Warning over feeding potentially lethal carrots to horses

Bosses at Hopefield Animal Sanctuary in Brentwood, Essex, have issued a stark warning to visitors, after an elderly pony nearly choked to death on a huge piece of carrot. Thumper, who is one of the animal sanctuary's oldest residents, was spotted in distress one evening last month. "Just before we were due to go home, one of the guys noticed Thumper was retching and there was mucus coming out of his nose and mouth," manager Lianne Angliss said.

"I knew he was choking and horses can get it from eating anything, a bit like we do if it goes down the wrong hole. We phoned the vet and then he started colicking and that can be life-threatening." Colic is abdominal pain, according to animal hospital experts, and there are 70 different types, which range from mild to the most severe. Lianne continued: "When it starts to happen, horses start to roll because they feel uncomfortable and then their stomach starts to bloat and they can twist their intestines.



They then have to undergo full surgery or we have to put them to sleep, depending on how bad it is. "The pony was panicking because of stress. The guys were trying to calm him down. The vet came down and they checked and he noticed he had a carrot lodged in his throat. He had to be sedated for them to dislodge the carrot and it left him disorientated and his throat was quite sore. Their throats are not meant to swallow that size food." She added: "Thumper is fine now, he has gone back to normal, he is still looking for food."

It was not until later one of the staff mentioned they had seen someone with a bag of carrots at the sanctuary and Lianne added it is clear that food should not be given to the ponies. "Because they are older horses, they have not got teeth and their normal diet is sloppy food," she explained. "We have got signs up. It's more the fact we have signs up and people ignore them. It cost us £300 in vet fees, not to mention the stress." Now though, the staff hope to have struck a happy medium and say to people as they go through the entrance 'please remember you cannot feed the animals'.