Call your veterinarian promptly — don't wait it out — whenever your horse shows signs of colic, has trouble breathing, is bleeding and it won't stop, has an eye injury, suddenly won't bear weight on a leg, appears to be choking, or is down and cannot get up. These are the situations where hours genuinely matter, and where early treatment gives your horse the best chance of a good outcome.
The Red-Flag List
Keep this short list somewhere you can find it fast, like on the barn wall or in your phone:
- Colic signs: pawing, repeatedly looking at the flank, rolling, sweating, refusing feed, or passing little or no manure
- Breathing trouble: flared nostrils at rest, noisy breathing, or obvious effort to draw air
- Choke: feed material or saliva coming from the nostrils, coughing, and distress after eating — a choking horse can usually still breathe, but it needs veterinary help
- Eye injuries or sudden cloudiness: eyes are emergencies; even a small injury can worsen quickly
- Severe lameness: a horse unwilling to put weight on a leg, or one with a hot, swollen joint
- Uncontrolled bleeding or a deep wound, especially near a joint
- A horse who is down and cannot rise, or one who is staggering or uncoordinated
- A mare having difficulty foaling, or a newborn foal who isn't nursing
If you see one of these, make the call first and gather information while you wait for guidance.
What to Do While You Wait
Once you've called, a few calm steps help both your horse and your vet. Keep the horse as quiet and comfortable as you safely can, and remove feed if colic or choke is suspected, following your vet's instructions. If it's safe, note your horse's temperature, heart rate if you know how to take it, appetite, water intake, and manure output — a vet will almost always ask what changed and when you first noticed it.
Write down the timeline: when the horse was last normal, what symptoms appeared, and in what order. Under stress, those details blur quickly, and an accurate timeline can shape the advice you get on the phone.
When Waiting Is Reasonable — With Monitoring
Not every concern is a midnight emergency. A mild decrease in appetite in an otherwise bright horse, a small superficial scrape, or a slightly loose shoe can often be monitored, with a call to your vet for advice during normal hours. The key word is monitored: recheck the horse, note whether things are improving or worsening, and lower your threshold for calling if anything changes.
Trust your knowledge of your own horse, too. A subtle change that only you would notice — he's just not himself — is worth a phone call. Vets would far rather hear about a problem early than meet it late.
Getting the Whole Care Circle Moving Fast
Emergencies rarely happen when the owner is standing right there. Often it's a family member, a barn worker, or a friend doing evening chores who spots the problem first — and then precious minutes go into figuring out who to call and what the horse's history is.
KinsLe's Family Sharing helps close that gap: observations recorded for this horse sit in one shared view for the whole circle. Whoever spots trouble writes down what changed, plus appetite, manure, and temperature, and owner, family, and regular caretakers read the same entries instead of reconstructing events from separate calls. Whoever reaches the horse or speaks to the vet next starts from identical notes, and shared visibility is what saves the minutes.
The rule of thumb stays simple: if you're asking yourself whether it's serious enough to call, it usually is. With the Family Sharing view on KinsLe, relatives can all see the temperature, appetite, and manure notes recorded for this horse, so whoever speaks to the vet next works from the same observations.