a good answer for every situation. The reason is that certain horses might be at greater risk than others because they are less discriminating eaters than other horses or have an underlying digestive disorder that predisposes them to impactions. The other important issue is sand access.