As you all may or may not know, i go out to see my horses every day. I get very attached to all the horses there since i see them every day. There are 2 other boarders there that have a couple horses each. One of the boarders lives down the street from me. Her husband and her go and see their horses at least 3 times a week and spend saturdays with all of us there. That is our longest day to spend with the horses. They have arabians that act like mother and daughter since one is 4 and one is 6. The lady is sooooo sweet and loves her horse like a child. She has Lupis but still tries to spend as much time with them as possible. Any way, last week, the trainer there called me and asked me to rush over there because something was wrong with Sasha (the 4 year old). She thought it might be her foot and she couldn't get ahold of the lady. I rushed over and when i looked at her leg, i thought she might have sprained it or pulled a muscle. She wouldn't put her foot down at all. They got ahold of the lady finally and 2 other farriers and everyone thought it was a sprain or a bruise in the foot. They finally decided to take her to the vet and get x-rays. They found out at the vet that she had broken the 2 major bones in her leg. It was not a fresh brake but one that had slowly happened over time so they thought it might be congenital. They said they could operate but it was a 5k dollar operation and that the other leg would most likely do it also. The lady decided that it was best to put her down. The lady's husband is out of town so she had to deal with it alone. This was a shock to all of us and made us all realize that even though horses are large animals, they are fragile. Now her other horse is lonely so i just let her out to run with my 2 every day. I feel so bad for my friends and i will miss Sasha a lot. She was so sweet and young and beautiful.
You mean as far as suppliments? She was getting hoof, joint and all around well being suppliments in her grain. She had a bad problem with being pigeon toed which is bad for horses. Their legs are fine straight or toed out but not toed in. I gather she was always pigeon toed. Such a sad situation.
Corrective shoeing? Silicea is synergistic with calcium. Silicea comes from things often fed to horses. Was she on a less than traditional diet? [Grass has silicea]. Somewhere between bloating, and health, is consumption of grasses [of which alfalfa is one]. I will have to study, to offer any advice, and I am eyeball deep into Lab problems this month... but I love the new knowledge that checking into other critters health problems will get me. Don't let me drop the ball, if I forget to research on horses. My mom and dad both keep horses. I had great success as a kid on solving my, and neighborhood, problems equine. Golly, I LOVE HORSES. Talk later, gotta early day at work tomorrow.
I don't know anything about horses and never dreamed that a bone could break "over time". If it's genetic, is there any way to test for it or prevent it ahead of time? The poor horse had to be in so much pain.
Also, if the break occured over time, why would she just now start limping? I guess when the break is small they can't quite feel it and then when it finally breaks through they can't use the foot. Wow. I guess this could happen in cows too?
You know, we can prepare and test and vaccinate till we're blue in the face, but as we've both just learned......you can never prepare for the unexpected problems. There is nothing you can do to stop them from happening it seems.
How sad for the woman to be there alone. I can't imagine. Four years is pretty young for a horse isn't it? Also, what is a farrier?
If you don't mind me asking.......how do they put a horse down? Is it injected with something like a cat or dog then "goes to sleep"? Is the horse standing when this is done? I don't mean to be graphic, but am just curious how that works because I know its rare that horses lay down (from what I've heard).
The "genetic" part of a disease may only be the lack of calcium that the dam has to give to the foal/puppy. The offspring's well begins with a supply from it's parents. If the parents have little to give, due to nutrition or age, the offspring sucks on a dry well... My brother described the truck pickup of an aged beast, not very savory, and it is not something we need to add to our day, if we do not have to. I love you all, talk tomorrow, Cheri.
