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Last August, Scoobie hit the ground running. Normal birth, normal foal. He had his mama's shaggy coat and was an adorable addition to our farm. Everyone wanted to buy him, but we put our normal hold on him until 5 months when he would be weaned. When he was about 2-3 weeks old, he had a mild choke incident. We were not alarmed as we have had babies around this age choke before. It is an easy "fix" as it is usually a long piece of hay or such that they have not chewed up well enough. He seemed fine and all was well again. About a week later, another choke. Mild and again "fixed" with throat massage, etc. We also noticed at this time that he frequently had milk drips in his nose. Upon a vet exam, it was suspected that he had some sort of soft palate problem. Physical and visual exam of the throat showed nothing unusual. Blood was drawn for CBC. White count was drastically elevated and fibrinogen levels slightly elevated. A cyst or tumor was suspected now, and he was started on antibiotics without still really even knowing what was wrong. CBC was checked weekly for many weeks without any significant changes. We decided to wean him at three months thinking that the "nursing position" might be somehow contributing to the milk in his nose. He was started on grain and hay. Since no vet in our area had a scope small enough for a donkey foal, we packed Scoobie up in November and headed to a large animal clinic in Tallahassee. The vet there scoped his throat and found the soft palate to be normal in every way. Gutteral pouches, sinuses, and esophagus all looked normal. The good news was that there was no evidence of tumor or cyst or physical abnormality. The bad news was that we still didn't know why Scoobie choked frequently and always had milk/food dripping from his nose. Back home. More antibiotics, antacids (suspected maybe stomach problem now...ulcer, sphincter etc.) and weekly CBC. No significant change. By this time, Scoobie was severely underweight, lethargic and had developed the habit of nursing on himself. We pretty much had come to the point of making a VERY difficult decision. We then made the "last resort" decision in March to take Scoobie up to Auburn Vet College. After driving him up there and spending the day in various labs for this test and that, all reports were normal. No defects, abnormalities, cysts, ulcers, tumors etc. found. There was a disturbing amount of "reflux" in the base of his esophagus, though, that was unexplainable. The vet decided to do just one more test, but we would have to leave him overnight as it had to be a fasting test and we had fed him that morning and in the trailer on the trip up there. We left him. The following day we returned with heavy hearts knowing what we had to do if they did not find the cause of his problem. They preformed a contrast radiogram on his esophagus. This is an x-ray that is done after a radioactive dye is squirted in the esophagus. It makes the esophagus, stomach and part of the duodenum more visible in an x-ray. Ahhh....the magic test. All the dye that was introduced into Scoobie's esophagus was pooled up at the entrance to his stomach. Diagnosis: Megaesophagus Scoobie's esophagus is normal size in his mouth and throat area but about 3 times normal size where it enters the stomach through a normal sized sphincter. Scoobie was eating and drinking but none of the food was reaching his stomach. When he would lower his head to graze, eat, or drink, it would just run out of his nose. He was literally starving. This is an EXTREMELY rare condition in equine and Auburn had no cases on record EVER for an equine. Scoobie was the first. They see it in dogs, but he was the first equine. We now knew waht the problem was, but no past cases to know how to treat it. Vet joked that since Scoobie was like a big shaggy dog, we would start there. We would elevate his food and water dishes and not let him eat with lowered head just like they do for dogs. If that didn't work, we would put our heads together and think of something else. We put Scoobie on Spillers Meadow mix (a grain mixture with natural herbs added to aid digestion), Natural Glo (a stabilized rice bran product to add fat with no added protein), and Showing Chaff (a hay product that is coated with vitamins and minerals). All fed from elevated feeders. It is almost June and Scoobie is fat and sassy. He is growing well and has renewed energy enough to run with the other babies and roll with the best of them in the rolling hole. He has stopped nursing on himself and only has an occasional "snort" of feed from his nose and this is only when we have let him out to play and he, of course, grazes a little. It was a long haul for such an easy fix, but all has ended well. Hopefully by Auburn keeping an eye on Scoobie, they will know what to do next time they are faced with a problem like his. If you or your vet knows of any information that may help with Megaesophagus in Equine please contact us. We'd love to know as much as we can about his condition and what the future holds for him. UPDATE: Scoobie is now more than three years old and thriving !! He no longer eats exclusively from elevated feeders. He grazes with the herd. His personality is so laid back that we use him for a lot of public relations visits.
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