A Freezing Vet Day! 3/9/10

We had snow, rain and icy winds at Shiloh on Tuesday morning for our scheduled Vet Day! We were all freezing!

First up we had some x-rays taken. Yearling Fame had her crippled leg x-rayed. It showed that she had a break in her elbow area and because of that her opposite leg is developing epiphisitis, inflammation where her growth plates meet in her knee. The break happened quite a while ago, before she came to Shiloh, and cannot be fixed. She actually does remarkably well on her crippled leg and we can control some of the inflammation on her opposite leg with feed. But, this sweet little baby will always be a special needs horse.

Her x-ray. See the break?

We also had Cedar's back x-rayed. There is a spot on her back that is always seems to be bothered by a saddle. We were wondering if she had a foreign body in the area or a piece of bone floating in her back. But, nothing was revealed on x-ray. When we rescued her years ago at the auction, she had a big open oozing sore. Her previous owners, must have just continued to ride her even after she developed this bad saddle sore. Once she got to Shiloh, it eventually healed, but it still bothers her from time to time. At least, now we know there is nothing in there, and we are going to try a new kind of cut out pad to see if that will help and allow her to still be ridden comfortably.

We had Echo Echo re-examined. His chronic founder is just getting so bad and is now really affecting his quality of life. We discussed euthanising him, but we are going to try one last experimental idea before we decide. He will be going into the clinic today. He is not an old horse and still is interested in his life- so we are going to give it a shot and see if it will help him regain some of his quality of life.

His x-rays. The left is from yesterday, the right taken last year. His foot has gotten much more dishy.

Jerome had his teeth floated. He has gained quite a bit of weight in spite of his bad teeth, but now he should be able to gain even more.

The Thoroughbred gelding, Suggestion, had a sarcoid taken off from his thigh area.

We had Sanctuary horse, Chunky Monkey examined. He has been acting very differently for the past week, not colicy, just different. He does have some sort of impaction, but manure is still passing through. He was tubed with oil and water and if he hasn't passed oil by today, he will head into the clinic.

Melvyn had a check up. He does have some sand and a pretty significant heart murmur. He also had some of his teeth worked on. Dr. Schur could only do a few of them, he was acting up and she didn't want to risk more sedation with his heart condition. Melvyn was a real pistol, he was rearing and lunging when he was being floated!

Sanctuary horse, Stetson also had his teeth floated. He was a good boy.

Jimmy Dean and Bacon Bits huddled in the straw in Sitka's stall to stay warm...

While Donkey Otie waited to get in to the Cherry Pie area.