Horse Colic

When I arrived to feed the horses this morning, I noticed one of our horses, Chili, laying down by the water trough. He was still sitting upright but it is unusual for a horse to be on the ground at feeding time. As I started to put the hay out I noticed that Chili was by then completely down and laying on his side. It was obvious I had a colic problem. I put a halter on him and took him out of the pasture to begin the "colic walk" while I called the vet on my cell phone. The military vet was in Tucson, of course, so I called Debbie and asked her to track down the local civilian vet for help. The military vet called back to say that none of her vet techs were available to help me so I asked her to have her staff draw up some meds to give to the horse. I then asked Debbie to pick them up on her way out to help me. I walked the horse for about 40 minutes before Debbie showed up and we were able to administer the pain killers. The horse recovered quickly and the civilian vet showed up to check him out and give him some more meds. By the end of the day Chili was back to normal. Thank goodness for cell phones.