gelding can`t drop to urinate

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Susara

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Feb 5, 2004
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Hi there

I`m currently riding another girl`s TB gelding since she can`t ride right now. On putting him to stable after my ride yesterday I noticed that he was looking uncomfortable. He stretched his back legs as if to urinate, but he obviously struggled to drop his penis from the sheath. A little urine did pass, but really not in the amounts we expect from equines :). And he kept on looking very uncomfortable, trying to urinate but seeming not to be able to.

I told our yard owner about it and he said he`d have a look, but he didn`t look worried. Is this something to worry about? The gelding is about 7 I think, and I have not been riding him often enough to know whether he often has this problem.
 
Well not to panic you or anything but i would be worried by that and ringing the vet for advice. Not being able to pass urine can cause serios problems in humans so presumable its the same in horses. Possibly some kind of blockage or infection. Is there a number you can contact your vet on for some advice over the phone??
 
sorry just reread post, i would contact owner asap to let them know and see if he has had the problem before then they can get intouch with their vet if they need to :)
 
By the next day things had unfortunately worsened, although it seems that the urinating problem was not really the issue; the horse is really stiff in the hind legs and extremely uncomfortable. He shifts his weight stiffly from one hind leg to the other, and he has what looks like small muscle spasms in his flanks and buttocks. I think the problem urinating resulted from that.

Yard manager was very worried saying it looks like he's tied up, but that's really weird because this horse is under very little work load (too little, in fact, but he's turned out every day). Had the owner and vet come out yesterday and he took blood samples, hopefully we'll know by today what the problem is. Vet didn't think he was tied up. At least he is still eating, although not very enthusiastically, and drinking water as well.

Such a shame, the horse is a real sweety and his owner is very nice as well.
 
That would seriously worry me, last horse I saw doing that had to go to hospital for emergency colic surgery, we had thought it could be tied up but being a yearling who had no feed it was very unlikely, vet couldn't decide either so he went to hospital for checks and they found and intersection colic and had to operate, he was poorly for about 3 weeks and a further 3 months to mend, he's right as rain now though.

J
 
Turns out he has biliary fever. After two days of treatment he does seem much happier, but of course he's been booked off for 6 weeks. Luckily he is still young and we hope there won't be any permanent damage.

I can't get too much info on biliary fever on the web, but it seems that it can cause kidney problems - could that be why he struggled urinating? Has anyone else seen a horse become so stiff, tied-up like, with muscle spasms, from biliary fever?

What I also find strange is that, when I rode him Saturday, he was quite forward-going - he cantered on a first ask, a nice relaxed but bouncy canter. But then we only did about 20 mins trotting and just two rounds cantering on each reign around the arena.

But I am relieved that we know what it is, and although it's serious we know how to treat it and he should be fine.
 
Hm, I meant to say "easily understandable" info on the web. Sections like "Equine babesiosis is an acute, subacute, or chronic infectious hemolytic disease" is a bit above me... :)

Actually this is a very nice article, just takes some concentration!

Thanks for the good wishes, I do think he should be fine since he was in good shape, is still young (6/7, I think) and we'll be be sure to only take him back to work very very slowly.
 
Whoops! Sorry I keep forgetting that not everyone may enjoy reading deeply technical verterinary/medical texts :eek: :p

As part of my job I read a lot of scientific medical literature, so it kind of becomes second nature :rolleyes:
 
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