Help asap... surgery tomorrow and trailering issue

[Keri]

Glad the surgery went well for her and you got her there safe.

I hope you can figure out stalling so everyone is fine and happy. Can you stall her daughter next to her so they can still see each other, but not cause harm???

 

[horseplay]

So glad to hear it all went well and she trailered well

, I told you I would have bet

. Hope you work out the stall issue, you'll figure something out

.

 

[dizze98765]

Thanks! We can try putting them next to each other while the other ones are out. Since she was our "accident" we have no barn room for another stall (which is why they're still living together!).

Glad the surgery went well for her and you got her there safe.

I hope you can figure out stalling so everyone is fine and happy. Can you stall her daughter next to her so they can still see each other, but not cause harm???

 

[CheyAut]

Glad to hear she did fine!

If I'm understanding the stall issue correctly, you don't have enough stalls for her to be by herself, and don't have another mini that her stallmate could go in with, is that it? If so, is there any way you can divide the stall with something? Then they're still in the same stall, but can't "hurt" each other while you one heals? HOpe you figure out something easy that works!

Jessi

 

[Miniv]

If I were in your shoes I'd call the vet after the weekend and ask if she's doing well after a certain period of time, would it be possible to take her outside on a lead just to get some sun?

To be honest, this may turn out to be a good learning experience for both mom and daughter. It will be a sort of a "weaning" process and you might discover that they each bond closer to YOU as a result. Expect them to fuss at first, though.

 

[dizze98765]

We can try to divide the stall. I'm not sure what to do that wouldn't be too permanent though. It's just too small to be turned into 2 stalls comfortably for an extended period of time. It sounds odd since they both actually live in the stall, but it's more the dimensions. It would be pretty skinny.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

The surgery went well. The crappy part is that now the vet says she has to be in her stall for at least 2 weeks, most likely three. This includes no hand walking even! I'm a little confused/surprised by that honestly. One of my big horses absolutely shredded his stifle. (Tore the ligament and took part of the femur with it). He was on stall rest for 4 months, but I was encouraged to hand walk him every day. She said as long as he stood and grazed nicely on the lead he could stand outside as long as he wanted. But this vet said she can't even leave the stall.

With her daughter still stalled with her we have NO idea how this is going to work out.

Which surgery did she have, the splitting or the cutting? With the splitting my surgeon wanted the horse handwalked twice a day religiously because we WANTED inflammation, WANTED the area to be scarring. That's what was supposedly going to make the improvement in the locking problem. With the cutting procedure that same surgeon wanted the horse stalled for 90 days straight, no handwalking at all. And you thought three weeks was bad!

Her reasoning was that once the tendon is cut the joint is destabilized and the more the horse moves, the more the joint will move in ways it shouldn't and worsen the chances of severe arthritis later. By immobilizing the horse until the joint has stabilized you supposedly avoid that problem. It's a reasonable theory but frankly if I put my otherwise healthy young horse in a stall for that long he'd be a gibbering idiot by the time I pulled him out. Other vets and people I spoke with who have had it done successfully turned their horses out after a few days, which frankly also seemed unreasonable to me. I ended up choosing a median road and planned to keep the horse stalled with light handwalking for two to three weeks as I had after the splitting. The horse himself determined he was ready sooner so I let him out but we encouraged him to stay quiet (ha!) and did more grazing than hustling on our walks. It's almost six weeks post-surgery now and he's fine walking around by himself but does way too much if turned out with another horse. Based on my experience so far I'd say if what your mare had done was a regular patellar ligament desmotomy with no complicating factors at all, it's okay to get her out and graze her but I wouldn't keep her with her daughter. The horse needs to be able to stand undisturbed when she's hurting and another horse may not allow that.

Can you put the daughter temporarily in an aisleway between stalls overnight, or out in a turnout pen or something? Maybe use cattle panels to build another holding area ajoining Mom's stall? There's always options although I know they sure can look limited at times!

For us it was several expensive panel gates and a lot of no-climb horse fence but now all our paddocks are mini-proof and big-horse-strong so anyone can be put anywhere and kept apart as needed. It's great!

Leia