Choke I have questions

I just had the vet leave after having a mare that was experiencing Choke.
She started at about 11 this morning and I called the vet at 12.
I frst noticed that she stopped eating her grain and was standing funny.
I fed the other horses and returened to her. She was trying to throw up it seemed. I rubbed her neck and could feel the obstruction. She coughed and some nucous came out of ther nostrils. After going to the house to get my cell phone and taliking tot he vet he adised that I give her some time to see if it would dissolve on its own.
At 3 I called him back and he got here at 530. He flushed her out by tubing her and gave me antibiotics to prevent pnuemonia. SPelt that wrong forgive me.
This is the first case of this I have ever had. It is the mare that I bought for my birthday.
I am feeding her omolene 400 and alfalfa pellets combined.
The vet suspects the alfalfa pellets are the culprit.
He also suggested putting rocks in her tub to slow her eating down.
Anyone else have this issue and how did you deal with it?
All advice is wanted and appreciated. Thanks in advance. Shalom

Soak the pellets before feeding. Should prevent another episode.

I'm glad your vet gave antibiotics as a preventative measure!
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Im so glad I can be of help on this
Choke is pretty common in Arabians, first of all. She was tubed and gets antibiotics. Good.
I very strongly suggest to NOT feed her ANY dry pellets at all anymore. Soak all her feed.

If you take whatever pellet you feed and soak it a little, just one pellet each, you'll be surprised how much it expands. So, if horse is very hungry or doesn't chew thoroughly for any other reason, these pellets expand on the way down and if it's enough of them they cause choke.

My very first Arabian choked several times until I realized why. Last time. E was tubed 17 times in the first session alone and 7 more times in the clinic the next day.

Agreed. You have to be careful feeding alfalfa pellets (or cubes) with many horses because of how they expand.

I also agree with the soaking of the feed.... I know that I had a horse choke and he choked bad. The vet also thinks that it was the alfalfa pellets... we had to get some from a different store as my regular was out and they where much bigger than the ones that we normally used.

I am for discontinuing the afalfa pellets completely. Do you think that the Omolene 400 needs to be soaked also?
Sorry to be such and idiot but how much water and for how long ? I will do whatever to prevent another episode.
I have also been told that if they do it once they are likely to do it again.
This is a valuable mare and I want to use her to upgrade my broodmares and possibly promote a young stallion form her to show and sell. Shalom

You can keep giving the alfalfa pellets. Its any pellet who expands when wet.
I usually use 2 parts water, 1 part pellets and go from there, most likely that will be good with the Omolene too. I then check if there are still hard pellets and add water again. I soak in the evening for morning and vice versa. If you forget to soak, hot water gets them soft in about 10 minutes. And in winter, they enjoy a warm meal also...well, maybe not in Texas

Had a horse choke on cubes before, It was very scary, he was even sqeeling, and streching his neck out. He got it out while I was on the phone to the vet. I found that there were 2 different sizes of cubes offered, so I started buying the smaller size and never had an issue after that...My friends horse choked on a chunk of apple before, they had no idea, because the neighbor gave the apple. Took them forever to figure out what she could possibly be choking on.

Good thing you were there to see this happen.

Thanks for the advice and I will definetly be soaking the pellets in the morning. Hot water and 10 minutes then start soaking them everyday. That is really going to be messy with 28 horses. Wish me luck.
Not as messy as what she coughed all over me and the vet several times while he tubed her.
She wuill cough for a few days and have a discharge from her nose. I ahve never seen that much mucos and that colour in my life when I went out to check her. Shalom

It wasn't mucus....it was soaked pellets.
Do you feed hay? If so, feed hay first, then 30, 45 minutes later the pellets...to all horses who don't eat too fast, don't get all greedy. They most likely eat slow enough to not have a problem.
If you want to soak for all, soak a big tub full