So my mare had an impaction on the 10th, only symptom being cramping by the flank and the bulge in front of the flank that comes with that tightness. No change in behavior, still wanted food, no rolling/pawing/kicking. We tubed her, and slowly began refeeding as she appeared fine and was pooping. Monday she relapsed. Long story somewhat short, it took 9 tubings of epsom salts and dss together, for anything to be able to be felt on a rectal. It was felt Wednesday am at bottom right, most likely cecum. Our favorite place to have impactions....not. She was grouchy when they palpated it, and would kick you if you touched her side on the right by this point. Some tiny amounts of feces were passing through all this time, pulled off of feed Monday. She was being given 1lb of senior in a water bucket of warm water to entice her to drink. As she's normally a 1/2 bucket a day type horse, hence the situation. A rectal exam 30 hours after the inital one with the impaction felt, it was still just chilling in the same spot. Finally the next afternoon (Friday the 17th), rectal showed it was just beginning to come through the pelvic flexure. She was living at the clinic for the week, but they sent her home after another tubing Friday night feeling confident it was coming. At that point nothing was felt at all on the right side. No banamine was given during any of this, as to not mask symptoms as surgery wasn't out of the question. Friday the consulting surgeon at the vet I would take her to, recommended continuing fluid therapy as he's has many take 10-14 days to pass. Saturday morning while cleaning her stall, I picked up a small cantalopue sized pile, that was ungodly heavy. Talking like full big basket forkful of peespot type heavy. It appeared green and shiny, just a big blob of no real shape. Well, inside was basically like a dry hay cube. So tightly compacted and all digested hay matter. We assume that was part of our impaction. The rest of the day, she unloaded 4 absolute behemoths of piles. Talking a foot wide and nearly a foot tall. An obscene amount. And from there they continued to get smaller and she is now almost forming apples, but small pony sized piles. Keep in mind she's only eating 1lb of the senior in a water bucket, she drinks 3-4 of those a day and then eats the sludgy grain at the bottom. And she is allowed to have a handful of hay on a schedule, my flakes peel off in those 1" sections and she's getting 1.5 a day. However she's still cramping and its Monday. She goes back in at 8am for rectal and exam just to be safe. However, has anyone had one cramp for days after an impaction? Today is day 11 of this. She's now acting like a psychopath for food, which last week she would pick at her handful of hay for about 2 hours and was only drinking 1.5-2 of the buckets of what we call "grain juice" now. So her appetite has done a 180. My vet is still concerned about cramping, but she went on vacation so the partner will be examining her tomorrow. He did do some of her care at the clinic last week though, so he is familiar with the situation. Just finding it odd that she's pooping regularly and drinking well, but still cramping bad. Not touchy on the side now though, just cramps. Just wondering if anyone's had any experiences similar? 

Maybe she developed ulcers during the stress and pain of impaction.

We are addressing that possibility, shes still getting her GastroPlex pellets daily and we are running some omeprazole through her to be safe. She went about 10 hours today with no poop and finally dumped one, it was fairly dry on the inside. So seems like she may still have some impaction to come out. It's possible there was more in the cecum that was out of reach and its still flushing out 

Dang.. what an ordeal! Any idea why she balled up like that in the first place? Was it balled up hay stuck? That's crazy! I always worry about stuff like that. I have a few that aren't the best drinkers but they get soaked sloopy feed every day every feeding. It's a pain in the rear to do but I'm hoping my efforts will help prevent impaction. Was your horse eating the same sr feed and hay when all this happened? 

The impaction was hay. Not sure the reason, the Friday she first showed signs was a week of changes. I had gotten a load of alfalfa, same cut and field as usual my hay guy just stores for me and I get it as I need it. But came into a few bales that were the edge of the field that were about 50/50 mix. My old guy can't have grass hay with his cushings, so I was feeding it to her. She has impacted on grass hay before, however I didn't think much since it was 50/50 this time and she was still getting a flake of the straight alfalfa with it. We also had awful weather leaving her inside a lot more and nights are cold enouhg that waters are freezing. So activity decreased and water probably decreased, she's not a fan of water anyway. And then Friday, the day the vet first came we were in 70 degree, heavy temps with the tornadoes. So it was a perfect storm week, could have been any of these reasons or a combo of them. 

I board and having her food soaked isnt an option at both feedings, but I am there every night and can. I make an alfalfa slop for my old man every night so it's no trouble to make her a bucket of her own slop as well. She was eating Kalm N Ez when it happened, the vet had me pick up senior while she was staying at the clinic for a safer feed to use in the water. Keep some nutrients going in her and easier to disgest. We did scope her today for ulcers while she had no food in her, she was clear. And her rectal was completely clear as well. So we determined the cramping is more than likely lack of food and inflammation from the major impaction being so slow moving. So they want me to slowly reintroduce her to food with 4 small meals a day and just monitor her for the rest of the week. Use the senior for the week and then slowly over the course of 3 weeks do the gradual change back over to her normal grain. And ust salt her grain to entice her to drink, probably for life 

The weather has been absolutely bipolar where I am too. 32 degree lows one or 2 days then back up to 80s the same week. It's crazy. Glad the horse is cleared out and no ulcers. Sometimes it's all we can do to just keep them upright and breathing!  I've been giving extra forco with this nutty weather, not sure it's 100% helpful but I know it doesn't hurt them. I throw in a few handfuls of beet pulp shreds before I add warm water to their feeds .. figured the extra moisture and fiber can't hurt. I have 1 horse who can't eat alfalfa hay so he gets soaked alfalfa cubes in the middle of the day while the others get hay. I'm telling you,  it's a full time job lol. Hope everything works out good for your horse going forward. I also feed my horses out of a slow feed net or bag to slow them down. They are pretty much in dry runs connected to their stalls so I just keep the nets filled. I need to get out and shred our pastures and get some fencing fixed so I can turn out more. 

She has a hay chix net in her stall that is used, and usually one outside but with it being so rainy and gross I just threw flakes on the ground bc if her bale gets rained on she wont touch it. She's particular. So that was also a change. She's a delicate flower. She's impacted several times before, but they wer epelvix flexure impactions and took one tubing. And for those she was dramatic, down on the ground acting like she had 30 seconds of life left. And she was polar opposite with this major cecal impaction. On gross weather days I will just hang a regular net on the fence, that way its there and if it gets wet and she refuses it I'm just out a few flakes