Friday, July 21, 2017

Lumps and Bumps - What do you do?


We're sliding into home on week 2 of "Single Mother of 5". The puppy is substantially more potty trained than he was. The older dog has been good, but found a neighbor's chicken hiding in our landscaping yesterday... and did his bird dog thing. Whoops. The mares saw the farrier on Monday (and I really like him, he did a great job).

#NOFILTER

Horse wise, beyond the farrier, I've spent a lot of time staring at Foxie's butt and Arya's leg. Foxie has been kind of... lean lately. And I can't tell if it's a food thing, or a "I haven't been worked in ages why would I have muscle" thing or what. She doesn't actively eat as much as the younger horses, but even when given a regular hay net vs a slow feed net doesn't "clean up" her usual serving of hay. I tried a couple of days of electrolytes  - no visible difference, but lots of pee - and am doing a course of Sand Clear just to make sure I'm covering all my bases before I increase her grain or add something like rice bran. I've been giving her a flake of higher quality hay in with the regular stuff, but she's still wasting plenty (I can't tell if she's dropping it or sorting it out) of hay, so I feel like I need to increase her night feed instead of adding more hay. I just want the butt to stop looking so... angular. So she probably needs to go back into a lunge routine again, too.



Arya's leg has also been a problem; the girls farted around and she did a whole lot of food-aggressive chasing on Sunday night before hubs left (I was late to feed) and Monday night she had two diagonally swollen legs. The front went down the first night and has stayed down. The left hind, however, is becoming a far too familiar friend. I've been wrapping her in BOT and feeding extra MSM; so far she's been sound, and most days the swelling goes entirely down with a BOT standing wrap over night and re-appears throughout the day when she's out wearing a normal fly wrap.




She's been sound, so I've done some light riding a few days and let her canter a bit during our last ride since we've been sticking to walk/trot only the other rides. We ride in support boots with liniment, and cold hose after. The darn swelling just won't go away, though. It looked pretty amazing this morning - I finally broke down and gave her a gram of bute last night, and another this morning. I'm interested to see what the leg looks like by turn in time tonight. Maybe I can be done doing standing wraps!

Legs. oldest top left, newest bottom right.

It makes me wonder, though; what would you do? When do you call a vet? If it's tendon related, I feel like I'm following the usual instructions - cold hosing, wraps, keeping her from stomping the leg to smithereens and while maybe a vet might not recommend riding, I feel like I'm keeping her stretching and from doing too much running in the pasture. To be honest... I don't want to pay for a vet bill right now. I will if I need to, but I don't want to. You know how it is.

We're all still (mostly) in tact despite me being all by my lonesome, and I'll call it a win!

6 comments:

  1. Oh gosh idk... When my guy came in with something that looked like soft tissue we put him on a bute and stall rest and wrapping regimen to get the swelling out in case he needed an ultrasound. We gave it three days to see if there was improvement before deciding about the vet. Luckily it cleared and he was fine.

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    1. You inspired me to start her on bute with this post... and the leg cleaned up like nothing! I guess I should just have broken down and buted her earlier, but thanks for making me do it! XD

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  2. Oh man, Arya!!!! I usually go the wait and see route - Leo was lame for over a week before we had the vet out to do a lameness exam, while I followed various assorted protocols to treat the various assorted problems that we thought were causing said lameness. Since she's sound, I would probably wait it out for a few more days before calling the vet - and if you have any sulfa on hand, it def wouldn't hurt to start her on a course of that just in case she has some sort of infection brewing!

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    1. I may need to acquire some sulfa... I've not had to deal with an infection (knock on wood) so I'm only well stocked for what I've dealt with. Unfortunately I've been through WAY too many leg related injuries, so I'm kind of trusting my guts on "well it looks like...". I almost wish she'd just be lame - for some reason I can't bring myself to ultrasound a sound horse.

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  3. Soft tissue anything scares me and I would probably call the vet out right away. Wait and see works too (and I use it for other problems).

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    1. I feel like my farm is the soft tissue circus - I just ran down the list for my new farrier and was like... wow I sound like a horrible horse owner. My retiree has a heavily injured rear suspensory/DSLD and an old (healed/sound) front DDF injury, and my 8 year old popped a splint this spring and now this. Ugh! I don't know why I always have weird leg shit going on. However, I probably have more experience than most on treating and rehabbing leg injuries. Hopefully my good rehab luck sticks around for whatever this is.

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