Medical Emergency

Beetle is okay!!

Beetle loves eating. At the barn last weekend, Beetle dug into his bucket o’ food, then suddenly stopped and came up to me, flapping his front lip. He's never done that.

He started coughing, then circling his stall. More coughing. He was choking: he could breathe, but had food stuck in his esophagus.

I called the emergency vet, who recommended I massage his neck to try to break up the food blockage. Often horses can pass a blockage on their own.

For the next half hour while we waited for the vet to arrive, he coughed, shuddered, circled, and had mucus coming out of his nose and landing all over the floor.

I kept massaging his neck, saying over and over “Help is coming, Beetle!”

When the vet arrived, she sedated him and had to ‘tube’ him. A tube was snaked into one nostril and down his esophagus to pump in water.

I could NOT hold Beetle still for it. Luckily someone who works as a vet tech was at the barn; she offered to hold him and clearly knew how to do it. Thank goodness, because the vet had to pump a whole bucket of water into him to clear the blockage. It was really far down, he wouldn't have cleared it on his own.

When it was all over, I called my husband and burst into tears. He brought me dinner and I sat in the stall with Beetle while the sedative wore off. Then I let him out in the pasture, and sat outside reading the newspaper to keep him company. I honestly thought about camping out there, but by 8 p.m. he seemed fine.

I took the next morning off of work so I could be there for morning feeding. I carefully soaked his food for an hour, as the vet said.

Beetle hated it! He has a refined palate. We are experimenting with his food to see what he'll eat that isn't a choke hazard.