I hate it when I go this long between posts! By way of an excuse, last weekend we were out of town for a wedding and this week was just really busy with a variety of things. We got back home last Sunday. The girls picked us up at the airport and then we all went out for an early dinner. I had just settled on the back porch to read the paper when we got a call from the barn that Dude was acting "wierd." So Katie and I jumped in the car and went over.
He definitely seemed uncomfortable. Katie pulled him out of the stall and started walking him while I cleaned up his stall and debated whether to call the vet. One of his poops in the stall was really runny. It turned out that the barn had gotten a load of first cut hay and they didn't really phase it in with the old stuff like they normally do. So that, probably combined with the very hot and sticky weather, gave the poor guy a stomach ache. His temperature was normal (our first use of our new digital thermometer!) but I went ahead and called the vet just to be safe.
The vet and two student interns arrived about an hour later. Great service for a Sunday night! Of course, by the time they all arrived, Dude was acting pretty chipper. Katie had walked him a while and he had a leisurely roll, and that seemed to make him feel better. Dr. Emily confirmed the normal temperature, looked him over, then went ahead and gave him a dose of banamine and pulled him off of hay and grain until the morning. He was very unhappy with that, you could tell right away, as all the other horses started munching on their nighttime flake of hay.
Katie was meeting up with some of her buddies that night that she hadn't seen for a while, so she took my car and went to the party. I stayed at the barn and walked him two more times over the space of about two hours. I washed brushes and chatted with another boarder who was pulling a late night shift. Dude stood in the corner of his stall and stared at me in the tack room, willing me to give him some hay. I felt terrible. Katie came back at 11 pm and we left. He seemed fine.
I called the barn the next morning to check on him, although I knew the a.m. feeder would call if Dude looked off again. Katie went over mid-morning prior to his turnout and walked him again. Over the course of that day he only got about a 1/4 of a flake at a feeding, so he was pretty cranky by the evening when I went back. Dr. Emily ok'd a bran mash, so when everyone else got grain Monday and Tuesday nights he got a mash, and was happy. We decided to mix the old and new hay for the week. Tomorrow will be his first day on all new hay.
Katie and I both vaguely remember that last year he had runny poop the first day they switched over to new hay. I guess we'll have to watch it from now on and make sure he gets a mix of old and new for several days to acclimate.
This was just a blip, a minor event in terms of what can happen with horses, but it was still a little scary. They're so big that when something goes wrong it seems magnified. Dude is very constant and predictable action- and personality-wise, which is good, because our barnmates quickly knew that something was wrong when they noticed him not acting himself. He was banging his Jolly Ball against the wall very pointedly when they would walk by, in his horsey way saying "look, I need some attention!" I'll end with a sentiment similar to the end of my last post: never a dull moment...
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