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January 4, 2008
A Little Haflinger Character
The look on my husband's face last night told me there was trouble in the big barn. I'd been cleaning the weanling stalls in the smaller barn and had not yet been to the big barn where the adult Haflingers are stabled.
"We've got trouble. Amos is down."
Amos is 25 years old, our do-it-all Haflinger gelding who rides, drives, vaults, does trails, jumps, you name it. He is an unusually tall Alpen Konig grandson who has been worth more than his weight in gold for the 7 years we've owned him, having purchased him from the Marland family in British Columbia after he was done raising their 6 children. We could always trust Amos no matter what task we asked of him.
Amos also has been indestructible and incredibly healthy with only an occasional stiffness in the joints at times. Amos down? No!
Sure enough, he was cast up against the wall of his huge double stall and, covered in sweat, clearly had been there for some time. Amazingly, he nickered his deep throaty voice when we approached the stall with lead ropes ready to loop around his legs. He was clearly saying, "whatever took you so long?"
He lay still as we snugged the ropes on his legs and using every ounce of strength, we hauled him over. He lay on his side, breathing heavily, then pulled himself up, put his front legs out in front of him and staggered to his feet. Every muscle was quivering. His first task was to urinate--a good sign.
We surveyed the stall and it was pretty clear he had been doing a fair amount of rolling before he cast himself. He had never had a bout of colic before but clearly he had been uncomfortable today. He looked dehydrated and a little shocky. I called the vet as my daughter started walking him. He passed several loose stools but whenever he stopped walking, he was ready to lie down again, or would paw or kick at this belly. However, true Haflinger even in the face of agony, he also tried to snatch at hay bales as he passed them and nibbled clumps of grass in the lawn.
By the time the vet arrived, he was not as shaky and looking brighter eyed. However, with his heart rate up and with rushing bowel sounds, as well as a palpable impaction high in the pelvis, he clearly needed banamine for the pain, and to receive oral electrolytes, fluids and oil. The vet was quite impressed by Amos' strength for his age and was very amazed at his appetite in spite of being in pain. I reminded him he was dealing with a Haflinger, not any ordinary horse breed. The vet chuckled, "I guess they would be chewing during their dying breath, wouldn't they?"
Yup. Survival instinct to the last.
Once the medication was administered, with the oil starting its transit through Amos' gut to relieve the impaction, we allowed him back to his stall to lie down and rest. He no longer needed to roll. He was exhausted and wanted to sleep. I cut up some apple pieces and a few carrots from our winter garden and put them in his food bin in case he decided he wanted to have a treat to eat. Then we went to bed too.
At 2 AM I got up to check on him. When I turned on the barn aisle lights and started toward his stall down at the end, I heard his deep throated nicker greeting as usual. What a wonderful sound! And then I saw his velvety nose poking out of his stall window by his food bin, grabbing for apple pieces lying on the sill. There is no better sight than a hungry Haflinger after such an ordeal! He still hadn't passed any manure 6 hours after treatment, so I took him back out in the moonlit windy night for a walk and after about an hour, he finally passed the impaction. It was most likely caused by our local hay which was a bit too fine stemmed and he had probably not adequately chewed it so it had balled up and caused a blockage. He was feeling so much better, and so was I. This was one of the nicest middle of the night manure piles I've ever had the pleasure to clean up.
So Amos is alive and we're hoping he will be alive to enjoy life and work for many years to come. I will be more careful about choosing a coarser forage for him as his old teeth may not be as effective as they used to be.
And I will never forget what it was like to see this old guy's nickered greeting to us while he was lying there upside down in his stall. It was Haflinger character at its finest.
Postscript: We lost Amos to a second bout of colic seven weeks later. It was a crushing blow after he had a really wonderful few weeks of giving great rides, enjoying the sunshine on his withers and tasting some early spring pasture. We miss him tremendously.