Food for thought
Feeding after
colic surgery
A
high standard of post-operative care is crucial for a successful recovery after colic surgery. Joanna Palmer, nutritionist for Allen & Page Horse Feeds, offers feeding advice to ensure your horse receives the nutrition he needs to help return to a healthy and active lifestyle.
your care at home. The responsibility for feeding and managing a post-operative animal can be an anxious time for many owners. Still, your vet will likely give you strict recommendations as to which feeds and forages are suitable for your horse and the quantity and frequency at which they should be fed.
While hospitalised, your horse will be carefully monitored, and the reintroduction of feed will be under the close supervision of a team of experts. Only after a gradual transition to a relatively normal feeding regime has been successful will your horse be deemed fit for discharge into
Following colic surgery, keeping a horse on box rest for at least eight weeks is strongly advised. This period of confinement is vital to allow healing by keeping the strain on the incision site to a minimum and help prevent complications such as a hernia developing. When confined
14
nutrition
to a stable a horse’s energy requirements will be significantly less than if they were in work. Providing a diet too high in energy could make a horse on box rest agitated and difficult to handle, which in turn will hamper healing. Nutrition at this stage should focus on supplying a balanced diet to facilitate a healthy recovery while providing a low level of energy. Keeping meal sizes small (around 500g dry weight) will minimise physical stress on the incision site. A high fibre feed that is low in starch and sugar will be gentle on the digestive system, help to encourage normal gut movement and aid the re-establishment of healthy microbial
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