Friday, April 03, 2009, 03:28
Colic
I knew right away when I went down to the barn Thursday morning to feed the horses that something was wrong with Kajun.
Usually he trots into the barn, nickering and eager for his breakfast. But Thursday, he slowly wandered into the barn, stood by the fence and wouldn't even look at his grain.
Kajun is 27 years old. At first I wasn't sure if it was colic or if his heart condition had taken a turn for the worse. So, I watched him for a while. He wandered in and out of the barn. Sometimes he would stop and stretch (like a dog stretches, bowing down on his front legs). Then he would stand and occasionally pick up one hind foot carefully, up toward his belly, and set it down. He laid down a few times. And he also was biting at his side once in a while.
Refusing to eat, stretching, wandering around aimlessly, lying down, kicking at his belly and biting at his side are all signs of colic.
I started calling around to the vet clinics in the area. The clinic in town has stopped doing large animal work. The two clinics in the next town over had no vets to spare. All of them were out in the country on emergencies. I was told it would be many hours before any of them could get out to see Kajun.
There was one other possibility. A vet who works independently and does not have a clinic. She comes highly recommended by a friend of mine. I called her cell phone and left a message. And then I waited. She called me back a half hour later and a half hour after that was pulling into my driveway.
In the meantime, Kajun was much the same. Not eating. Wandering around aimlessly. Stretching. Kicking and biting at himself.
The vet listened to his digestive system and said it was ominously quiet. She also detected his severe heart murmur. Kajun would need to have a tube put down his throat and have warm water and mineral oil pumped into him to get his digestive system moving. But she was afraid to tranquilize him very much because of his heart condition. She didn't want to sedate him so much that his heart stopped beating.
The vet gave him a small dose of tranquilizer, and then I went to basement for some warm water. When I came back, Kajun was getting pets and attention from the vet -- and appeared to be enjoying the attention. Often he is tense around people he doesn't know. But he seemed very relaxed around the new vet he had never seen before.
Even though Kajun was not very sedated, he was still pretty good about the tube. She managed to get the water and mineral oil into him. And then she gave him a shot of pain medication.
By the time the vet left, Kajun was nibbling some hay!
I kept a close eye on him all afternoon. The vet had told me when he had finished one small amount of hay, I could give him a little more hay. In the middle of the afternoon, I gave him another small flake. He went to work on that, too. By the time I was ready to feed the horses at 6 p.m., Kajun had finished his second flake of hay and had drank a half a bucket of water. The vet told me I should mix some salt with his grain to make him thirsty so he would drink more water. I mixed a tablespoon of salt with his senior horse feed and alfalfa pellets and some molasses to make it taste good and some water to make sure the salt didn't end up in the bottom of his tub.
When I walked into the barn to get his tub, Kajun came trotting into the barn. Nickering. When I walked outside with his tub, he came trotting outside. Nickering.
It was such a nice day on Thursday, sunny and about 50 degrees, that I figured he would want to eat outside. He cleaned up all of his grain and went to work on another flake of hay. After a few mouthfuls of hay, he went to get a drink of water.
Kajun might not be completely out of the woods yet. But he is feeling better than he was.
All I can say is -- thank goodness we have another horse vet available in the area -- and a very good one at that.
As for Isabelle, while the vet was working on Kajun, she stood by the gate on her side of the pasture and banged at the gate with her front foot. She didn't think it was fair that Kajun was getting all of the attention -- and from two people at that. I told her she didn't want that kind of attention. After the vet left, Isabelle decided everything had gone back to normal, so she found a nice comfy spot in the sunshine and laid down for a nap.
I could understand the need for a nap. By the time the vet left, I felt like I had been dragged through a knothole backwards (as my mother was fond of saying). . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
Wednesday, April 01, 2009, 18:00
The Importance of Flexibility
I always knew that horses had flexible lips. But I did not think their lips were *that* flexible.
In spite of my best efforts, after Isabelle had finished eating her horse feed Tuesday morning and her blue feed tub was sparkling clean -- not a crumb of feed left in it -- there were two. . .
. . .lady bugs in the bottom of her tub.
Somehow, she had managed to eat all of the pelleted horse feed but left the two lady bugs behind.
I find it amazing that an animal that weighs almost a thousand pounds could filter out two lady bugs one-quarter to about one-sixth the size of the pellets of horse feed. But Isabelle managed to do it. Not that I blame her. I'm sure lady bugs don't taste all that good. If the smell of them, the stench when they are disturbed and feel threatened is any indication, then I am quite sure they taste horrible too.
Once again Tuesday, the basement was crawling with lady bugs. And this was after I had spent a couple of hours on Monday vacuuming them up with the shop vac. When Randy came home from work, he changed his clothes, put on his tall rubber chore boots -- and set to work in the basement again with the shop vac.
I don't ever remember having this many lady bugs around in the spring. They must have quickly found their way in last fall and immediately went into hibernation. I think a lot of them must get in through the small spaces around the garage door. And their are plenty of places in the basement for them to hide.
If Randy and I are ever able to afford siding for the house -- or if we decide to paint the existing pressed wood siding, we are going to choose a different color besides white, that's for sure. The lady bugs are attracted to white. Perhaps I'd better start thinking about what color I want now. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
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