Earlier this month, Jen came down sick, with ... something. I don't know what it was, but we had a period of cold weather with rain, so I had her blanketed, and was feeding them under the run-in. Two days in a row, Jen acted confused about coming to eat her grain, though she was nickering and interested, it was as if she had forgotten how to get from here to there. Both days I led her over, and she ate everything. The third day, the other horses were pushing her out of her hay, and she didn't care, which was uncharacteristic. It was pouring, so I brought her inside the one stall, and closed her in. She was warm to the touch, so I took off her blanket .... and she was gaunt and tucked up, and looked horrible. I took her temp, is was 101, which is pretty high for her, she typically runs low, most likely due to her starvation. She was far too warm to the touch for what the weather was.
So I locked her in with hay, and gave her some banamine. I checked on her in a few hours, and her temp was down, and she was picking at her hay. I called the vet, and we agreed to put her on a course of SMZ. Her temp. bounced back up that evening, so I gave her a gram of bute, and it went right back down again, and she continued eating, and I started her on SMZ. She was on it for 10 days, and her temp went down and she was eating and otherwise fine. She perked back up in a couple of days, and has been fine ever since. She did have one eye that was a little runny, but nothing else to suggest an upper respiratory infection. She's been fine for 2-3 weeks now, thank goodness.
It is getting pretty darned cold now, so she is wearing her blanket and its keeping her toasty warm. Ana rarely nurses anymore, Jen's bag is shrinking up, and she continues to gain weight nicely. Here are the most recent pics.
This is Ana's morning ritual. She stands on this rock while I prepare grain, yawning, and sometimes she leaps off the side of it like a little fawn.
No comments:
Post a Comment