Horse Colic: What Every Owner Needs to Know
Colic is the leading cause of death in horses. It is also one of the most misunderstood terms in equine care, because colic is not a single disease. It is a blanket term for any abdominal pain in a horse, and the causes range from a mild gas bubble that resolves on its own in an hour to a life-threatening displacement of the intestine that requires emergency surgery. Knowing which you are looking at, and how quickly you need to act, can mean the difference between a full recovery and losing the horse.
Every horse owner should understand the warning signs, the initial response steps, and what warrants an immediate call to a veterinarian. This is not knowledge you can look up in the moment. By then you may have already lost valuable time.
What Causes Colic
The horse's digestive system is uniquely vulnerable to colic for several anatomical reasons. Horses cannot vomit, so anything that builds up in the digestive tract cannot be expelled upward. Their stomach is small relative to body size, accounting for only about 10 percent of their total digestive volume. Their large colon, which processes most of the fermented fiber from hay and grass, makes several tight turns and is prone to displacement, twisting, or impaction.
Common causes include sudden diet changes, insufficient water intake leading to impaction, sand or dirt ingestion in paddocks with bare ground, dental problems that result in poorly chewed feed, parasites, and stress. According to VCA Animal Hospitals, horses on high-grain diets with low roughage intake are at significantly elevated risk. Horses without continuous access to hay or grass graze for 16 to 18 hours per day in the wild, and disrupting this pattern creates both behavioral and digestive stress.
Warning Signs to Watch For
The classic signs of colic, described by VCA Animal Hospitals and the American Association of Equine Practitioners, include: pawing repeatedly at the ground, turning the head toward the flank, getting up and lying down repeatedly or attempting to roll, refusing to eat or drink, elevated heart rate above 50 beats per minute, absence of gut sounds when listening with a stethoscope or ear pressed to the flank, and sweating without exercise. A horse lying flat and unresponsive, or one that is trying to roll violently, is showing severe pain and requires emergency veterinary care immediately.
Not all colic looks dramatic. Some horses show only mild restlessness, subtle flank-watching, or slightly reduced appetite. These early signs are easy to dismiss. Track any change in normal behavior carefully, particularly around feeding time, which is when most impaction and gas colics become symptomatic.
What to Do First
The AAEP recommends calling your veterinarian when signs appear, even if symptoms seem mild. Do not wait to see if it gets better. Do not administer pain medication, particularly banamine (flunixin meglumine), without veterinary instruction, because masking pain prevents accurate assessment of severity. A horse that was in severe pain and is suddenly calm after medication may appear improved when the underlying problem has not changed.
Walk the horse slowly to prevent violent rolling, which can cause a gut displacement or twist a segment of intestine that was previously in a survivable position. Do not gallop the horse or attempt to tire it out. Remove food from the stall. Check vital signs if you know how: normal heart rate is 28 to 44 beats per minute, normal respiratory rate is 12 to 20 breaths per minute. Report these numbers to your veterinarian when you call.
Sources
- VCA Animal Hospitals — Colic in Horses — types of colic, causes, warning signs, when to call a vet
- American Association of Equine Practitioners — Colic — first response steps, vital signs, medication precautions
- The Horse — Understanding Equine Colic — anatomy contributing to colic risk; common cause breakdown by type
- Merck Veterinary Manual — Colic in Horses — clinical overview, differential diagnosis, prognosis by type
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