Hi Ryan, sorry for the late reply-I've been under the cosh to get finished demolishing the interior of my farmhouse ready for the plasterers to put everything back together, plus, we've been visited by the Chicken Pox Fairy, so the last couple of weeks have been intense!! So, short answer: still unsure. Long story: apologies for it being so loooong!!
Well, Els is looking amazing right now; the winter coat has just seemed to dissolve before my eyes (I've never had to do so little to get the winter fluff away..) and she's now all sleek and shiny and beautiful.. but still fat. I contacted my vet for a blood test, we've had school holidays here so she was away, so I'm penciled in for a slot on Friday/Monday. In the meantime, I ordered a urine test, because, why not?! I couldn't get the wee foal, so ordered the equine P-test. The day it arrived, Els was very cresty and I decided 100% she was just fat and things needed to change asap. So, the test came up with a bright and clear indication of late-term pregnant. Then I spoke to another Shetland owner who told me that her gelding recently tested positive with the new test, so not to trust it... I've moved Els to less grazing . She has access to my track system with my draft mare during the day and they mostly doze together in the shelter. At night, my big girl gets access to the lovely grass inside of the track and Els gets a bare paddock next to it. So far, so good. No more milk has been seen and her behaviour has been normal and very cute. The other day, she nuzzled my top into a little nest for her nose and fell asleep-sound asleep-stood leaning on me. She really is a pony with character. We've also been quarantined for a while now due to an epidemic of EVH-1 here in France, so I've just been schooling her and doing walks around our property. The only odd thing that I've noticed was her respiration rate today went through the roof. I was workin on a room overlooking the field shelter and I was sneakily watching the girls for a while and noticed that she was breathing crazy fast. I went down to her and her nostrils were flaring with every breath, respiration was 60 breaths/min. Panic set in and I went to retrieve a headcollar to bring her in before I rang the vet.. So as soon as she sees the headcollar, she starts prancing around and shaking her head at me and leads me on a merry dance around the track (at this point, I stop think she's dying..). I finally got her inside, checker her temp, checker her pulse, checked pretty much everything and got my hair thoroughly groomed in return. Everything was fine, the respiration rate slowed right down after a while and I have no idea what that was about, but it worried me. We did have hot weather and very loud thunder rumbling around, but she didn't seem bothered by that; she was comforting my terrified border collie for most of it.. I've attached some pictures of her current physique. She was sneaking five minutes with my big girl this eve while I moved a fenceline.
Sorry for the giant essay!!!
