Wednesday, June 19, 2019

A Bad Turn

I noticed Roxanne's colt had a wet tail this morning but watching him on and off I never saw any diarrhea so thought I was imagining problems where no problems were.  It is not worth taking the chance so Hoerr Vet clinic was called to see if I could bring him in except Chris said that Dr. Hoerr was working on my side of the river anyway and would just stop in later.  The mares were teased and Sheena started to show but not yet willing to stand. Lily on the other hand was in and more than ready to stand. She was covered by Valiant. No sign of Madiera or Rosaleigh showing yet.  Diane called to have the horsemeister checkbook reconciled and since I had no excuse to put it off the check book was taken to her place. She is having pity on me and is willing to do it as long as I am standing right there to answer questions.  When I got back I went back in Roxanne's stall to watch the colt. He was looking and acting fine so almost decided to call off the vet. I went in to get some laundry done when one of the airbnb guests called to report the colt IS squirting diarrhea.  I'm very thankful to have that second set of eyes.  We had a storm come through that dropped an inch and a half of rain flooding the paddocks and yards.  Dr. Hoerr arrived around 4:30 pm, checked him over and decided to give the colt a liter of fluids. He had no trouble putting the IV in but all of a sudden the colt collapsed. Dr Hoerr gave him 1 cc of banimine, a cc of gentamicin and a couple cc's of Exceed.  We ended up giving the colt 2 liters of fluid and were surprised how quiet the colt was the entire time. He did not fight at all. It was only after everything was done and Dr. Hoerr was getting ready to leave that we both realized the colt could not use his back legs at all. It was like he was paralyzed from the waist down. He was struggling to get up and would just drag his back legs. We tried to lift him but he would put no weight at all on his back legs. We then tried to put him in a wheel barrow to see if we could wheel him under Roxanne to nurse but that didn't work at all.  Dr. Hoerr put a feeding tube in, we milked Roxanne and gave him 240 cc's of warm milk.  Dr. Hoerr left at 6:00 pm. At 7:30 pm I went out, lifted the colt and he stood and even took 3 steps before collapsing but this was an improvement. Roxanne was milked and again the colt was given 240 cc's.  At 8:00 pm I helped the colt up and he was able to stand and walk better. He is not able to get up on his own but once I get him up he is able to walk, unsteady but he was up for over 5 minutes this time.  I helped him a few times then at 9:00 pm gave him another 240 cc's of milk. He was resting when I left but I can see on the monitor he is trying to get up on his own without having any success.  I'll go back out at 11:00 pm unless I see he learns to stand on his own. He is getting stronger. He has not nursed yet since the IV's were put in, I think the feeding tube in his nose bothers him but that is not coming out until I see him standing on his own and nursing. It's going to be a long night. It is still raining and not just a drizzle.

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