We are devastated to have to share the very sad news that Sweet Pea colicced this week. Although she seemed fine the night before and ate her dinner and grain, the next morning when Javier (our caretaker) went to feed her, he found her laying down and refused to get up to eat.
Javier urgently called us to let us know something was wrong. We rushed down to see her, and immediately called the vet. We gave her pain medication and when the vet arrived we started her on fluids, but she did not improve, and we did end up having to put her down later that morning. She was surrounded by all of us there, who petted her and let her know at the end that we loved her very much.
The vet believes that the colic was caused by a strangulating lipoma, although without a necropsy we’re not completely certain. A lipoma is a long, string-like piece of fatty tissue that can wrap around the intestines, cutting off circulation and killing the intestine. This is more common in older horses, and there is no way to prevent this from happening. There is no cure for this besides surgery, and unfortunately the vet did not believe she would survive a surgical procedure. The vet also noted that this type of colic usually comes on very fast, so she would not have been down for long before we found her.
We are all terribly devastated by the loss of this lovely little girl who we were just getting to know. We will miss her spunky, yet gentle, personality. Sweet Pea was only in our lives for a relatively short time, but she was a part of our family, and was very much loved by all of us at Hanaeleh.
We want to thank everyone who has helped support Sweet Pea. She went through so much before she got to us, and it is so tragic that she passed just as she was finally in a safe place where she would never be hurt again. We are so upset on her behalf that we were unable to spend more time spoiling her and giving her the life she so deserved.
