grumblegrumblegrumble

OK, so after putting Stella on Succeed for her tummy, closely monitoring her turnout (she gets turned out at 6:30AM and comes in at noon to her walk-out stall), keeping her in during the hot periods of the day, dosing her with electrolytes if it gets above 80, and making sure when she's worked she's cooled down properly and not pushed too hard, you'd think the colic would be done with...

It's not. She colicked again this afternoon.

The difference this time: she's in HOT, HOT heat. I mean five-alarm, jalapeno, scorching heat. She'll nicker to anything that moves, flirts w/ any neighbor who comes close enough to make eye contact, pees like a racehorse and has been a raging bag of hormones for the last two days. Today, she was better, but yesterday she was so desperate I thought she might break from her stall to find the nearest stud.

Now, I haven't seen her have a heat cycle like this. Given, she's only 4, but she's been through a few and I think she's now really reaching her sexual maturity, because this was ridiculous. I could tell when she was in heat before because she would pee a little more, wink, and get a little goofy (you people with mares, you know what I'm talking about: their attention span just isn't quite there).

So when her newest boyfriend, Eryn's project G.I, got taken out this afternoon, her reaction was to run her paddock like an idiot, prancing around flashing him for attention. 10 minutes later, she was circling in her stall, trashing it as she laid down, got up, laid down, rolled a little, got up, etc. She kept passing gas all the while.

My guess? She managed to work herself up enough to get herself uncomfortable enough to cause a colic. A mild one, as usual, but still a colic.

I didn't need to give her drugs (bad mom, I didn't have any Banamine on hand) or walk her, I let her lie down and watched her, and she came out of it fine. I called my vet, who didn't answer but called me back within 2 minutes and responded to my hello with "she's colicking, isn't she?" I went over to his house and picked up a jar of IV Banamine (cheaper than the paste, people! And you can give it orally!) and a syringe of Gastroguard, to be dosed with the Banamine to be on the safe side.

When I came back from the vet's, she was standing and waiting in front of her stall guard for dinner. Mares.

So, all is well, sort of, for now anyway. It appears the mystery hasn't been solved yet, but my vet and I have planned a phone date tomorrow to discuss possible causes and the next steps in diagnosis and treatment...