We had quite a night last night. Eva tried to ride Jack after school but he was really reluctant to go forward. No obvious signs of lameness but he looked uncomfortable so we called it quits. Put him back in the stable and he was tail swishing and kicking up at his belly. There's a vet nurse on the yard so she had a listen and said although there were gut sounds it was a little quiet. I walked him round for about half an hour but just not happy with him so rang the vet (out of hours call out. Ouch!) 

He did rectal exam and thought his poop was a little dry and there was a lot in there so he tubed a load of water down him. Poor little Jack but he was such a good boy. He had some buscopan, Bute and antibiotics and vet said to starve him till he'd passed another dropping. We got home about 10pm, had some food and a cuppa then headed back. I still didn't like the look of him and still no poop so rang the vet for advice. Advice was to take him in.  Had to negotiate a flood diversion to get there- not what you want at midnight! On the way he did do a small hard poo but I was glad to hand over the monitoring to the professionals knowing that if it did progress they could deal with it quickly. Poor little Eva was in pieces (she refused to stay home) Our lovely friends Lisa and Syd met us at the yard and followed us to the vets. Syd cuddled Eva all the way there bless her. I was so grateful to them. 

Anyway he had an uneventful night apart from he was furious not to be given any food and they started to re-feed throughout the day and I was able to bring him home this afternoon. Thank God. 

We're all exhausted and absolutely drained emotionally. I only got about 3 hrs sleep in the end and still had to go to work this morning and sort the other two out. Eva had the day off school. 

I had to go back and check him again tonight at 10pm and was starting to panic as he'd gone about 7 hours without a poo but just as I was on the verge of ringing the vet again, he went to the back of his stable and did one! Such a worry. Think it will take a while for the anxiety to settle!  So thankful to have him home. Colic can escalate very quickly so we were lucky it was a mild bout. Unfortunately I'll never be really sure what caused it but possibly a change of hay supplier. Who knows?!