I’m about to tell you a story of a serious colic incident on my brother and sister-in-law’s thoroughbred stud farm, down the south coast of Natal.
They had asked me to oversee their stud farm while they went up to Johannesburg for the national sales to sell one of their foals. For the first five days, everything went so smoothly. I thought, “This is such a piece of cake, it’s easy to run a stud farm.” Little did I know what was around the corner.
I immediately ran to the stables, collected my prepared mixture of five liters Vermate and a 300 ml plastic cup, and jumped into the van. We rushed to the horses. When I got there, I climbed through the wooden fencing with my Vermate mixture and cup. With the help of a staff member holding her mouth open, I poured in two doses of 300 ml.
She wouldn’t get up, so after about 10 minutes I gave her another 300 ml dose of Vermate, making 900 ml in total. After five minutes she managed to stand, but unfortunately collapsed again in the worst possible place—a sloping field near the fence. We feared she might get trapped underneath.
We put a halter on her, and while I pulled her head to keep her steady, three staff members tried to push her into a sitting position. It was a real struggle, she was exhausted. After about 15 minutes, we got her up and moved her to level ground. But once there, she collapsed again.
We let her rest, then I gave her another 300 ml of Vermate, bringing the total to 1,200 ml. Still, she couldn’t rise. My sister-in-law’s granddaughter arrived with painkillers and an injection, which I administered intramuscularly into her neck. Five minutes later, I urged the team to try again. I gave her one final 300 ml dose of Vermate, making it 1,500 ml in total.
This time, she got up. We walked her slowly on the flat ground, with one groom leading and another gently tapping her rump to keep her moving. She wanted to lie down, but we kept her going for 20–30 minutes. Finally, we walked her back to the stables, about 1.5 km away, alongside her companion mare.
By then she was much improved, nickering at the polo ponies as we passed. Back at the stables, the vet arrived, drenched her with Buscapane, and gave her intravenous treatment of Finadyne. Without the Vermate treatment we would have lost the top brood mare on our stud farm. This mare was also covered by a stallion which is a fairly well-known stallion in the Cape. She was carrying a highly prized foal while going through this terrible ordeal. By using Vermate to treat the colic we saved two in one. After this incident, I will always have Vermate on hand while working with horses. This story will be etched in my memory for a very long time.
Denham King – Vermate Agent in KZN
