Saturday, May 20, 2017

Another Vet Visit

It was pouring down rain this morning, a cold nasty uncomfortable rain. All of our umbrellas seem to have disappeared and I have no rain coat so a garbage bag was used. A hole for the head and 2 for the arms and I was good to go. Unfortunately when I got up to the barn to take care of the stalled horses, Eliza's colt was laying down shivering and he had diarrhea all over his rear end. He was strong enough to fight during the cleaning of his legs and rear end but obviously not feeling well. His temperature was 102.4. Dr. Hoerr was sent a text and he was good enough to call right away. Thankfully this time he felt that I could just come and pick up the meds needed instead of hauling the mare and foal in as it was still pouring. By the time I got back with a sack full of syringes, needles, banimine and antibiotics the colt was much sicker. He did not get up while he was given the banimine. He did not want to get up for the antibiotic shot and his temperature was almost 103. Shocking how fast a foal can crash. Less than a half hour later he got up on his own and nursed then laid down again a slept another 15 minutes before getting up to nurse again. Amazing how fast the banimine worked to take the fever away. By this afternoon he was running around mom looking normal. He will have a shot each day for the next 4 days and banimine if the fever comes back. Dr. Hoerr gave me an entire bottle of injectable of which only 1 cc was used orally.
Ella hasn't delivered yet but her udder is so full and dripping milk I can't imagine she will hold another 24 hours. I'm thankful we have the foaling camera. I could watch the colt and Ella while in the house working.
Yesterday between rain storms Karin worked with Lola a bit. Her filly was having fun on the outside of the round pen and even threw in a jump which I caught on video.

This is the most sensible foal on the place or maybe the smartest. She watched Karin and when Karin put down the whip and started walking over to the gate she went right over to the gate to wait for Karin to open it. Most foals would have been frantic if their mom was locked away.
This afternoon I drove over to Big R in Pekin for horse food then to Aldi for people food.
This evening was the graduation open house for Hannah at their house and Emily and Matthew at Gary and Marie's house.  We managed to hit them both and ate 2 suppers.
As we were driving home Spark called, he was over at the farm with his company, Dr. Marty Langhofer and his wife are staying the weekend with Spark and Rhonda. Dr. Langhofer is a vet from South Bend, Indiana. We had a nice visit, he looked at the sick colt and agreed with me, it probably isn't an umbilical cord infection. The stalls were cleaned one last time, Ella and Eliza fed and now it is time for bed. Last night I got up every two hours to check the monitor watching to see if Ella delivered.

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