Hoof Adventures & Other Equine Experiences

Wow, here it is December 29, 2009. I haven't posted anything on Dee's scratches episode since October. There has been great progress though. She has pretty much recovered, although there is some significant scaring. I'm still scared every time we get any moisture that the whole mess will start up again. After the last post, I ended up getting a third round of the antibiotic "Tucoprim" from my local vet. I finished out that and then the last of the ointment from Dr. Allred. I continued to treat through November and she got steadily better. Now the hair that is going to grow back is back. There are areas that I doubt the hair will ever come back, and I'm okay with that as long as she is comfortable – good thing we don't enter any beauty contests :0) Now I pray for a healthy spring – so we can continue on our journey, and no recurrence in the summer.  I will edit this post within the next couple days to add a pic of her current look.

As the week continued on, I decided it was important to get Dee back to the vet – she was starting to move sluggishly again, and I could see where some areas on her leg that had looked as if they were healing before, were getting crusty. I was able to sneak away from work early and we made the trip back to Dr. Allred on Wednesday, October 14. He was impressed with her improvement thus far, but agreed that it looked like the scratches infection may be coming back and he provided a new round of antibiotics, and more ointment. I asked some questions about her condition and he felt that she looked pretty good and didn't need to gain much more. Based on that, I decided to back off on the beet pulp some, so she would start to level off on her weight gain. I stopped the morning feeding of that, and kept the afternoon one in to mix with her antibiotic. These pics were taken on Sunday, October 18 th – and though she had been on the antibiotic again for 3 ½ days, I still don't se...

Mark did the first cast on August 17, 2009, making sure to setup the 6 degree angle that the vet had suggested to support her tendon injury. I didn't get pictures, I was so enthralled with the process I forgot all about it! She did great afterword, moving comfortably, even in circles – right and left. I figured the cast would wear off quickly, but it lasted almost four weeks. I removed the cast and trimmed on September 12, 2009. She was moving comfortably after I trimmed, even across the large gravel in my back yard (it's the gravel that works its way to the top of road base). Previously, she had been ultra sensitive on this gravel – when Mark removed the first set of rocker shoes (first part of August), she took one step and it was bad enough for us to decide she would need boots just to get back to the corral. As Mark had done when removing the shoes, I decided to let her wait until the next day before putting the casting back on; it would give some air time to the frog, wh...

During the six weeks that Moli had the Rocker shoes, she was able to move around better. The rocker allowed easy break over, no matter what direction she went. The vet at Equine Sports Center had put Equithane CS in the sole area in order to protect from rocks and such things. He wanted her in a small pen, but I had a hard time with that. She is very energetic, and I couldn't picture her being locked up for too long. Even when in a small pen for only 12 hours or so, she comes out running and bucking and carrying on as if she just got out of prison. She'll start running around and spinning in all directions the second anyone walks into the pen with her. I decided to leave her in the acre sized turn out where she could hang with the other horses (with a fence between them) knowing that there is less excitement and fast movement when she is free to slowly move around all day. By the end of the fourth week, however, she was showing signs of lameness when turning to the right – and ...

Jump ahead a year from the last post about Moli's fight with laminitis.  Her feet were looking pretty good, definitely better than when shod, but there was a little bit of wall separation that just wouldn't go away and occasional unexplained lameness.  I had been doing research here and there and still had no answers.  Then, one week in Sept, 2009 I went out of town.  When I returned I was surprised at Moli's condition.  Had she slowly been losing weight, or suddenly dropped? I wasn't sure, but there was obviously a problem. I took her back to the local vet.  Again, he couldn't point to any specific reason for the weight loss.  Because of the off and on lameness, I had decided to try getting her off alfalfa (Mark's suggestion and some research showing that some horses can't handle the richness of alfalfa) and had been moving her over to grass hay.  I thought maybe I just wasn't giving her enough, so the vet suggested I provide more grass, and he a...

I wish I go could back and figure out just when Moli's problems with her feet started. Maybe with what I know now, I could do something to stop the damage, or at least start the healing sooner. It has now been somewhere around two years since I started seeing signs, but only a year since I started to believe it was something that would seriously effect what Moli could continue to do.  My search for answers turned up laminitis as the most probable cause of the problem.  I don't know what started it, and probably never will, but the first signs were in her feet, although I didn't realize that they were saying something serious until almost a year after the first vet visit due to lameness.   The first trip to the vet was out of concern for a bout of lameness that I couldn't attribute to anything in particular.  It was in Sept of 2008.  The local vet took some blood, and the tests came back normal  He also took some x-rays,  which showed a slight rotati...

I don't know how long this will be the top column, but Baxter Black is one of my favorite writers and I love today's column enough to share the link! Baxter certainly has the knack for entertainment!