Those silly little horses have a nasty habit of getting hurt at the exact wrong moment, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and costing the husbands of their riders alotta loot.
this is how my August went:
finally had 2 horses so we could ride together, but neither of them could be ridden!
I spent more time at the barn this August than I have ever spent at the barn in my life. I still loved spending time with my horsees, and I loved my sweet tan I got, but I didnt enjoy the puss, guts, sinew, fluids, smells, boogers and pain that they were in.
Nate:
This was Nate’s knee on August 8th, 2011, we didn’t know what the heck he did, whether it was a spider bite, scorpion, a kick, a fall, or a joint injury. All I knew was that it was BIG!
After draining a lot of yellow fluid, and a lot of gore out of his knee, he got wrapped up in a soft cast for nearly 1 month. everyday I had to unwrap, purge puss, fluid, and gunk out, irrigate the knee with 60 oz of beta-dine water, and re wrap.
two months later, he still has a lump on his knee, (that may be there forever), but he seems to be moving much better.
I rode him for about 15 minutes last night, I hope he is moving ok today!
Emma
less than a week later, (2nd week of august 2011), Emma did this pretty little number to her shoulder. it was our 15th ride EVER, and she caught her shoulder on a gate, and having a silly little baby horse brain, when she hit the gate, instead of moving away from the pain, she bolted into the pain, causing the gate to rip open a 16in by 9 inch gash thru her skin, and a 5 inch hole thru her shoulder muscle. she got 8 muscle stitches, and 30+ in a pac- man shape to close the skin over the muscle.
Thank God for a good vet who was on scene in less than 40 minutes!
The stitches lasted one whole week, until the drain tube came out, and the skin started dying off anyway. Luckily the top 8 inches or so healed really fast, leaving the bottom meaty chunk to clean and bandage daily. The wound was quite impressive, nearly half of her entire shoulder. and she’s a 15.1 hand girl!
It was still bleeding freely at his point in time (about 3 weeks in) so it had to be scrubbed clean, and bandaged twice a day. (I was just using a fly sheet as bandage to keep dirt out and the flies off.
On the left was 2 weeks ago (mid Sept) the wound was closing very clean, and looking better each day. this is when I started letting Emma out to play a little bit. Her 4 year old self would buck and roll and play and kick and it was really fun to watch, but she would still come back bloody and still. I started taking her out daily and teaching her trick, making her stretch, and making her walk and trot every day, and it worked wonders!
Now she is out full time again! (Thank goodness!) and the cut is tiny! its hard to think that 6 weeks ago I was thinking she wouldn’t even be ridden again, and now I have taken her out on the trail.
And this is why i urge everyone to Always have an emergency vet fund! of at least $1000 per large critter. We had been talking about making a fund for months, and never did! in the course of two months the vet was out 5 times, and it adds up quickly!
happy trails! (start a fund!)
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