There's a particular kind of dread that comes over you the moment you spot a horse standing oddly still in the corner of the paddock, not touching their hay, glancing back at their flank. If you've been around horses for more than five minutes you already know what I'm talking about. Colic is one of those words that makes every rider's stomach drop, and for good reason, because early signs of colic in a horse can be so subtle that they're easy to explain away as a horse just having an off day.
I've had horses colic on me at the worst possible times, at midnight before a competition, on a scorching January afternoon, right as I was about to head out the door for work. What I've learned over the years is that the horses who came through it best were the ones where I caught something wrong early and didn't talk myself out of calling the vet.
What colic actually means
Colic isn't a disease in itself, it's just the term we use for abdominal pain, and it can range from a mild gassy tummy ache that sorts itself out in twenty minutes to something far more serious that needs surgery. That's what makes it tricky. A horse rolling around in obvious distress is easy to spot. A horse who's just a bit quiet and picking at their feed is the one that catches people out, because it's so easy to assume they're just tired or the weather's got them flat.
The early signs of colic in a horse worth watching for
This is the bit worth actually committing to memory, because acting in the first hour makes such a difference. Watch for a horse who's gone off their feed, even partially. Watch for one who's lying down more than usual, or getting up and down repeatedly. Pawing at the ground, looking or nipping at their flank, stretching out like they're trying to urinate but nothing's happening, these are all worth paying attention to. So is a horse who just seems dull, off in themselves, not greeting you the way they normally would. Would you actually notice if your horse's normal changed overnight? That's the real question, because you can't catch early signs of something you don't have a baseline for.
Reduced or absent gut sounds are another big one if you know how to check, and so is a change in manure, whether that's less than usual or noticeably drier. None of these on their own is necessarily an emergency, but a horse showing two or three of them together is telling you something.
What to do in the first ten minutes
Take their temperature, check gum colour and capillary refill if you know how, and have a listen to their gut on both sides if you can. Remove any feed but leave water available unless your vet tells you otherwise. Walking a colicky horse gently can help in mild cases, but don't exhaust them trying to force it, and never give them anything by mouth without your vet's say so. The golden rule is that if you're even slightly unsure, call the vet and describe what you're seeing. A five minute phone call costs nothing. Waiting two hours to see if it passes has cost horses their lives.
Knowing your horse well enough to notice
Honestly, the best colic prevention tool most of us have isn't anything fancy, it's just knowing our horse's normal so well that anything off jumps out straight away. That's a huge part of why I built the routine and health tracking into EquiCare, so you've got an actual record of how much they usually eat, how their manure normally looks, when they were last wormed, rather than trying to hold it all in your head after a long day. When something changes, you notice faster.
No one wants to think about colic until they're standing in a paddock at 11pm wondering if they're overreacting. You're probably not. Trust the horse in front of you, and act on what you're seeing rather than what you're hoping.
