The case of Dee’s Scratches #7
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 18th – and though she had been on the antibiotic again for 3 ½ days, I still don't see much improvement…but I don't see anything getting worse than it was on Wednesday.
By Monday, I was seeing ribs again, so I added the morning beet pulp back to the daily routine. I had asked Dr. Allred about possibly switching her over to a grass diet – no more alfalfa. He said that the percentage of horses that do well on alfalfa was so high, he just didn't think it was an issue at this point. Although, he also said that even though the blood tests we've been doing all along don't show liver toxicity, he was not willing to rule it out completely. This has been in the back of my mind for awhile, and since I was recently able to get my hands on enough grass to last Moli about ten months, I thought maybe I would start moving Dee to an all-grass diet. The only thing is, this change really causes a lot of other issues as well. It takes a lot more grass to keep a horse going, so in order for her to have enough time to eat, I would have to find a way to divide my turn out area again (already did this once for Moli) or lock one horse up in the smaller area, but that leaves one out with no shelter. Weekends are easy because I'm there to open gates once all the eating is done, but weekdays I'm already feeding as early as 5am, just so Dee can finish before I leave for work so she and the gelding (Bucky) have access to shelter and lots of room. All this said - ya do what ya gotta do – but I think I was taking my time on the switch to grass hoping to find a better solution. (It is very difficult to get grass hay in this area too)
Anyway, I ran into the original owner of little Miss Dee on Tuesday morning and we were discussing the whole issue. He mentioned that he had one horse who was sensitive to something in the hay once, and it got sunburn pretty bad in all the white areas. They didn't stop feeding alfalfa, but they did buy some DIFFERENT alfalfa, from a different grower in the area. He said the issue cleared up within two weeks. WOW! Now why didn't I think of that? Stacked in my barn right now (and for the last five months) is alfalfa from two different fields, even two different growing seasons! Last year we had tons of rain in the area and my normal 3rd cutting purchase of alfalfa ending up happening way late, we ended up with the last cutting in September. So, right now I'm just finishing that up – and I have this year's alfalfa stacked and ready to go. So I am now switching her over to the new alfalfa, just to give it a try, let's hope she was just sensitive to something in that batch of alfalfa and this whole nightmare will be over soon. I'll keep up the weekly picture update – and we'll see what happens.
These pics were taken on Sunday, October 18th – and though she had been on the antibiotic again for 3 ½ days, I still don't see much improvement…but I don't see anything getting worse than it was on Wednesday.
By Monday, I was seeing ribs again, so I added the morning beet pulp back to the daily routine. I had asked Dr. Allred about possibly switching her over to a grass diet – no more alfalfa. He said that the percentage of horses that do well on alfalfa was so high, he just didn't think it was an issue at this point. Although, he also said that even though the blood tests we've been doing all along don't show liver toxicity, he was not willing to rule it out completely. This has been in the back of my mind for awhile, and since I was recently able to get my hands on enough grass to last Moli about ten months, I thought maybe I would start moving Dee to an all-grass diet. The only thing is, this change really causes a lot of other issues as well. It takes a lot more grass to keep a horse going, so in order for her to have enough time to eat, I would have to find a way to divide my turn out area again (already did this once for Moli) or lock one horse up in the smaller area, but that leaves one out with no shelter. Weekends are easy because I'm there to open gates once all the eating is done, but weekdays I'm already feeding as early as 5am, just so Dee can finish before I leave for work so she and the gelding (Bucky) have access to shelter and lots of room. All this said - ya do what ya gotta do – but I think I was taking my time on the switch to grass hoping to find a better solution. (It is very difficult to get grass hay in this area too)
Anyway, I ran into the original owner of little Miss Dee on Tuesday morning and we were discussing the whole issue. He mentioned that he had one horse who was sensitive to something in the hay once, and it got sunburn pretty bad in all the white areas. They didn't stop feeding alfalfa, but they did buy some DIFFERENT alfalfa, from a different grower in the area. He said the issue cleared up within two weeks. WOW! Now why didn't I think of that? Stacked in my barn right now (and for the last five months) is alfalfa from two different fields, even two different growing seasons! Last year we had tons of rain in the area and my normal 3rd cutting purchase of alfalfa ending up happening way late, we ended up with the last cutting in September. So, right now I'm just finishing that up – and I have this year's alfalfa stacked and ready to go. So I am now switching her over to the new alfalfa, just to give it a try, let's hope she was just sensitive to something in that batch of alfalfa and this whole nightmare will be over soon. I'll keep up the weekly picture update – and we'll see what happens.
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