When you care for more than two dozen horses it never hurts to be prepared for a veterinary emergency. Let’s face it…horses are basically designed to self-destruct. But I learned that when the majority of those horses are over the age of 20 and declining in health, dealing with some emergencies means dealing with life and death situations. One of the scariest senior horse medical emergencies I’ve dealt with was choke.

During my time caring for the Girl Scout horses, I experienced two episodes of choke in two different horses. One of those was incredibly scary to deal with while the other ended up resolving before the veterinarian arrived. But in the end, both ended well and proved priceless educational experiences.

Choke #1–My first experience with a choking horse was when Cadence, a 25+-year-old Arabian gelding got his dinner (commercially manufactured pellets) lodged in his esophagus. He was waiting in the fenced area around the barn to go out to the pasture for the night while a few other workers and I prepared the other horses for the evening. We heard a scuffle from down the barn and upon looking to see what was going on, saw Cadence spinning, lying down, and getting back up repeatedly.

Our first thought was colic, so one coworker went to call the vet. I approached Cadence with another coworker to see if I could get a closer look at what was going on. Once we had him haltered, he stopped trying to lie down and stretched his neck out and down. Saliva drained out of his mouth and nostrils and his entire body contracted repeatedly as he tried to clear whatever was stuck in his throat. The noises he made while gagging were indescribable