Cautionary tale

[Ms Kitty]

Little while back I remember reading a thread about worming horses and now that I finally have my pics on comp I wanted to tell this little story as an example of how things can get rapidly to bad, then worse but in the end turn out alright.

Few years back we bought a young Swedish Ardenner as Dad needed a heavy work horse type for the work he was doing in our forest. He was a really nice little chap and we decided almost straight away that he was going to come home with us. I say "little chap" as he was rather small (not height wise though) for his breed and we did wonder about it, but just thought that it is because he was still young and since we didn't know much about his breed we figured it as a coldblood breed will develop rather slowly, but that wouldn't have been a problem for us as we were not in any hurry to get him to work.

Anyways, he came to our house/yard two days later, and settled in very well. The following day he was acting a bit weird, just standing around in the field and watching around, only touching his hay every now and again. We just thought, ah well, he is still settling in as he wasn't doing anything odd otherwise.

The following day everything just collapsed, literally. The horse was colicing, very badly! We called the vet immediately, he poured all sorts of liquids in him, gave him several wormers, more fluids and I ended up walking around with him for 5 hours, trying to keep him from lying down. He once even collapsed on top of Mom's car he was so weak. As he was rapidly getting worse and the vet didn't know what more to do, we took him to the nearest clinic and left him there for the night. The vet at the clinic made no promises and we fully expected to get a call from him the following morning that he has been needed to put down.

Luckily during the night the worst had passed and he had started pooing out the worms that had caused the colic. They weren't the normal worms horses get, I think they are called "round worms" in English, they are long white worms and very difficult to get rid of, apparently. He stayed at the clinic one more night and then came back as a changed horse. His appetite was back and there was a new glint in his eye. Clearly a much happier horse! Ever since then he was just great and we ended up keeping him for 6 years, and Dad did all the forest work with him and I took him out for hacks, even tried dressage and jumping with him but he was a bit too heavy for those. ;)

Anyways, we later found out where he got those worms. Before coming to Finland he was out on a huge field with other young horses from weaning till he was about 2.5 years old, without much done to them apart from feeding. He had also never been wormed. We informed the importer about this but I don't know how any of the other horses faired.

So, what was my point with this long thread? Just wanted to say that if you are buying horses from dodgy places and the horse is not looking everything he/she should, be prepared for everything! I have heard stories where people weren't as lucky as we were!

Thank you for reading this long post, here are some before and after pictures! Hard to believe it is the same horse, eh? ;)

This is August on the day he came.

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/2173/img0173oe2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And this is him couple of summers after, they way he was supposed to look like!

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/8512/img0171pg8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Sorry, the picture quality is not the best possible, pics of pics.

Nina x

[becs]

What a wonderful transformation! What lovely photos.

Thank goodness he fell into your kind hands.

I do sympathise regarding worms. Our rescue welshie wasn't wormed regularly for the 1st 16 years of his life. IMHO that's why he gets episodes of mild colic occasionally - from the damage done by the worms earlier.

[Nik-n-Kia]

My friends old horse had GUT-ROT form not being wormed from birth till he was 5 yrs old and he was permanently running with the skitz no matter what she fed him. The vet said his gut wall was sooo badly damaged that the tissue had repaired so as it was the same consistency as leather :eek: and liquid was not absorbed as it should be making him runny all the time!!!

Very bad these peeps who don't worm hossies as they should :mad:

Nikki xxxxx

[Ms Kitty]

Nik-n-Kia, that is what we were worried about too with this horse. the vet at the clinic said that even though he had passed the acute situation there was no way of knowing what damage the worms had already done and prepared us for the worse: the possibility of a new colic episode.

But during the time he was with us, he never had any problems and we keep contact with his current owner and they haven't had problems either. So all went well with him! :)

Thanks becs, I am rather proud of what he ended up looking like! :)

Nina x

[Nik-n-Kia]

Meant to add that he looks fabulous and what breed is he again??

Nikki xxxx

[Nik-n-Kia]

ooops swedish soz!!! what are they used for???

Nikki xxxx

[LMS]

Oh poor dear, I'm glad he ended up ok, it could've got so far worse wether he had had survived or not.

Actually not only a head's up from dodgy places, from anywhere that the horse is kept in herds as well. Some places only deworm the horses that will bring in income unfortunatly.

[Ms Kitty]

Nik-n-Kia, Swedish Ardenners are used for heavy work, either at farms that still do ploughing (sp?) or like we do, at our forest. Dad cuts down trees during the Autumn and then uses the horse to pull them with a sleigh to a big road where a tractor collects them as we don't heavy machinery destroying our forest while collecting the woods. Besides, it is Dad's hobby so even though it is really hard work he loves doing it.. ;)

But as work horse usage is is diminishing many just use them for showing. He was too heavy to do dressage or jumping like I already said, but he was the comfiest hack ever if you were not in any hurry. Walking he could have probably gone to the other end of the world, but if you wanted to go faster he stopped every now and again to huff and puff and then carried on. Was quite sweet actually as he really did try but just had too much mass to keep up the speed for very long. ;)

Nina x

[Nik-n-Kia]

Sounds fabby!!!!!

Lovely stamp of horse!!!!

It's a shame when breeds outlive their usefulness isn't it!!! At least they are versatile and I had a woman who used shires and shirecrosses and other heavier breeds for dressage as the slow paces looked fabulous wish I still had the pics!!!!

Will look for them later!!!!

Gorgeous horse!!!!

Nikki xxxx

[becs]

but he was the comfiest hack ever if you were not in any hurry. Walking he could have probably gone to the other end of the world, but if you wanted to go faster he stopped every now and again to huff and puff and then carried on. Was quite sweet actually as he really did try but just had too much mass to keep up the speed for very long. sigh, sounds like my dream horse! Shame he's been sold on... lol

[Chip]

What a lovely - and lucky - horse. Lucky to have fallen into your hands.:D
Although I am sure everyone here worms regularly, it amazes me how many people don't. A reminder is always worthwhile.
A few years back I bought a lovely Welsh Section B. For some unknown reason, we did not worm her immediately, but left her in a segregation paddock for two days(she was scared of humans).
Unfortunately, during this time, she got very loose droppings. We delayed worming her as we didn't want to upset her stomach, and we had been told she had been wormed very recently. She very quickly got very ill. The vet was out several times, giving injections. I ended up having to drench her daily to get medication into her, as she wasn't eating. By now she could barely stand or walk.She was a skeleton. Finally the vet said to worm her - it would eithe cure or kill her.
I wormed her. She started improving. It took months to get her back into a healthy weight, glossy, happy filly. She was just 3.

[JOJOBA]

Oddly enough a large amount of the horses I rang up about were unwormed - is this a new trend?

It was one of my questions and the minority were actually people who DID worm. When I said 'is he wormed and vaccinated?' about 8 out of 10 people said 'oh no love, we dont worm'. About half didnt bother with vaccinations, and about half also didnt bother with the dentist.

One horse I rang up about had some kind of horrific gut problem, but his owner didnt think it needed a vet and just changed it onto a feed for horses with sensitive stomachs (and by horrific I mean lashing out when the girth was done up, constant diahorrea, weight loss, lashing out at being touched, and no appetite :eek: ).

And these werent on-the-cheap horses that you might expect not to have had expensive treatments - the majority were £5000 plus dressage types.

Odd, isnt it??

xxx

[Ms Kitty]

It is scary how quickly the horses can drop weight and start looking very bad, and how long it will take to get them back to health again!

Nina x

[Ms Kitty]

And these werent on-the-cheap horses that you might expect not to have had expensive treatments - the majority were £5000 plus dressage types.

I've noticed that too! I am not fussed about the vaccination for our horse as he is the only one we have at our stable at the moment and doesn't travel much. But if I was to compete with him, his vaccination would definitely be up to date!

And we still worm him, no matter what!

Weird people, would have thought that they look after their horses if they really are worth all that money, not to lose it all because of a silly thing like worming! Not to say that the owners of the cheaper horses wouldn't/shouldn't look after them!

Nina x

[Keket]

When we told the vet we were getting a rescue case and asked what we should do to help her gain weight, we were told, "Whack the dewormers to her". Her previous owners had meant to deworm in May and still hadn't gotten around to it when we bought her in July, then quickly did so just before we bought her because we mentioned it to them. The day after she came home we dewormed her and we dewormed her six weeks later. So she had three doses in about two months. But there's no point in feeding the worms! She's on a regular deworming schedule now and doing just fine.

Lovely boy, Ms Kitty. I love heavy breeds. :) At horse shows, some of my favourite classes to watch are the heavy horse hitch classes.

[mu0ljk]

Wow!!! :eek: :eek:

I saw the first photo and then scrolled down to the 'after' photo - what a transformation!! He's a lucky lad to have you!

Gorgeous horse! Well done!