hobbyhorse23
Well-Known Member
The good news is his stifles, as far as we can tell, are fine. Still no locking and hopefully there won't ever be any again. The reason I say "as far as we can tell" is because we haven't really gotten to see him move out for almost a week now. 
OH! The little twinkie started up with his annual spring/summer allergy attacks when we had the first couple of warm days last week so he was being somewhat apathetic and of course we medicated him as per our vet to keep the cough from getting out of hand. Then when the weather cooled off suddenly (read: snow) he was still out of it but I thought maybe it was the new antihistamine and took him off of it. That was Thursday. Friday he was way too quiet when the farrier came in the morning and as I took him for an easy walk to loosen up I noticed he was starting to shiver a little when I let him stop to graze. Considering he's got a full winter coat on everywhere but the center of his chest that struck me as more than slightly alarming, especially when the slight shaking became full-body quaking in moments. I hustled him home and lunged for as many blankets as I could find but he continued to shake so hard I said "the heck with it" and hustled him into the nice warm basement without stopping to ask permission. He shivered away in there for awhile too under a cooler and two blankets and when I took his temperature it was no wonder- he'd been out in the cold wet slushy snow with a 103.2 fever.
Poor Kody!
The vet was overwhelmed with five pending emergencies and couldn't come out but Kody's surgeon at Pilchuck called me back to talk about his symptoms and said it was probably safe to treat the fever and bring him in for bloodwork in the morning so that's what we did. The bloodwork was all clean, no elevated white counts, liver problems, or signs of infection so they gave us some antibiotics and a tube of Banamine to use until his appetite comes back enough to eat meds on his grain. Kody is still unhappy and feverish this morning but is at least eating his hay and mugging me for treats even though he won't touch his grain. Keep him in your thoughts, will you? The temp is down to 100.8 with Banamine but when I took his blanket off for a moment in the stall to brush him he started shaking almost immediately and didn't stop for a long time after the blanket went back on. This gosh darn out-of-season snow is NOT helping!! It's almost April for pete's sake and it's been snowing here in lowland Western Washington for three days. Grrrr....
The vet thinks that despite the lack of nasal discharge it's most likely a respiratory virus because of all the stress he's been under with the surgery, long trips, and a new stablemate so we've got the other two horses under close surveillance in case it spreads. Thirty-one year old Spyder and one year old Pyro are both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at this point so so far so good. Kody's incision sites are absolutely fine and we're a bit far out for it to be a surgical infection anyway but we're giving the antibiotics just in case. I'll let you all know how it goes!
Here's hoping that once he's over all this he'll be ready to return slowly to work.
Leia
OH! The little twinkie started up with his annual spring/summer allergy attacks when we had the first couple of warm days last week so he was being somewhat apathetic and of course we medicated him as per our vet to keep the cough from getting out of hand. Then when the weather cooled off suddenly (read: snow) he was still out of it but I thought maybe it was the new antihistamine and took him off of it. That was Thursday. Friday he was way too quiet when the farrier came in the morning and as I took him for an easy walk to loosen up I noticed he was starting to shiver a little when I let him stop to graze. Considering he's got a full winter coat on everywhere but the center of his chest that struck me as more than slightly alarming, especially when the slight shaking became full-body quaking in moments. I hustled him home and lunged for as many blankets as I could find but he continued to shake so hard I said "the heck with it" and hustled him into the nice warm basement without stopping to ask permission. He shivered away in there for awhile too under a cooler and two blankets and when I took his temperature it was no wonder- he'd been out in the cold wet slushy snow with a 103.2 fever.
The vet was overwhelmed with five pending emergencies and couldn't come out but Kody's surgeon at Pilchuck called me back to talk about his symptoms and said it was probably safe to treat the fever and bring him in for bloodwork in the morning so that's what we did. The bloodwork was all clean, no elevated white counts, liver problems, or signs of infection so they gave us some antibiotics and a tube of Banamine to use until his appetite comes back enough to eat meds on his grain. Kody is still unhappy and feverish this morning but is at least eating his hay and mugging me for treats even though he won't touch his grain. Keep him in your thoughts, will you? The temp is down to 100.8 with Banamine but when I took his blanket off for a moment in the stall to brush him he started shaking almost immediately and didn't stop for a long time after the blanket went back on. This gosh darn out-of-season snow is NOT helping!! It's almost April for pete's sake and it's been snowing here in lowland Western Washington for three days. Grrrr....
The vet thinks that despite the lack of nasal discharge it's most likely a respiratory virus because of all the stress he's been under with the surgery, long trips, and a new stablemate so we've got the other two horses under close surveillance in case it spreads. Thirty-one year old Spyder and one year old Pyro are both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at this point so so far so good. Kody's incision sites are absolutely fine and we're a bit far out for it to be a surgical infection anyway but we're giving the antibiotics just in case. I'll let you all know how it goes!
Here's hoping that once he's over all this he'll be ready to return slowly to work.
Leia
