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Discussion on Horse death fro parasites
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Member:
foggyval
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Posted on Monday, Nov 5, 2007 - 2:25 pm:
We purchased a horse to replace our grandson's lifelong horse, who had died in August. Three weeks after we purchased the horse, she died. An autopsy by our vet revealed 2 feet of gangrenous bowel. Our vet feels her bowel was blocked by strongyles, it blew open, and she died. We were wondering, if when we first purchased her, would it have helped to worm her? The seller SWORE the horse was 100% sound and she had wormed her. The horse never did well at hour house, not much appetite, sweat heavily....we feel some of these symptoms MUST have been visible in the time prior to our owning her for three weeks. Our question is....wouldn't it have taken longer than three weeks for a bowel to block off and turn to gangrene? Wouldn't the seller have noticed she was off her feed and the heavy sweats? She DID have a fan running on the horse, which we did think was odd. Would the horse have survived had we wormed her immediately, or was it too late by then?
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov 6, 2007 - 6:24 am:
Hello Sara Lee,
My condolences on the horse.
I believe you mistook what your veterinarian meant. The problem you describe is not caused by blocking of the lumen of the bowel by strongyles but instead blocking the lumen of the mesenteric arteries by scar tissue created by strongyle larval migration. These scars form over years of poor deworming care then eventually a piece breaks off and travels down stream eventually lodging in the terminal portions of the artery creating an emboli that cuts the blood off to the bowel which then dies very quickly, minutes to a few hours at most. Deworming after the damage is done would not have helped. Images of this process are in the article associated with this discussion area.
DrO
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