Your mare foals and everything is perfect! Healthy baby, lots of chrome, moves like a champion already.  Then your worst nightmare, the mare shows signs of colic.  Pacing, pawing the ground a little.  Mom's clearly unhappy and she's had serious colic before, so load them into the trailer for a trip to the clinic for observation.  Examination at the hospital reveals that the mare is restless & uncomfortable but alert, her heart rate has dropped from 60 to around 36 beats/min. (close to normal) GI sounds improved from the first exam and nothing conclusive on rectal palpation.  Pass a stomach tube, no fluid reflux (indicating a blockage high in the GI tract). Pain medication is given, maybe that trailer ride helped some, so lets try it again, but this time the mare goes down.  Clearly her pain is not getting better, medicate her for the longer trip to Pilchuck Vet. Hospital in Snohomish, our referral partner for complicated surgical conditions including abdominal surgery.  The stress level is high now, mare down and in a great deal of pain.  The foal is certainly at risk, but removing her can create even more problems so no time to waste.  To make a long, scary story short; they make it to Pilchuck and the team performs abdominal surgery.  Surgeons find a 720 degree colon torsion, yikes! the large colon twisted not once, but twice around it's axis. The good news is that they are able to untwist the bowel and it didn't appear to have vascular damage, hooray for miracles! 

LAMENESS EVALUATIONS, an art to the science

He was fine a minute ago, now he feels off balance and his head is bobbing up & down with every stride.... it's almost show time, hellllp! Lameness evaluation is often considered both art and science because it requires subjective evaluation of gait mechanics in a complicated organism with a multitude of differing scenarios.  In acute, (sudden) severe lameness it's important to rule out the worst possibilities, including nail punctures, fracture, laminitis etc.  After that, it's a step by step detective process of following the clues to a diagnosis.  Of course we aren't too happy to hear this and have a tendency to skip steps.  Sometimes that works out, but sometimes you miss a turn and have to back track to pick up the missed clues.  Short or long, lameness diagnosis is a challenging detective game!  If you have the unfortunate need to do some lameness sleuthing, we're doing our best to make it easier this month, check out our special offer below.