Swelling, salt, and a side of yogurt with that grain, please

A bit dozy on a hot day.

When I returned to the barn on June 6, Bestie's legs remained stocked up. And there was a new and exciting development - she had a half-lemon sized lump on the lower edge of her neck about 4 inches down from her jaw. I definitely wanted another set of eyes on her, so I checked in with Joe, who owns the barn. The lump didn't seem to bother her, and we couldn't see any skin breakage, but he thought it might be either a kick or an insect bite. Really bizarre. As for her swollen legs, when I described to Joe how she'd been going to town on her salt brick, he suggested taking it out of her stall for a while (there is a mineral block in her field that she can find).

It took a couple days, but her legs returned to normal. Maybe she was retaining fluid due to overconsumption of her salt block. I've been offering it to her just while I'm at the barn, so she typically only gets it for a few minutes. The swelling in her legs hasn't returned.

However, the neck swelling has taken forever to go down. Each day I soaked the area with Sore No More liniment, and the swelling started to flatten out right away, but even today, almost a week later,  it is still slightly visible. 

I talked to Sue again about Bestie's poop, since it concerns me that it has stayed loose for so long (about a month now). Sue suggested trying her on yogurt, on the premise that maybe she needs a little extra probiotics to jumpstart her system back to normal. So Bestie's getting a spoonful of plain yogurt with her am and pm grain ... and acquiring a bit of a reputation as high maintenance. The first day she did not like it at all, but now she's licking her bucket clean. She's been on the yogurt regimen since Wednesday, June 14. Her manure today actually had some form to it. We'll see how it goes. 

We've had some nice rides and one more lesson. Still working on positioning for me and relaxing my hips. A lot of stretches and hip openers on the lunge line last week during my lesson, and during the week I rode on my own quite a bit without stirrups to lengthen and relax my legs and sit deep in the saddle. Tomorrow she'll get a trim from the farrier so I won't ride. Her feet have gotten quite long in the last six weeks.