Last fall, Louie laid an egg. Well sort of. He passed an
enterolith the size of a baseball. An enterolith is basically a stone made of minerals
that forms when an indigestible object, such as a nail or piece of baling
string, enters the intestines. The horse’s defense is to surround the object
with minerals so that it can do no harm, similar to how an oyster creates a
pearl around a grain of sand. Usually these are small and pass unnoticed. In
other instances, they are not readily passed and the body continues to add
layers and it grows larger and larger. If they grow large enough, an enterolith
can easily block the intestines and cause colic, which can quickly become
fatal. Lou is lucky. Judging from the
size of his enterolith, it probably had been growing in his intestines for many
years, and is more than big enough to cause colic. It would be interesting to have it sawed in
half to see what’s inside, yet we are going to keep it intact as a reminder of
Lou’s luck, and as conversation piece.
