Choke (again)

Just as I was writing blog posts excitedly comparing saddles I have tried and want to acquire, Bailey has to go and blow a relatively sizable chunk of the "saddle money" I had coming in this month. Clearly, she is boycotting dressage, which, I mean... I get. I am a dreadful dressage rider after all my time in the last few years riding in jump saddles with a chair seat, and I am sure it's not any more fun for a horse who doesn't want to use her body correctly or have even muscles. She just wants to do the occasional jumpies and be a ridiculous chestnut butterfly.

I would prefer, however, she pick less expensive ways to make her preferences known. 

I was in her stall with her, and was starting to  get her tacked up to take another ride in my trial Stubben Maestoso when she started flipping her lip. I had added magnesium to her feed (it honestly seems to be doing fabulous things for reary-mc-asshole) so I assumed she had tasted it. Then she started to cough. Big, deep coughs. Then kind of a roaring noise (not sure if she was breaking in or out). And then came the mucus.

She did try hard to clear it; she was coughing, mucusing and clearly uncomfortable. I waited about a half hour or so, and then put a call into the vet. This started around 6 PM, and the vet didn't roll in (as she had a more emergency emergency to attend to first) until probably 9:30 or so. Then we got her drugged up, started to tube, drugged her some more, and while it didn't seem to take too long (other than trying to get the obstruction to become less sludge and more something that will run out of the damn tube), we did bloody her nose spectacularly - including a giant slug of blood clot that she was basically smothering herself with. The vet packed up her stuff, took my money for her rather exorbitant fee, handed me some SMZs and went home, and I trudged my ass inside to go to bed. I think I probably seemed pretty unconcerned at this point, just shutting off the lights and going inside, but like... I was frozen, and tired, and couldn't listen to her wheeze anymore, so I put myself to bed.

This morning I scooped her up a pound of Ultium, watered it well, and cursed SMZs as I snapped them into her food. She ate it slowly, and clearly is very sore still, and didn't finish it, because, of course. I tossed her out into the dark, and she power walked her hungry ass out to the pasture after I slapped her bum to get her to stop eating hay out of the manure cart. Arya stayed in with her, and seemed content enough - she was down when I got out this morning, and mostly seemed annoyed last night that we were preventing her beauty sleep.

I'm super tired today (surprise surprise) and probably have a permanent glare for the day, but I'm hoping to come home to a perkier horse who doesn't sound like Darth Vader, and maybe I can play with Arya around finding a syringe for the SMZs and trying to stay conscious until an appropriate hour. Anyone have any pro tips on feeding horses who choke?