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Grain Overload

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I know that many of you probably already know this, but if you ever have a horse get into grain, please, please, please call a vet IMMEDIATELY. This is not a "wait and see how they do" situation. It is an "if you wait, then your horse might be dead by next week" situation. If colic doesn't get them immediately, then laminitis is going to set in within a few days. A vet can flush the stomach of whatever grain they can get and then administer products that will reduce digestion of the grain and prevent/bind endotoxins.

lillith Sun, 12/27/2009 - 04:35

Is everything ok MP sounds very much like the voice of experience there?

Goood advice.

Monsterpony Sun, 12/27/2009 - 15:47

I just spent Christmas treating a horse that was presented 24 hours after eating 40 lbs of grain. It is not something I want anyone to ever have to experience, especially as it is 100% preventable (lock your grain rooms!). Grain overload is too often placed into the wait and see category when it is an emergency.

NZ Appaloosas Sun, 12/27/2009 - 18:41

oh wow, 40 pounds of grain in one go? Poor horse! Hopefully it has pulled thru' okay.

Diane

CMhorses Sun, 12/27/2009 - 20:47

40lbs wow...thats a lot of grain. One of my moms horses did this (probably 30 years ago) and actually did this several times before he actually got sick from it; he learned how to break the door open and get the lid off the feeder even though it was tied on.

Monsterpony Mon, 12/28/2009 - 02:26

NZ- No, it died, horribly.

CM- that is why my barn's grain bins are sealed with a locking lid, under a board/table, inside a room that is sealed, with a metal door that is padlocked. Unless a horse learns to pick a lock and undo the the locking mechanism that requires reaching through an arm-widths gap in the bars, they aren't getting to any grain. Honestly, I consider it seriously negligent if your horses can get into the grain room if they manage to escape their stall/paddock.

dakotakdq Mon, 12/28/2009 - 04:23

my gorgeous dunskin gelding was PTS after a stupid lady (he was at a friends place) let him eat about 20kg of cracked corn and waited 3 days to tell me! his pedal bone rotated and went through his sole :(

NZ Appaloosas Mon, 12/28/2009 - 16:13

Ah geez...I'm sorry, MP. Anyone feel like holding down the owner and feeding them the equivalent????

Diane

Morgan Mon, 12/28/2009 - 17:33

Ouch, how long was the horse alone with the feed? and was he without hay before that? I've had one get into feed before but the most she ate over night was maybe 2 scoops. :? Usually they went for the alfalfa instead. They can't get into the feed at this place thankfully since its behind a big garage door on a barn across the property that I don't even think they know the feed is in lol. (you know, feed is magic: it just appears in the trough, especially if you kick it hard enough :roll: )

Heather Mon, 12/28/2009 - 19:37

mine would have to learn how to open house doors that are on the feed room lol.. i put the fear in my neighbor 2 days ago, his horses keep getting out and i had back gate open and they came into our property ugh... i took them home and they were on their front pourch doing vet/alpaca stuff and in front of their vet i said that they got into my feed room and i wa unsure how much they got, they didnt get in my feed room but i figured this might make them finally fix their fence :twisted:

Monsterpony Tue, 12/29/2009 - 01:06

Like I said before that you all probably already knew this, but it is nice to hear that people are making efforts. It was a very hard time on all of us working with him and all for a 100% preventable problem.

lipigirl Tue, 12/29/2009 - 08:24

One of my Lipi mares got out once and ate a load of grain that was dumped outside her stable by an idiot !!! Fortunately although she ate a LOT of it she was fine...I remember being glad that they had not delivered the sugarbeet at the same time as that I thought would be far worse !

critterkeeper Tue, 12/29/2009 - 20:33

My babies would have to be Houdini to get at the grain here as it is kept in a side barn (away from the pastures with a heavy, self-latching door), inside steel bins with interlocking hasp, that are inside a steel cabinet that has a spring loaded door with triple latches (must confess most of this was to confound the opossums and racoons)...and it has a heavy padlock on the outside.

Darwin got into some grain when he was about 6 yrs old (it was stored in a steel barrel with a spring loaded rim that sealed the lid to the barrel. That cuss learned how to pull the lever to release the spring on the lid (he does crazy things to stall doors and gates latches - and he can untie most ropes)

tjuri Wed, 12/30/2009 - 17:49

[quote="critterkeeper"]
Darwin got into some grain when he was about 6 yrs old (it was stored in a steel barrel with a spring loaded rim that sealed the lid to the barrel. That cuss learned how to pull the lever to release the spring on the lid (he does crazy things to stall doors and gates latches - and he can untie most ropes)[/quote]

Seems Darwin has the right name! :flower :rofl

Fortunately I never had that problem with a horse but with a goat, unfortunately you can't use a trokar on goats like on cows when they have gas in their stomach, goats get in shock... so hours and hours of oral treatment plus lifting goat up in front in order to get rid of the gas...(disgusting smell!) it was a long night but he survived and the stomach did not explode as my vet was afraid of... without treatment it would certainly have: He ate 5kg wheat... :shock: It was the same system as the steel barrel described above, he managed to jump through a window into the food-room and opened the barrel on his own... :o There I found him :evil:

Tianateke Wed, 03/03/2010 - 18:07

I now have a dog back, who when he was our foster, ate an asparagus fern when we put him on a diet. He had porked up to nearly 30lb on an 18" frame and we took a while to figure out how ( he was wedging in past the door on the stacking pet food bins despite the lock, as the door is plastic he was able to get IN the cat food bin )

Anyhow, when I got home his face was swelled like a bee sting, so he got benadryl. Then I noticed the plant was stripped of all but stems and he got syrup of Iopecic (arf meds), but he still hived all over his body so he got force fed charcoal AND some kind of diahrea inducing meds the Poison Control hotline recommended (why do critters never do these things during weekday business hours???) to move it through as fast as possible to limit absorption time. He stayed by my bed that night, and at some point lost bladder control, so he took himself pretty near the edge!

He gets lots of chewy stuff now that he is back with us so he feels he is eating [i]something[/i]. I wonder if a slow feeding free access hay box would prevent horses from bingeing so much if they did get out? Not saying that one shouldn't prevent access, just thinking it could be one more thing to help...

Our grain is in a shed with a spring closing door with a round knob (never a lever, we had a dog who would open those, and did you think he would close the door behind him???) in a can with a snap handle lid. At our old barn they had the same set up plus a chain that clipped across the doorway, so even if it some how got open or jammed the escapee couldn't reach all the way to the back wall where the bins were.