Colic and laminitis oh my!

We have had a long week here at DVR. Shortly after I started letting Snapdragon (Chloe's 2 year old baby) out to pasture to keep Chloe company she colicked. It is nerve wracking when any of the horses are acting painful or colicky but even more worrisome with Snappie since she already had colic surgery at 5 months of age. 

Thankfully it was short lived and banamine was enough to get her through it.

I took forever to slowly increase Snappie's grazing time so my vet doesn't think the grazing caused it. Of course, as with most things horse, we have no idea why she colicked and probably never will.

I sure am grateful for my barn cam, though. Even though I had to wake up every hour to see how she was doing I was able to minimize the effect on me, mr smrp, and the ponies by stalking her via webcam rather than having to head down to the barn every hour.

The day after my All Night Mustang Stalking Adventure I noticed that Star, my 20 year old cute girl, was completely lame on her front left foot.

Oh dear. I suspected an abscess so I cleaned out and inspected her foot (I found nothing obvious), felt for heat (none), gave her 2 grams of Bute, and settled her into her fluffy stall with a bucket of fresh water so that she'd be comfy for the day. By evening she seemed back to normal so I hoped she had just bruised her foot that morning.

Unfortunately the next day she was dead lame again, this time it was her right foot.

Oh no. Star is a likely candidate for Equine Metabolic Syndrome. She is on a never ending diet-she gains weight just looking at grass or thinking about grain. Metabolic horses can have laminitic episodes if they simply have a dream about grass. I'm kidding but its not far from the truth. Arlene-maybe Star and Dusty can be bunk mates? :)

Another day of drugs and stall rest and today she was a little better. We will be drawing blood next week to see if she truly is Metabolic so that I can figure out a strategy of how to keep her sound and comfortable.

Of course my first call in all situations is to my friend and vet, Charlotte Obermeier. She and I talk almost every day. This is another one of those situations with no answer but hopefully we can reach a point where Miss Star Twinkle Flower stays comfy :)

I did not write yet about our recent adventure with Miss Mariah, our 25 year old Morgan mare, who dealt with mechanical founder this winter. But, as a result of that drama we are well versed at stall rest and monitoring sore feetsies at this point. (Mariah is doing great now thanks to her wooden shoes, umm, I mean stilettos!) I will write about that soon because I learned a lot through the process.

I'm sure sweet Starbeedoo would appreciate some good thoughts if you all had some to spare.

We are all pooped just like Bear in the last post. Time for a beer and to put my own sore feetsies on ice :)

I'll leave you all with this picture of little Snapdragon...she sure looks pretty!

Sent via Pony Express
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