A PROBLEM OF MIDDLE AGE

Very few young horses have problems with enteroliths, perhaps because of the time it takes them to form in the equine gut. “In the cases we see, it’s pretty rare to find stones in horses under the age of 7 or 8 years old,” says Troy Herthel, DVM, DACVS-LA, staff surgeon at Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Center in Los Olivos, California. “It’s more a problem of middle-aged to older horses. The stones probably start forming early on but do not get large enough to cause problems until the horse is about 7 or 8. The youngest horse we surgically removed stones from was a 3 or 4 year old.”